Many fans were confused when hearing Albert Wesker would appear in Netflix’s Resident Evil series. The series takes place in 2022 and 2036, but Wesker dies in 2009 in the game series. So, what gives? We’ll take a look at who Wesker is alive in the Netflix Resident Evil show below.
Why is Wesker alive in Netflix’s Resident Evil?
The easy answer for why Wesker is alive in Netflix’s Resident Evil is that despite the show runner saying it’s “part of the canon,” the show has almost nothing to do with the games. In that universe, there was a Raccoon City that was destroyed due to a viral outbreak in 1998. There’s also a pharmaceutical company named Umbrella made a virus that turns living creatures into the undead, and Wesker is an employee of that company. Other than that, the Netflix Resident Evil has very little in common with other parts of the franchise. Capcom has barely acknowledged the series, and there’s almost zero chance it will be taken into account in future game entries.
The Netflix Wesker doesn’t seem to have ever been involved with S.T.A.R.S., and he has two daughters, Jade and Billie. He’s an executive in the company, but he seems much less ruthless than the man we know from the games. He’s experimenting on the two girls, but he does seem to be concerned for their well-being and goes out of his way to nurture them. However, he does prioritize his work and inadvertently neglects them often.
Of course, there’s the obvious elephant in the room that Lance Reddick, a black man, plays Netflix’s Wesker, and the Albert Wesker in the game series is caucasian. Despite what the showrunner says, the fact is Netflix series has no actual connection to the games and isn’t canon, there’s no need to reconcile this. They’re two different characters in two different continuities that just happen to share the same name.
So, Wesker is alive in the Netflix Resident Evil series because he’s not Albert Wesker from the games. He’s no more the guy we saw die in Resident Evil 5 than the character from the Paul W.S. Anderson movies.
