- Primary Subject: Resident Evil Series – Albert Wesker & Notable Villains
- Key Update: Examines why Albert Wesker remains the franchise’s most compelling villain and critiques later antagonists like Simmons, the Bakers, and Mother Miranda.
- Status: Confirmed/Opinion
- Last Verified: February 10, 2026
- Quick Answer: Albert Wesker is widely considered the most iconic Resident Evil villain; later antagonists lacked his long-term ambition, impact, and calculated insanity.
The Resident Evil series has always been about Umbrella, the evil Pharmaceutical corporation, responsible for giving us one of the best survival horror franchises out there. But underneath this shady conglomerate lie characters that shaped the events of every major entry of the series. The villain, Albert Wesker, was among them.
There are spoilers for Resident Evil below, so tread carefully.
There has never been a good Resident Evil villain since Albert Wesker. After their final confrontation with Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar at the end of Resident Evil 5, the series continued to replicate his megalomaniac tendencies, resulting in world-ending destruction of other characters, but none of them can compare to the sheer insanity that this former S.T.A.R.S. agent had.
After the events of Raccoon City, he has been carrying out plans of his own, fueling his god-complex tendencies and wanting to “reshape the world,” whatever that means. While comical at best, he has been the series’ strongest villain, who stays true to the franchise’s signature campy style. He has plenty of aura-farming moments, staring at multiple monitors, calling Ada Wong on speed dial to enact his plans, and is integral to the Kijuju Incident in Resident Evil 5.
After being brutally blown out by Chris and Sheva with a rocket launcher in the middle of an active volcano, Albert Wesker is nowhere to be seen in the series. While many speculate that his return is imminent, it seems like Capcom’s plans for his character remain a mystery.
The series has always been in need of strong, compelling villains. While he is far from being sympathetic, Albert Wesker had strong ties to the series’ main characters, partly due to his history working among S.T.A.R.S. He was crazy to the core, and Resident Evil needed more villains who totally go above and beyond.
Resident Evil 6’s Simmons Was Underutilized
Resident Evil 6’s Simmons was the franchise’s textbook bad guy: a power-hungry narcissist who planned to use the C-Virus to dominate the world. He ultimately turned himself into a grotesque, near-unstoppable monster by the game’s end. While not particularly memorable, Simmons was at least entertaining in how unapologetically irredeemable he was. In many ways, he felt like a Temu version of Albert Wesker, minus the Matrix-like reflexes, the iconic sunglasses, and the larger-than-life presence that I really adore.
Simmons’ entire character arc in Resident Evil 6 revolved around manipulation. Using his government authority and political influence, he orchestrated the systematic collapse of civilization through increasingly absurd schemes of bioterrorism. He really was the catalyst behind nearly every major event in the game, making him the primary reason Resident Evil 6 happened at all. But that was just it.
Resident Evil 7’s Bakers Were Not the True Villains
One of the saddest elements of Resident Evil 7 is the Baker family itself. They weren’t the monsters we thought them to be. Rather, they were victims of the Mold’s mind control, stripped of their agency and twisted into grotesque parodies of a family to serve the game’s true antagonist, Eveline.
This tragedy is most evident in Jack’s final moments inside Ethan’s mind, where he begs Ethan to free them from Eveline’s control. It’s a rare occasion of clarity and humanity for a game defined by its survival horror roots, and easily one of my favorite Resident Evil scenes.
Lucas Baker, on the other hand, stands apart. A sadistic wildcard who embraces the chaos like Batman’s Joker. His appearances are often humorous, especially in the DLC tapes involving other survivors in the Louisiana bayou. However, Lucas lacks the ideological weight of what it takes to be a standout RE villain. Unlike Albert Wesker, who pursued long-term plans of domination and human evolution, Lucas is driven purely by short-term amusement. Like a reckless kid throwing a party for the deranged.
Resident Evil Village’s Mother Miranda Was a Cop Out
Mother Miranda’s role in Resident Evil Village is one of my least favorite narrative decisions in the entire game. While she is undeniably important to Ethan Winters’ character arc, her presence often feels shoehorned into the story rather than earned. I never felt like I was given a full arc to sympathize with her, beyond the countless notes scattered throughout the village that repeatedly reminded me of her dead daughter, Eva.
As the supposed matron of the Megamycete, the series’ prime source of the Mold introduced in Resident Evil 7, Mother Miranda should have fundamentally changed the Resident Evil universe. Instead, she ended up feeling like a one-off villain whose impact begins and ends with Village. Personally, she barely altered the series’ foundations in any meaningful way.
Wesker, on the other hand, was built from the ground up as a product of Umbrella’s twisted eugenics program. He had a clear history and ideology. Most importantly, he has a long-standing rivalry with series veteran Chris Redfield. Seeing Miranda take center stage made me wish Capcom instead explored the idea of Wesker returning in some form after being incinerated by lava in Resident Evil 5. That kind of twist would have been something I’d enjoy.
Albert Wesker’s Legacy in the Resident Evil Series
To me, Mother Miranda is just another short-term antagonist who ultimately never achieves what she set out to do. Wesker’s goals, on the other hand, were clear and deceptively simple: destroy the very company that created him. In many ways, he succeeded. The series’ big bad, Umbrella, collapsed, and this megalomaniac’s ideology helped normalize global bioterrorism in the Resident Evil universe. After Wesker, everyone and their mother was creating Bio-Organic Weapons, each attempting to reshape the world through their own experimental viruses.
Wesker’s legacy is massive, and I think that’s what makes his absence so noticeable. He changed how the entire Resident Evil universe operates. His influence can be felt in later villains like Derek Simmons, who clearly inherited that same megalomaniacal mindset. Even the canon movies had villains just like him, but to a smaller and less genius degree. Even though Wesker ultimately failed to complete most of his plans thanks to the series’ heroes, his worldview lived on long after his death.
Mother Miranda’s case, and the other villains, like Resident Evil 4’s Saddler, felt smaller. Their motivations were rooted in their own selfish needs rather than the campy, world-dominating ambition that defined villains like Wesker. Sure, Saddler’s plans to control the government through the Plaga were a neat idea, but there was no way it was going to happen with Leon at the helm.
It’s honestly unfortunate to me that Albert Wesker now feels permanently etched out of Capcom’s plans. There’s no clean way to bring him back without resorting to comical retcons or cheap writing, like the kind of “Somehow Palpatine returned” explanation that would undermine everything. Still, Wesker remains my favorite villain in the franchise, and no one since has matched his level of calculated insanity or long-term impact on the series.
With Resident Evil Requiem set to release on February 28, I’m left wondering who the next major antagonist will be and why Requiem’s new virus strain allows the infected to retain fragments of their memories. Whoever it turns out to be, I’m hoping it’s someone as unhinged as Albert Wesker, and more importantly, someone with long-term goals that extend beyond being another final boss who mutates into a massive monster and gets taken down by a rocket launcher, probably wielded by Leon S. Kennedy.
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