As Resident Evil Requiem’s release date slowly approaches, more and more fans are wondering where in the world Jill Valentine is.
One of the most iconic video game heroines in the history of gaming, she has survived the full brunt of Umbrella’s best assassins. Jill Valentine survives encounters with mutated Manchurian candidates like the Nemesis as well as Wesker’s brainwashing. She is the cornerstone of the franchise, along with Chris Redfield and Barry Burton.
Now, she is nowhere to be found.
Her last appearance in a Resident Evil video game was in Resident Evil 5, where Chris and Sheva saved her from Tricell and Wesker’s control. After surviving the Spencer Mansion and taking down Nemesis with a railgun, this Raccoon City survivor is forgotten.
If you’ve been a Jill Valentine fan since 2009, you’re probably hungry for more, or you already found yourself starved to death after almost 2 decades of absence. The Resident Evil 3 Remake wasn’t the best reimagining of her story, but Capcom did a great job of keeping her personality and appearance accurate. Sadly, the remake of RE3 wasn’t enough to sate longtime Jill fans, including me.
The former S.T.A.R.S. member has disappeared from the limelight as Capcom focuses its efforts on more popular characters such as Leon Kennedy and Chris Redfield. It’s unfortunate, considering Jill has a lot of pent-up rage, trauma, and history with Umbrella, which could’ve been a good plot point for her future entries.
I’d love to see a Resident Evil game where Jill is relieved that Umbrella is no more, but splinter organizations like Ada Wong’s The Connections are still around, making it her next goal. Please, Capcom, there’s potential here!
But moving on. The good news is that Jill Valentine is somehow back. If we take the animated movies as canon, Resident Evil: Death Island brought back the a-lister, but Capcom knew she wouldn’t be enough, so they had to bring in the OG squad: Chris, Leon, and Claire Redfield, along with her. Capcom even had a bizarre explanation for her de-aging in Death Island, blaming it all on the “virus.”
Death Island may be a lukewarm Resident Evil entry, but it was still a decent film if you enjoy over-the-top action and fan service. Long-time RE fans who’ve been dying to see Leon and Jill’s first interaction were ‘eating good’ in this movie. It’s as if all our fantasies for an all-star crossover between the Raccoon City survivors are made real in the movie. Sadly, it’s not something to truly celebrate, as fans from the community do not consider Death Island part of the canon.
At least, with all these modern appearances, we can tell that Capcom still cares about Jill Valentine. It was unfortunate to see her remake struggle both commercially and critically. It would’ve been a great alternate future to see a Resident Evil game with Jill as the main character again, not Leon or Ethan Winters.
Who knows? Maybe Capcom hasn’t given up on Jill’s story. After Requiem drops, we might hear something about her character as the Deluxe Edition of RE9 includes mysterious ‘audio packs’ from Raccoon City.
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