The new Resident Evil movie is adding first-person shooting sequences straight out of the games

New footage from Zach Cregger's upcoming Resident Evil film shows the movie will include first-person point-of-view sequences during several action scenes, directly echoing the perspective Capcom's games have used since 2017's Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.

A featurette shared by DiscussingFilm on August 24 includes a brief shot from the actual film, gun raised in frame, filmed entirely from Bryan's point of view as he moves through a lab. Cregger, featured in the same clip, said he's drawing directly on his own history with the franchise, admitting "I happen to worship these Resident Evil games" and pulling from what it actually feels like to play them rather than simply adapting the story beat for beat.

A move away from the approach of older titles

The approach marks a real departure from the fixed and third-person camera angles that defined Resident Evil throughout its earliest games in the late 1990s and 2000s. Capcom didn't shift to a first-person perspective until Resident Evil 7 in 2017, a change that unsettled some longtime fans at first before winning them over. First-person has since become a recurring option for the series, appearing again in Resident Evil Village and this year's Requiem alongside a traditional third-person view.

Putting audiences directly behind a character's eyes isn't new to video game movies, and it hasn't always worked. The 2005 Doom adaptation is best remembered for dropping into a first-person shooter sequence for its climax, while 2015's Hardcore Henry stretched the format across an entire film to more exhausting effect. Cregger appears to be using the perspective more sparingly, treating it as one tool among several rather than a full framing device for the movie.

Beyond the camera work, Cregger has described weaving in mechanics pulled straight from the games, including padlocked doors that block progress, healing spray cans, and the series' iconic green herbs. He's also structured the film's pacing to mirror how the games move players forward, changing the environment every few minutes so the story keeps escalating, and having Bryan work his way up from a pistol to progressively stronger weapons the way a player would across a typical playthrough.

An 'original' approach that skips mainstays

Resident Evil hits theaters September 18 as the second reboot of the film series, directed by Cregger, who's previously made Barbarian and Weapons, on an estimated $80 million budget through Sony's Columbia Pictures and PlayStation Productions. The story follows Bryan, a medical courier caught in a viral outbreak in Raccoon City, set during an alternate version of the original Resident Evil 2 rather than adapting any specific game's plot. Austin Abrams stars as Bryan, alongside Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser, with Cregger opting for original characters rather than series mainstays like Leon Kennedy.

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