Chris Redfield

Chris Redfield
'Resident Evil' character
File:ChrisRedfield.jpg Chris Redfield in Resident Evil 5.
First game	Resident Evil

Chris Redfield (クリス・レッドフィールド, Kurisu Reddofīrudo) is a fictional character from Capcom's Resident Evil series.

Chris is one of the two main protagonists in the first Resident Evil game, the other being Jill Valentine. Redfield returned as a playable character in Resident Evil Code: Veronica, where he must search for, and ultimately rescue, his younger sister, Claire. Chris returned again as the main protagonist in Resident Evil 5, where he works alongside partner Sheva Alomar to search for his old partner and friend, Jill Valentine. Chris is also playable in Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles and in the Resident Evil 2 Battle game. He will be appearing with Jill in the next installment of the main series; Resident Evil Revelations.

Creation and concept

Hideki Kamiya described Chris as a "blunt, tough-guy type", admitting that he was a fan of this archetype. For Resident Evil 5, when asked, "Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield and Albert Wesker are stars of previous adventures. How do you go about remodeling a character already known to players and fans?" Production director Yasuhiro Anpo replied, "I tried my best to preserve their image and imagined how they would have changed over the passage of time. Chris trained and got stronger, while Wesker got more wrinkles." The Art of Resident Evil 5 confirmed that Chris' increased muscle mass was to show that he had trained heavily in order to fight Wesker bare-handed. Modeler Yosuke Yamagata added, "All the characters are very important for this series, and popular with fans. So we took care not to change their image from past games. It's a simple method, but we made a new design that retained their signature color — green for Chris, blue for Jill — to carry over the same look from the past. The facial structures are mainly based on the visuals of the GameCube version, and we added various details to these in order to develop a realistic structure."

Chris was voiced by Michael Filipowich in Code: Veronica, Joe Whyte in the 2002 remake of Resident Evil and by Roger Craig Smith in Resident Evil 5, The Darkside Chronicles, Revelations and Marvel vs. Capcom 3. In Code: Veronica and Resident Evil 5 he was motion captured by Reuben Langdon. He was portrayed by Wentworth Miller in Resident Evil: Afterlife. and played by Will Lupardus in the Resident Evil 5 viral advertising campaign.

Appearances

In video games

Chris Redfield first appeared in the original Resident Evil as a main protagonist is as one of two playable protagonists. In the game, he is a member of the special forces STARS Alpha team, sent to investigate the disappearance of Bravo team. The squad discovers the remains of Bravo team's helicopter, but soon encounter a pack of undead dogs. Chris, accompanied by Albert Wesker, Barry Burton and Jill Valentine, seek refuge in the nearby mansion, which is filled with deadly traps and horrific monsters. Chris' scenario is more challenging than Jill's, as he has a smaller carrying capacity, and lacks certain items, such as the lockpick and grenade launcher, but can take a lot more damage from enemies than Jill can. The original Japanese release of the game features a clip of the live-action character portraying him smoking a cigarette, which was removed in the overseas version of the game, but restored in the PC CD-ROM port.

Chris returns in Resident Evil Code: Veronica (X) as the protagonist of the second half of the game, where he attempts to rescue his younger sister, Claire, from Rockfort Island and then a secret Umbrella Corporation facility in Antarctica. While there, he confronts Alexia Ashford, the creator of the T-Veronica virus, and Wesker, who had survived the destruction of the mansion.

Chris is the one of main characters of game the Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. , in which he reunites with Jill Valentine. The two of them join a private biohazard containment unit. In 2003, they embark on a mission to destroy the Umbrella Corporation after hearing rumours of a new BOW being developed, resulting in an attack on an Umbrella facility located in the Caucasus region.

Chris is the main protagonist in Resident Evil 5, where he is a founding member of the UN paramilitary group Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA). In the game, he is investigating a terrorist threat in Kijuju, Africa while also looking for Jill, who had been presumed dead following a previous encounter with Albert Wesker. Accompanying him is new partner Sheva Alomar.

Chris makes an appearance in Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, where he is a playable character in "Game of Oblivion" scenario's final chapter (a re-imagining of Code: Veronica). He is also available in the Extreme Battle mode in Resident Evil 2.

He also appears in the crossover fighting game Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds as a playable character. The first trailer shows him fighting The Incredible Hulk.

Chris is one of the eight playable characters in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, and will return in the latest installment of the main series, Resident Evil Revelations, with Jill Valentine.

In other media

Chris appears in the 2010 live-action film Resident Evil: Afterlife, played by Wentworth Miller. He is imprisoned in a maximum security cell by prisoners as a cruel joke after his unit's attempt to control the T-virus in Los Angeles goes haywire. The survivors who find him believe him to be a prisoner. He is reunited with his sister Claire, who cannot remember him due to memory damage caused by an Umbrella mind-control device. He, Alice, and Claire defeat Albert Wesker and rescue imprisoned survivors being used for Umbrella's experiments.

During the release of the Japanese Sega Saturn version of the original game, Capcom published a promotional sourcebook titled The True Story Behind Biohazard as a pre-order giveaway. The book contains an original short story titled Biohazard: The Beginning by Hiroyuku Ariga. The story depicts the events prior to the first game and fleshes out his character, describing the deaths of his parents in a car accident and his service in the USAF.

Chris also appears as a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, alongside Jill Valentine and Albert Wesker.

Reception

Examiner.com ranked Redfield second on a list of the "Top 7 Ridiculously Large Biceps in Gaming" arguing that early "on in the series, Chris Redfield looked like any other scrawny punk in an officer’s uniform. (...) Whatever Chris did between then and the events of Resident Evil 5 eludes me, but I’m guessing it involved lots of curls, Power Bars and steroids. Perhaps Leon Kennedy’s David Bowie look in RE 4 turned him off, and decided to go for the roid-raging approach." By contrast, GameZone ranked Chris Redfield fourth on a list of "The Top Five Gaming Gods of 2009," with the rationale that for "years, Jill Valentine has been the luckiest woman in Raccoon City’s STARS Division and that’s because her partner was none other than the hunky Chris Redfield. In the fifth installment of the Resident Evil series, Chris has gone from the cute jock-wannabe to a hot quarterback. With a killer body and dreamy good-looks, he’s one gorgeous hunk we wouldn’t mind joining in the hot zombie-infested African village." Game Informer explored the meaning of Chris Redfield's name, writing that "Christopher is a late Greek name meaning 'bearing Christ.' The name was used by early Christians as a metaphor expressing how they carried Christ in their hearts. "Christopher" is never acknowledged within the games however. Redfield, on the other hand, is a bit redundant. It derives from two words, the Olde English ryd meaning 'a cleared area suitable for agriculture,' and field, another old word meaning 'area cleared for agriculture.' Chris Redfield's full name could be literally taken to mean to carry across fields of fields - symbolic perhaps for all the backtracking he did in the early entries in the Resident Evil series."