Resident Evil is an unadapted video game.
Resident Evil , known as in Japan , is a survival horror video game-based media franchise created by Shinji Mikami and Tokuro Fujiwara and owned by the video game company Capcom . The franchise focuses around a series of survival horror video games , but has since branched out into comic books , novels , novelizations , sound dramas , live-action films , animated sequels to the games , and a variety of associated merchandise , such as action figures . The eponymous first game in the series was released in 1996 as a survival horror video game , but the franchise has since grown to encompass other video game genres . The series is a mix of action and horror film-inspired plotlines , exploration , and puzzle solving . Resident Evil is a science fiction action-horror hexalogy film series loosely based on the Japanese video game franchise of the same name by Capcom .