I had a feeling Zach Cregger's new Resident Evil movie was exactly what the franchise needed, and now data from Alinea Analytics proves it: several Resident Evil games have received a nice sales boost, especially on PS5, after Capcom unleashed some well-timed discounts when the film released this month. While Capcom discounts helped encourage the surge, Resident Evil film lead Austin Abrams' screaming face sweetened the deal.

Alinea head of market analysis Rhys Elliott explains in a September 25 Substack post, Cregger's perfectly obscene Resident Evil movie about a medical courier (Abrams) stupidly getting stuck in Raccoon City after dark had "the biggest opening in the 24-year history of Resi films." It's also the most successful video game movie yet with 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and its biohazardous blockbuster effect is spreading to the Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4 remakes.

When ignoring Capcom's franchise-wide discounts, data suggests Cregger's movie directly influenced a 64% and 54% uptick in PS5 sales for RE2 and RE4, respectively.

"On Steam, the same movie effect is a much milder +11% to +14%," says Elliott.

In terms of pure player count, which would also include people who own the game jumping back in after the movie's release, "Resident Evil 2's remake jumped +48%" in daily players across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, says Elliott, as the game went from about 78,000 daily active users to nearly 116,000. Its price was chopped into bits, from $39.99 to lucky $7.99.

Cregger told GamesRadar+ his Resident Evil movie – which doesn't feature any characters from the games – unfolds "on the periphery" of Resident Evil 2's t-Virus outbreak , so it also makes sense that Resident Evil 2 benefits from it most.

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