Finally, an original mobile experience worthy of the Resident Evil brand name?

One of the more surprising Resident Evil-related announcements in 2025 has been that of Resident Evil: Survival Unit. A mobile game co-produced by Korean developer Joycity and anime giant Aniplex, Survival Unit takes the tried and true Raccoon City setting, characters and general backdrop and reimagines them through a real time strategy experience tailored to mobile phones with touch screen controls and regular monetization.

What’s even more interesting is the people involved in production. The Executive Producer is none other than Square Enix Final Fantasy alumni Shinji Hashimoto. World renowned illustrator Yoshitaka Amano (also known for his work on Final Fantasy) is contributing artwork to the project. It’s not all that often you see such prestigious names strongly attached to a mobile IP title such as this one.

I was able to try a demo of Survival Unit at both Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, as well as Tokyo Game Show in Japan the following month. I played the demo on both an iPhone and an iPad, and the experience is very similar between the two devices. The demo begins in a hospital room (eerily reminiscent of the very first episode of The Walking Dead). Players are handed over control of an entirely original character with an unknown name–the demo merely refers to him as the “Operative.” He doesn’t remember how he ended up in the hospital gurney, only recalling that he drove to Raccoon City to meet his parents. The Operative quickly gets up, gets dressed and attempts to leave.

Once the player can explore the hospital room, things start to get interesting. While Survival Unit has an isometric viewpoint (more or less a first for the series), the exploration feels interestingly reminiscent of the early RE games with fixed backgrounds. Holding your iPhone in landscape mode, you use your left thumb to press the touch screen and guide the Operative around the room. You can explore the environment in the background when a hand-like visual prompt appears on screen for the player to press. There are objects to examine and files to read, just like in the console RE games. Players can find keys to open doors and unlock puzzles. The player has health that starts out green and drops to yellow, orange and red as damage is sustained. Even the classic RE door loading sequences are back after two decades!

The combat is where Survival Unit differs from existing RE game. The concept of taking down zombies and other B.O.W.s remains intact in this game, but the gameplay employs an RTS system, where either the player character, or RE alumni such as Marvin Branagh or Claire Redfield, assume a battle position against advancing enemies. Characters possess weapons and skills that allow them to fight enemy hoards in different ways, with the screen hinting at which weapons and skills can be used.

Throughout the ongoing adventure, players will eventually be able to recruit other RE veterans as team members in order to secure resources, build bases and wipe out legions of B.O.W.s lurking around Raccoon City. You can even encounter other players connected online and either work with them, or against them. There is definitely a story being told here, with plenty of RE-style dialogue for players to indulge in.

Resident Evil continues to flirt with Mobile

Back in September 2023, when Capcom announced that Resident Evil: Village was coming to iPhone and iPad, I took a quick look at the history of the series on mobile phones. As I emphasized back then, these mobile efforts, such as Resident Evil Degeneration, Resident Evil 4 Mobile/iPad Edition, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries Vs, Biohazard Outbreak Survive and Bakahaza were derivative products secondary to and disconnected from Capcom’s console games.

When Capcom decided to port the RE Engine RE games to Apple’s devices, it was certainly a step in the right direction in terms of establishing a credible presence outside console and PC, but ultimately mobile was still not a top priority for Capcom. (Unlike, say, the Nintendo Switch 2, which will be receiving Resident Evil Requiem day and date with PlayStation, Xbox and Steam).

That said, in my September 2023 article, I said: “Now, thanks to Apple’s offering of robust mobile hardware and development tools, Capcom doesn’t have to license out uninteresting and derivative region-exclusive RE mobile apps or deliberately design a new RE title around the idea of playing on the go...Capcom can simply take the latest RE games and port them to some of the most mainstream devices ever. This leads to continued growth for the RE franchise as it reaches new audiences it may not have had access to before.”

Clearly, I spoke way too soon! In the past two years, the RE Engine games have not been overly successful on Apple devices. This could be attributed to things such as the lack of a robust gaming ecosystem on Apple devices, unoptimized touch screen controls, high prices relative to more traditional mobile game experiences, and the lack of Steam support on mac os. (But that’s not the point here.)

Survival Unit, in some ways, is Capcom sticking to its past formula. They’re still licensing out the RE brand to a third party in order to develop a different type of game tailored to mobile devices, known for their touch screen controls, internet-dependent gameplay and heavy emphasis on repeat monetization. But Survival Unit is simply more significant and interesting than past efforts, which often reeked of low budgets and a deemphasis on gameplay quality.

Unlike Outbreak Survive or Bakahaza, for example, Survival Unit will be playable globally, with players in different parts of the world interconnected, rather than fragmented by region. The fully 3D polygonal visuals are attractively designed and augmented by an intuitive and responsive UI, while the writing (including the localization) is simply beyond any previous mobile RE game (if it had any writing at all). The project is supported by people and companies with a reputation for delivering quality products. Survival Unit is also a game Capcom is including as part of the RE series’ 30th Anniversary celebration.

Clearly, everyone’s efforts to promote Survival Unit are paying off so far. According to Aniplex, over 1 million people pre-registered to download the game on the App Store and Google Play Store as of August 8, 2025. The game seems to be well received in the territories it is currently available in as a pre-launch (Singapore, the Philippines, and other Southeast Asian countries).

I thought RE’s future on mobile would be driven by great versions of the RE Engine games appearing on the platform, but it seems there’s still potential yet for something different. I found the Gamescom and TGS demos of Survival Unit highly entertaining and am confident the game will be worth playing for both RE fans and those who may not be familiar with the IP.

I look forward to playing the full experience when it launches before the end of 2025 for iOS and Android.