Resident Evil trailer: Austin Abrams stars in latest outbreak horror as Raccoon City collapses

Sony has dropped the first trailer for a bold new take on ‘Resident Evil,’ promising a scarier, more focused horror film that aims to tie the franchise back to the tense, claustrophobic mood of the original video games.

Resident Evil trailer is out

The teaser introduces audiences to a fresh story set in the doomed town of Raccoon City, this time following an ordinary courier who finds himself trapped in the middle of a terrifying outbreak.

The trailer introduces fans to a new story set during an outbreak in Raccoon City, this time focusing on a lone courier caught in the middle of the chaos. The film is co‑written by Shay Hatten and Zach Cregger, who also directs; Cregger is best known for horror films – ‘Weapons’ and ‘Barbarian’.

Watch the trailer here:

Unlike many past film entries, the new ‘Resident Evil’ will not feature established video‑game characters such as Leon S. Kennedy or Jill Valentine, as Cregger has said he wanted to tell a more original, standalone story.

The plot centres on Bryan, played by Austin Abrams. According to IMDb, the film's plot follows a hapless courier who is tasked with delivering a package to a remote hospital and quickly finds himself trapped in the middle of a deadly outbreak, forced to fight his way through hordes of mutated creatures to stay alive.

More about the franchise

This new film is the second reboot of the ‘Resident Evil’ movie franchise, following the 2021 film ‘Welcome to Raccoon City,’ which also tried to return to the tone and setting of the early games. The first live‑action ‘Resident Evil’ film, released in 2002 and starring Milla Jovovich, kicked off a six‑film series that leaned heavily into action and sci‑fi, with mixed reviews but strong box‑office returns.

Altogether, the film series has grossed more than 1.2 billion dollars worldwide, making it one of the most financially successful video‑game–based franchises.

The roots of “Resident Evil” go back to 1996, when Japanese studio Capcom launched the first game on the original PlayStation. The series helped define the survival‑horror genre, mixing fixed camera angles, limited ammunition, and nerve‑wracking puzzles with a story about a mysterious virus and a bio‑weapons company called Umbrella Corporation.

Over the years, ‘Resident Evil’ has grown into a massive franchise, with dozens of games, CGI films, comics, novels and other spin‑offs, and it now stands as Capcom’s best‑selling video‑game series, with over 170 million units sold as of early 2025.

Ahead of its scheduled release on 18 September 2026, marketing for the new ‘Resident Evil’ is leaning into the trailer’s claustrophobic, small‑town apocalypse feel, positioning the film as a grounded and tense horror outing rather than another big‑budget action spectacle.

Fans of the games will still recognise the core elements—Raccoon City, the outbreak, and the threat of mutated creatures—while newcomers will be drawn into a self‑contained story about an ordinary person dropped into a nightmare.