Is Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City a prequel

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, a franchise reboot from director Johannes Roberts, has a clear aim of providing fanservice to longtime players of the hit video game series published by Capcom. The film borrows heavily from the original video games by Capcom, especially Resident Evil (1996) and Resident Evil 2(1998). One particular character also originates from Resident Evil (2002), a remake of the original game that first appeared exclusively on the Nintendo Gamecube.

Welcome to Raccoon City's backdrop and timeline are heavily reminiscent of events and locations from the games, but don't follow the events beat-for-beat. Instead, the film borrows significant events from the first two games chronologically but places them on a concurrent timeline, allowing the Mansion Incident of the original Resident Evil to play out at the same time as the Raccoon City Outbreak of Resident Evil 2 and 3.