An independent developer is turning Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil film into a PlayStation 1-style survival horror game, complete with the fixed camera angles and tank controls that defined the original Capcom classics. The project — titled Resident Evil: The Movie The Game — is an adaptation of an adaptation, reversing the usual flow of game-to-film tie-ins by translating a movie back into the visual language of the games that inspired it.
Developer Julian Zamora, who posts as chicanogoth on Instagram, recently shared early footage of the project, which is being built in the open-source Godot engine. The clip recreates one of the film’s opening scenes: Bryan, played by Austin Abrams, seeks refuge in a middle-of-nowhere barn during a snowstorm before being chased by an infected killer dog. The camera switches between fixed positions as the player character moves, framing the barn and the approaching threat in the style of the series’ earliest entries.
Fixed Cameras and Tank Controls
The hallmark of the original Resident Evil games on PS1 was their use of pre-rendered backgrounds with fixed camera angles — a design choice that carefully controlled what the player could see, building tension through restricted visibility. Zamora’s project adopts the same approach, though with modern tools.
“I’m still not sure how to do those pre-rendered flat environments from the PS1 days sadly,” Zamora explained in their social media post. “So yeah, it’s giving more Resident Evil: Code Veronica and I like it.” The reference is apt — Code Veronica, released on Dreamcast in 2000, retained the fixed-camera perspective of its predecessors while introducing fully 3D character models and environments, representing an evolutionary step between the original PS1 titles and the over-the-shoulder reinvention that arrived with Resident Evil 4.
The footage also shows tank controls — the movement system where the character moves forward relative to their facing direction rather than the camera — and stationary aiming, both hallmarks of the classic formula.
A Film That Demands Interactive Retelling
Cregger’s Resident Evil, which opened in theatres on 18 September 2026, follows Bryan, a medical courier who must fight his way through an outbreak to deliver a package to Raccoon City General Hospital. The film has been a significant box office success, outgrossing Cregger’s previous horror hit Weapons and earning praise as, in GamesRadar‘s assessment, “the best video game movie full stop” and “a horror-comedy to match the best the genre has to offer”.
That success has inspired a wave of fan projects. Shortly after the film’s release, a modder added Bryan as a playable character skin in Resident Evil 2, rendered in PS1 style. Zamora’s project goes further, building an entirely standalone game around the film’s narrative rather than simply inserting its characters into existing frameworks.
The project represents an interesting inversion. Typically, game-to-film adaptations are one-directional: a movie is produced, and tie-in games (if any) follow the film’s visual style. Here, the film is being reinterpreted through the aesthetic of the games it was based on — a recursive loop of adaptation that speaks to the enduring appeal of the PS1-era Resident Evil formula.
Early Stages, Enthusiastic Progress
Zamora has been transparent about the project’s early status. The shared footage represents an initial build, with the developer noting they have “progressed a lot” since recording it and expressing excitement about sharing more soon. No release date has been announced.
The choice of Godot as the engine is notable. The open-source platform has gained significant traction in the indie horror scene, offering a lightweight alternative to Unity or Unreal with no licensing fees and a growing community of horror-specific tools and templates. Its 2D and 3D capabilities make it well-suited to recreating the hybrid aesthetic of PS1-era survival horror — low-polygon models with pre-rendered or stylised backgrounds.
Whether the project will attract attention from Capcom remains an open question. The publisher has historically been tolerant of fan projects that do not attempt to monetise their work or confuse consumers about official releases. Given that Zamora’s game is explicitly a free fan tribute built on open-source tools, it is likely to fall within the bounds of acceptable non-commercial use — though the precedent of cease-and-desist actions in the broader gaming industry means no fan project is entirely safe from legal intervention.
For now, Resident Evil: The Movie The Game stands as a creative tribute to two things simultaneously: a film that has reinvigorated interest in the franchise, and the PS1-era games that defined survival horror for a generation. Whether it reaches completion or remains a proof of concept, the project demonstrates the enduring pull of fixed cameras, tank controls, and the particular kind of dread that comes from not knowing what is lurking just beyond the frame.
