The original Resident Evil made its 1996 debut on the Sony Playstation. It was a critical and commercial success, leading to the production of two sequels, Resident Evil 2 in 1998 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis in 1999, both for the PlayStation and Dreamcast. A port of Resident Evil 2 was released for the Nintendo 64. In addition, ports of all three were released for Windows. The fourth game in the series, Resident Evil Code: Veronica, was developed for the Sega Dreamcast and released in 2000, followed by ports of 2 and 3. Resident Evil Code: Veronica was later re-released for Dreamcast in updated form as Code: Veronica Complete, which included slight changes, many of which revolved around the story cutscenes. Code: Veronica was later ported to PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube under the title Code: Veronica X.

Despite earlier announcements that the next game in the series would be released for the PlayStation 2, which resulted in the creation of an unrelated game titled Devil May Cry, series' creator and producer Shinji Mikami decided to make the series exclusively for the Nintendo GameCube. The next three games in the series: a remake of the original Resident Evil, the prequel Resident Evil Zero and Resident Evil 4, were exclusive to the GameCube, although 4 was later released for PS2 and Wii. In addition, the GameCube received ports of the previous Resident Evil sequels. The remake of the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil Zero were both released in 2002. Despite this exclusivity agreement between Capcom and Nintendo, Capcom released several Resident Evil titles for the PS2 that were not considered direct sequels.

A trilogy of GunCon-compatible light gun games known as the Gun Survivor series featured first person gameplay. The first, Resident Evil: Survivor, was released in 2000 for the PlayStation and PC, but received mediocre reviews. The subsequent games, Resident Evil: Survivor 2 Code: Veronica (2001, Arcade/PlayStation 2) and Resident Evil: Dead Aim (2003, PlayStation 2), fared somewhat better. Dead Aim is actually the fourth Gun Survivor game in Japan, with Gun Survivor 3 being the Dino Crisis spinoff Dino Stalker.

Resident Evil Outbreak is an online game for the PS2, released in 2003, depicting a series of episodic storylines in Raccoon City set during the same time period as Resident Evil 2 and 3. It was followed by a sequel, Resident Evil Outbreak: File 2.

Resident Evil Gaiden is an action-adventure game for the Game Boy Color featuring an RPG-style combat system. It was developed by now-defunct British-based M4 Limited. Leon S. Kennedy and Barry Burton feature in the game, and it is notable for its cliffhanger ending that has not yet been explored in later games. There have also been several downloadable mobile games based on the Resident Evil series in Japan. Some of these mobile games have been released in North America and Europe through T-Mobile.