Resident Evil: Death Island Possibly Brings Jill Valentine Back Into the Story

Today, a trailer was released to introduce a new Resident Evil CG-animated movie, Resident Evil: Death Island. It’s a sequel to the previous film, Resident Evil: Vendetta and continues to fill in details for what the classic Resident Evil characters have been up to between the games. What’s particularly notable though is a very blatant tease that happens right at the end of the teaser trailer. And that’s the potential return of Jill Valentine to the front lines.

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For starters, go ahead and watch the Resident Evil: Death Island trailer. It’s a teaser, so don’t expect a ton of information. That said there’s a synopsis on the actual YouTube video description. Leon Kennedy is attempting a rescue for Dr. Antonio Taylor then gets involved with a “mysterious woman.” Meanwhile, Chris Redfield finds himself investigating a zombie outbreak connected to Alcatraz. Somehow this all relates to a shot of Jill Valentine at a firing range. Here’s why this is such a big deal. Potentially.

In the Resident Evil storyline, we haven’t heard from Jill Valentine since 2011. This was in an email to Barry Burton the player can discover in Resident Evil Revelations 2, which is set between the events of Resident Evils 5 and 6. And as far as seeing Jill Valentine in person, the last time we saw her was in Resident Evil 5, set in 2009. One of the iconic leads of the classic Resident Evil games, Valentine’s role in the fifth game proved controversial as not only was she abducted and turned evil-ish by Wesker, her character design was dramatically altered to be more… conventional to put it politely. We haven’t seen her since.

In the message to Burton, Valentine notes that she is undertaking some kind of rehabilitation in order to be reinstated as an officer in the BSAA. That’s the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance, which currently employs Burton and Chris Redfield (note: I haven’t played through Village yet so if that’s changed, I don’t know). So presumably Jill is in some state of fighting shape, or has spent the past several years getting there. Village is set in 2021, so that’s quite a gap.

Now, technically we have seen Jill Valentine recently as players. That’s thanks to the Resident Evil 3 remake, though. We have to remember that one was set in the 90s. A lot of wild shit has occurred throughout the Resident Evil series, but one thing has remained constant and that’s the timeline. It’s held together by duct tape, fiberglass and DLC, but it’s still there. The Resident Evil 3 thing, though, is what brings me to not getting my hopes up here.

If this is what’s actually happening, this will be the first time Jill Valentine has been an active part of the Resident Evil canon in over a decade. Which is wild to think about, considering she’s Jill goddamn Valentine. It’s a pretty tremendous moment for longtime Resident Evil fans, because as a sequel to Vendetta Death Island has to be set sometime in-between 2014 and the present day. But that shot of Jill sure looks weirdly familiar compared to our old pals Chris and Leon.

Sure, it’s a brief shot and not exactly wide enough to show everything. But it really does look like Jill is ripped right out of Resident Evil 3 there. She has the blue tank, the swoopy haircut, etc. It’s like she hasn’t aged a day, and somehow got her natural hair color back after Wesker’s stint as a mad scientist made it turn blonde. If it isn’t apparent what I’m getting at here, is that worst case scenario this is some kind of flashback.

At the end of the day this is a tease within a teaser trailer, so nobody knows what the heck this actually means. But as soon as I saw it the Resident Evil lore worms living in my brain stirred to live and began feeding, so here we are. It would be so cool to see Jill Valentine back in action outside of a goofy bonus mode, and maybe Resident Evil: Death Island is the first step forward.