In August 2025, Cregger revealed the film would be an original story set in the Resident Evil universe and would not feature
any characters from the games, saying "I'm not going to tell Leon's story, because Leon's story is told in the games. Fans
already have that". Cregger stated "It's not gonna be at all like Barbarian and Weapons", comparing the film to Evil Dead II (1987)
and that "this is a story that I would've wanted to write whether I got the IP or not".
In September 2025, Cregger stated he had never seen any of the previous Resident Evil films and the upcoming film will be more
closely based on the video game series, particularly Resident Evil 2 (1998), Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999), and Resident Evil 4.