The new Resident Evil film coincided with more people playing the games, but the clearest sales effect came from discounts that began before the movie opened. That is the distinction in a new analysis from Alinea Analytics, which uses estimated player, unit and revenue data rather than figures reported by Capcom.
Alinea estimates daily active users rose after the film’s September 18 release across every Resident Evil title it tracks. The Resident Evil 2 remake increased from about 78,000 to 116,000 daily players, while Resident Evil 4 rose from roughly 199,000 to 247,000. The Resident Evil 3 remake moved from about 28,000 to 35,000, and Resident Evil Requiem from approximately 118,000 to 143,000.
Those engagement figures include people returning to games they already own. They do not, by themselves, show that the movie created new sales.
The discounts arrived eight days before the film
Capcom cut prices on September 10, giving Alinea a discount-only period before the film opened. The firm compares September 10–17 with September 19–24, when both the discounts and movie were active, and says it also accounts for how earlier sales affected demand.
The price cuts were already powerful. On PS5, Alinea estimates daily copies of the Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4 remakes each rose about 1.9 times before the film, as prices fell from $39.99 to $7.99 and $9.99, respectively. Requiem copies rose about 1.8 times when its price dropped from $69.99 to $48.99.
After attempting to remove that discount effect, Alinea attributes another 50–65% increase in PS5 copies of the two older remakes to the movie. Its modeled Steam effect is much smaller at 11–14%. GamesRadar’s report gives the PS5 breakouts as 64% for Resident Evil 2 and 54% for Resident Evil 4, both drawn from Alinea’s analysis.
More copies did not mean a full-price surge
Alinea estimates the additional Resident Evil 2 copies sold for about $8–$9 and Resident Evil 4 for roughly $10–$13. PS5 revenue rose an estimated 80% and 84%, respectively, but from that heavily discounted base.
The newer, more expensive game moved differently. Alinea estimates Requiem PS5 revenue fell 4%, from about $284,000 to $271,000 per day, during the comparison. Steam revenue rose 14% after its price returned to $70.
The analysis therefore treats the movie as a stronger prompt to revisit the series than as a driver of full-price purchases. Its method offers a useful way to separate two overlapping events, but the result remains a model built from proprietary estimates rather than audited publisher sales.
