803K Wishlists Make RE Veronica SGF's Biggest Win

When Capcom opened Summer Game Fest with a first-person fake-out that slowly revealed Claire Redfield staring down a new nightmare, the crowd lost it. What nobody in that room could have known was just how decisively that single trailer would dominate every other announcement across every showcase this month.

According to the latest GameDiscoverGo newsletter, Resident Evil Veronica racked up 803,000 Steam wishlists following its reveal, placing it firmly at the top of every game announced during the Summer Game Fest window. ArenaNet's Guild Wars 3 came second with 496,000, and Panache Digital Games' 1666: Amsterdam grabbed third at 494,000. That gap between first and second place is staggering. Veronica didn't edge out the competition; it buried it by more than 300,000 wishlists.

Steam wishlists alone don't tell the full story, but separate data from marketing analytics firm LevelUp, shared by The Game Business, paints a similar picture. Veronica ranked as the third top-performing game overall when factoring in trailer performance, community engagement, and press coverage. The only two titles above it were first-party console exclusives: the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and God of War: Laufey. Among third-party announcements, nothing came close.

Why This One Hit Different

A few things are working in Capcom's favour here. Resident Evil Requiem launched earlier this year to strong sales and some of the best reviews the series has ever received, so appetite for more RE is running high. Veronica also had prime real estate as the opening reveal of the main Summer Game Fest showcase, which guarantees eyeballs being buried in a 90-minute sizzle reel never will. Geoff Keighley knows what he's doing with his running order, and Capcom clearly knew what it had.

But I think the real driver is simpler than positioning or momentum. Code: Veronica has been the missing piece of Capcom's remake strategy for years. Fans watched RE2, RE3, and RE4 all get the treatment while this game, which Capcom itself has acknowledged sits "on par with the main numbered titles," waited in the wings. Producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi used those exact words during a post-show Q&A, as reported by Famitsu. When the announcement finally came, it landed with the weight of a fanbase that had been asking for it since the RE2 remake shipped in 2019.

The trailer itself was a smart piece of misdirection. Hirabayashi admitted the first-person opening was a deliberate "trick" designed to keep viewers guessing whose perspective they were watching. Capcom has since confirmed the actual game plays in third person, directed by Yasuhiro Anpo and Kazunori Kadoi, the same pair behind the RE2 and RE4 remakes. That pedigree alone would generate hype, but the bait-and-switch trailer gave people something to talk about beyond the announcement itself.

Story Changes and a Bigger Picture

Hirabayashi also confirmed that the remake will restructure Code: Veronica's original story to fit more cohesively into the broader Resident Evil timeline. The original released in 2000, and the series has sprawled considerably since then through RE7, Village, and Requiem. "We are planning to restructure the story so that players can clearly feel how all of these titles are part of one cohesive series," he told Famitsu. He added that the team's priority is "putting the players' memories first, and then rebuilding the game on top of that."

I'm curious how far those changes go. Code: Veronica's plot involves the Ashford twins, Antarctic bases, and some of the campiest villain monologues in the franchise. Modernising that story while keeping the spirit of the original is a tightrope walk. The RE2 and RE4 remakes both made meaningful narrative changes that largely worked, so the track record is there, but Veronica's story is weirder and more convoluted than either of those games. If any remake in this run is going to test the team's ability to balance nostalgia with coherence, it's this one.

Meanwhile, rumours about a Resident Evil 0 remake continue to swirl. Leaker Dusk Golem claimed on X that the project was rebooted mid-development, with Capcom's Division 1 team taking over. If true, that likely pushes RE0 further out, but having the same internal division that built every mainline RE since 2017 steering the ship is reassuring.

Resident Evil Veronica is set for a 2027 release on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC. No specific date has been locked, though rumours point to the first half of the year. Hirabayashi recommended that players revisit past Resident Evil titles before launch, noting that familiarity with the series' history will make Veronica's restructured story land harder. Given the 803,000 people who have already wishlisted it, Capcom probably won't need to ask twice.