Resident Evil is a franchise filled with memorable characters. Albert Wesker is one of the characters that players will never forget. Designed to stand out, the goofy villain gained a convoluted motivation and several appearances throughout the franchise. As a villain, he was so successful that he was brought back from the dead and given a major role.
As the franchise grew, Albert found out he was manufactured to be an advanced kind of human being. Creating a world where only superior humans existed became his obsession. Because the writers escalated his goals significantly, it is easy to forget some of his more subtle characteristics.
10 Wesker Was Not His Real Name
There’s not much known about Albert, his childhood, or who he was before Doctor Oswell Spencer’s agents took him. He was meant to be the first step of a eugenics project. All children used in the project were given the same surname.
The secrecy about his early years is most likely a choice made by the writers to make him more mysterious. He and Alex were the only children of the project who survived. Nothing else is known about him before he became a Wesker.
9 He Has A Sister
Like her brother, Alex Wesker was a mad scientist in Umbrella Pharmaceuticals. Just like what happened to all other kids in the same project, the Spencer Foundation injected her with the Progenitor virus. Although Albert did not suffer from any side effects, Alex developed an incurable illness.
In many ways, she was very much like her brother. She also became obsessed with the idea of turning into something better than a human. In the end, she infected herself with the Uroboros virus. Right before doing so, she said: “I understand how you felt, Albert. It’s not enough to live. I want to transcend!”
8 He Wasn’t Always An Over The Top Monstrosity
Wesker goes from a double agent to a monster. He starts as a basic bad guy who betrays his team and eventually gets killed. At least at first, it seems that this was going to be the end for the character. However, Resident Evil’s plot end up becoming convoluted and over the top.
After the original Resident Evil, Capcom provided more information about him. They expanded his backstory and changed him each time he showed up in another game. In the end, he became a completely different character. Because of his latest depiction, players often remember him as a mad scientist who became a monster.
7 He Was An Actual Genius
Wesker has an impressive intellect, but that is not always how he is portrayed. Spencer chose him to become a Wesker due to his advantageous genes. The games sometimes show him as a rational bad guy but also as an over-the-top, classic villain.
Among all the other kids within the eugenics project, he was standing out significantly. The Spencer Foundation gave Albert the best possible education they could buy. Being a genius, he got a doctorate as a virologist when he was only seventeen years old.
6 He Perfected The T-Virus With William Birkin
Doctor Wesker and Doctor Birkin were both brilliant kids. William Birkin managed to get his doctorate at the age of 16. At some point, they were both assigned to the Arklay Laboratory. Back then, Umbrella was considering going for the development of an Ebola-based viral weapon.
William and Albert managed to successfully splice the genes from the Ebola virus onto a stolen t-Virus strain. It resulted in the creation of an altered virus that caused humans to survive the infection. The new virus animated the dead bodies, turning infected people into zombies.
5 He Was A Guest Character In Other Games
Doctor Albert Wesker is one of the many playable characters in Marvel vs Capcom 3. In that game, he joins forces with Doctor Doom to make an army of supervillains. Players later find out that he was one of Galactus’s heralds.
He also shows up as a guest character in another Capcom game. This guest appearance is less known, but Wesker was in Lost Planet 2 as a skin. Players need to have a Resident Evil 5 save file in order to unlock him in that game.
4 He Worked As A Member Of The U.B.C.S.
Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service, known as the U.B.C.S. personnel, had Albert Wesker as their secret operative. Players come across this information upon reading a file in Resident Evil Survivor. The file named “Report on Destroyed Raccoon City” has a text written by Nicholai Ginovaef, the U.B.C.S. commander.
It seems that Umbrella had the U.B.C.S. ready to take action since the events of the first game. This information implies that Wesker’s was supposed to contain any biohazards in the area. Instead, he went forward with his plan to release Tyrant.
3 He Never Met Leon
Leon S. Kennedy is an essential character to the franchise. So much so that he stars in movies, a remake, and seems to be one of the main characters in the Resident Evil series. Wesker is the most dangerous villain in all Resident Evil games. However, we do not have a memorable fight or dialogue between these two.
All the games that show the iconic villain being active do not feature Leon. At least in the games, two of the most iconic characters of the franchise have never met.
2 He Is Responsible For Nearly All Games
Doctor Albert helped create the t-Virus that players saw in most games. He allied himself with Umbrella’s greatest rival, the Organization. Wesker served as a middle man between the Organization and Ada Wong, who was supposed to steal the g-virus. He also managed to get a sample of the t-Veronica virus.
He managed to get the Plaga parasite from Resident Evil 4 and use it during Resident Evil 5. In Resident Evil 6, The Family used his son’s blood to improve the c-Virus. Finally, the Mold in Resident Evil 7 and 8 was created by Wesker and The Connections.
1 He Only Got His Powers After he Died
Wesker was infected early on with a deadly prototype virus. People with formidable genes could survive it, though. The virus provided the regenerative abilities that brought him back from the dead after the events of the original Resident Evil. It also made him stronger and faster.
Although the virus did make him better in many ways, he was not that strong at first. When he first showed his super strength and speed, Wesker still had issues fighting Alexia and Chris. However, the subsequent games started to scale his power significantly.
NEXT: The 10 Hardest Horror Games, Ranked