Since it was first revealed back in April, Zach Cregger’s new Resident Evil movie has been controversial for its original take on the survival horror franchise. It doesn’t star familiar faces like Leon S. Kennedy or Claire Redfield, but an all-new nobody who just happens to be fighting his way through a very grim Resident Evil situation. Perhaps Sony Pictures’ new trailer for Resident Evil will change some hearts and minds, because it’s packed with recognizable Resident Evil stuff.

Yes, there’s a zombie. You’ll also see a typewriter. Cregger and crew even made sure to include a shot of the Resident Evil franchise’s brand of shotgun shells, Heavy Field. Someone even says “Raccoon City” out loud with a straight face. We might even have a kooky guy slowly losing his mind amid the death and destruction and a creepy zombie baby. It’s Resident Evil!

As the film’s new trailer confirms, Cregger’s version of the Raccoon City outbreak doesn’t take place in 1998. We see modern-day technology, including a smartphone, in the trailer. So don’t be too concerned that it’s snowing in September, folks.

As Cregger has said in multiple interviews, his take on the Resident Evil franchise favors adapting the gameplay structure of the games over translating its complex lore to film. Resident Evil follows a medical courier named Bryan (Austin Abrams) who “unwittingly finds himself in an action-packed, non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos,” according to a synopsis from Sony Pictures.

“[T]he journey you’ll have as a viewer of watching this movie is going to be similar to the journey you have as a player when you play these games,” Cregger said in an interview last year. “And what that means is it follows one protagonist from point A to point B as they just descend deeper and deeper and deeper into Hell.” Cregger also said his Resident Evil movie “feels in line with my sensibility, has my sense of tone, and it’s just a much bigger scale than Weapons and certainly Barbarian.”

Sony Pictures has produced a broad range of films based on Resident Evil over the past two decades, including six with filmmaker Paul W. S. Anderson and star Milla Jovovich. After 2016’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, Sony attempted to reboot the franchise with a back-to-basics approach in Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which adapted elements of the first two RE video games. Welcome to Raccoon City was a critical and commercial flop, leading Sony and Constantin Films to whip up another reboot, this time with Cregger at the helm.

Resident Evil stars Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Paul Walter Hauser, and Kali Reis. Cregger directed from a script co-written by Cregger and Shay Hatten (John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, Army of the Dead). The movie opens on Sept. 18, and will be released in IMAX.

Capcom has another major movie adaptation coming in 2026, with Kitao Sakurai’s Street Fighter.