Barry Burton

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Lore & Background

In the Resident Evil series of games, Barry Burton appears as a member of the Special Tactics and Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) alpha team. He makes his debut in the first Resident Evil game, which is set in a mansion near the fictional town of Raccoon City in 1998. Burton and his team search the mansion for their colleagues, where he is the secondary protagonist in a Jill Valentine campaign. Burton helps discover that the property is a façade for a biological warfare laboratory operated by the Umbrella Corporation, and its undead occupants are the scientists who developed the T-virus mutagen. Their commander, Albert Wesker, is revealed to be a double agent for Umbrella. Burton, Valentine, and Chris Redfield are among the five survivors of the incident, who form a strong relationship around their shared opposition to bioterrorism. Burton returns in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999); depending on the player's decisions, he may appear to help Valentine and Carlos Oliveira escape from Raccoon City as it is destroyed. Burton becomes a playable character in the spinoff game Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (2015). Set in 2011, Burton travels to an island after receiving a distress call from his estranged daughter, Moira, who is trapped with Redfield's sister, Claire. Soon after arriving, Barry meets a young girl called Natalia Korda, with whom he searches for Moira and Claire among the island's monsters. Burton arrives in time to interrupt Wesker's efforts to transfer her soul into Natalia. It is revealed in the "good ending" that Alex succeeded in transferring her consciousness into Natalia so she may live on.

In Their Own Story

Barry Burton was created by director Shinji Mikami and designer Isao Ohishi, and first introduced in Capcom's 1996 survival horror video game Resident Evil. Unlike mainstay characters Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, Burton was not included in the original game design. According to writer Kenichi Iwao, he had initially designed a cyborg character named Gelzer, before deciding that his science fiction elements were inappropriate for the game's horror aesthetic. Some of Gelzer's design elements were recycled for Burton, including his large stature and military experience. Burton also took on some of the story elements previously intended for Gelzer, such as rescuing Valentine from being crushed in a locked room with a descending ceiling. Iwao wanted a name that was easy to remember, so he chose the alliterative name Barry Burton. Initially, Iwao wanted Burton to be a black character, but his final design became white after opposition from designer Hideki Kamiya. For the first Resident Evil, designer Jun Takeuchi helped create the in-game character model. He suggested giving Burton a red vest to help differentiate him from the other characters. Mikami thought Burton's model was too slim, so he made him a little heftier, but not so much that the character became unrealistic. Several lines from the game achieved enduring popularity: "You were almost a Jill sandwich", a remark made by Barry in an unnatural voiceover after a falling ceiling trap nearly crushes Jill, was brought back to life as an Internet meme ten years after the game's debut. Another piece of dialogue spoken by Barry – "Jill, here's a lock pick. It might be handy if you, the master of unlocking, take it with you" – also gained notoriety.

Reader's Guide

Barry Burton is a supporting character in the original Resident Evil (1996) and a playable character in Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (2015). In the first game, he is the secondary protagonist in a Jill Valentine campaign. He helps rescue Valentine from being crushed in a locked room with a descending ceiling. In Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999), depending on the player's decisions, he may appear to help Valentine and Carlos Oliveira escape from Raccoon City as it is destroyed. In Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (2015), set in 2011, Burton travels to an island after receiving a distress call from his estranged daughter, Moira. He meets a young girl called Natalia Korda and searches for Moira and Claire among the island's monsters. Burton arrives in time to interrupt antagonist Alex Wesker's efforts to transfer her soul into Natalia. Burton initially believes that Alex killed Moira, and eventually defeats her with the help of Moira and Claire. He also appears as a playable character in the Game Boy Color game Resident Evil Gaiden (2001), the mobile game Resident Evil: Genesis (2008), Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D (2011), and a Mercenaries Reunion minigame in Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (2015). In 2025, he appears in a mobile game Resident Evil Survival Unit. Barry appears in the non-canon live-action Resident Evil film Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), played by Kevin Durand.

Did You Know?

• Barry Burton was originally conceived as a muscular cyborg named Gelzer before the developers decided to emphasize horror over science fiction.
• Writer Kenichi Iwao initially wanted Barry to be a black character, but designer Hideki Kamiya opposed this, and the final design became white.
• Barry's line 'You were almost a Jill sandwich' became an Internet meme ten years after the game's debut.
• Barry is played in the live-action cinematics of the original Resident Evil by Greg Smith, an Australian retired principal who was on work exchange in Japan.
• Capcom's themed restaurant Biohazard Cafe & Grill S.T.A.R.S., which opened in Shibuya, Tokyo, in 2012, sold a noodle dish named after Barry.