Resident Evil is a 1996 survival horror game developed and published by Capcom for the PlayStation. It is the first game in Capcom's Resident Evil franchise. Set in the fictional Arklay mountain region in the Midwest, players control Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, members of the elite task force S.T.A.R.S., who must escape a mansion infested with zombies and other monsters.

Resident Evil was conceived by the producer Tokuro Fujiwara as a remake of his 1989 horror game Sweet Home (1989). It was directed by Shinji Mikami. It went through several redesigns, first as Super NES game in 1993, then a fully 3D first-person PlayStation game in 1994 and finally a third-person game. Gameplay consists of action, exploration, puzzle solving and inventory management. Resident Evil established many conventions seen later in the series, and in other survival horror games, including the inventory system, save system, and use of a vitals-monitoring system instead of a health counter.

Resident Evil was praised for its graphics, gameplay, sound, and atmosphere, although it received some criticism for its dialogue and voice acting. It was an international best-seller, and became the highest-selling PlayStation game at the time. By December 1997, it had sold about 4 million copies worldwide and had grossed more than US$200 million.

Resident Evil is often cited as one of the greatest video games ever made. It is credited with defining the survival horror genre and with returning zombies to popular culture, leading to a renewed interest in zombie films by the 2000s. It created a franchise including video games, films, comics, novels, and other merchandise. It has been ported to Sega Saturn, Windows and Nintendo DS. A sequel, Resident Evil 2, was released in 1998. In 2002, the game's remake, alongside its prequel, Resident Evil Zero, were both released for GameCube (and subsequently on other platforms) in March and November 2002, respectively.