Ethan Winters
Resident Evil character
Ethan as he appears in Resident Evil Village
First appearance	Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017)
Last appearance	Resident Evil Village (2021)
Created by	Capcom
Voiced by	English Todd Soley[1][2] Japanese Hidenobu Kiuchi[1][3]
Motion capture	Yaya Chamki[4]
In-universe information
Spouse	Mia Winters
Children	Rosemary Winters

Ethan Winters^[a] is a character in the Resident Evil survival horror video game series created by the Japanese company Capcom. Ethan was introduced as one of the playable characters in the 2017 video game Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, in which he is depicted as an ordinary civilian searching for his missing wife within a dilapidated estate in Louisiana. He returned in the 2021 sequel Resident Evil Village, where he is forced to locate his daughter after she is kidnapped by a cult leader in a mysterious European village.

Originally designed as an unseen everyman to foster the player's identification with him as the protagonist of Resident Evil 7, Capcom intended to shape Ethan from a blank state into a more defined character in Village. He is voiced by Hidenobu Kiuchi in Japanese and Todd Soley in English. Ethan has received a mixed reception from video game publications. Several journalists have praised his relatability, while others have criticized him for a lack of emotional range and character development.

Ethan made his first appearance in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017),^[5] in which he is looking for his missing wife Mia in Louisiana after she was abducted by the Baker family.^[5] After he finds Mia, they attempt to flee, but she abruptly becomes violent and dismembers Ethan's hand with a chainsaw.^[5][6] He is captured by Jack Baker and forced to join a family dinner, after which he escapes and kills Jack and his wife Marguerite. He then finds Mia after being contacted by the family's daughter, Zoe, who seeks to create a serum that will cure their infection. Ethan later discovers that the Baker family has been under the control of the game's main antagonist, Eveline, a powerful genetically engineered bio-weapon.^[5][7][8] He later crafts a necrotoxin then stabs it into Eveline before she mutates into a giant monster.^[5][7] Ethan finally destroys Eveline, after being assisted by a paramilitary company led by Chris Redfield. Ethan and Mia then escape the plantation.^[5][7][8]

Biohazard 7: Resident Evil handles blood and gore differently depending on the region, particularly Ethan's dismemberment.^[9][10]

Ethan returns in Resident Evil Village (2021) as its central character.^[5] Set three years after the events of the previous game, Ethan and Mia are living in Europe with their newborn daughter, Rosemary. Chris Redfield storms the house suddenly and kills Mia while taking Ethan and Rosemary into custody. Ethan ends up in a remote village, where he looks for his daughter. Ethan eventually learns that the person shot was not Mia, but a disguised cult leader named Mother Miranda. As Ethan defeats the Four Lords of the village, Miranda appears and kills him, telling him that she plans to use Rosemary to resurrect her daughter, Eva, who died of the Spanish flu. Later, Ethan realizes that he had died in his first encounter with Jack Baker in Resident Evil 7, but that the mold, a type of fungus used in creating humanoid creatures, had given him the ability to regenerate. As Ethan regains consciousness, he kills Miranda and rescues his daughter. As Ethan's body begins to deteriorate, he sacrifices himself and gives Rosemary to Chris, who makes it to a helicopter before Ethan detonates a bomb to destroy the village.^[5]

Set sixteen years after the events of Resident Evil Village. The DLC expansion Shadows of Rose chapter focuses on a teenage Rosemary's journey through her molded powers and becoming conscious of the mutated fungus, Megamycete.^[11][12] Ethan, who initially appears to her as golden glowing lettering, helps her on her mission. He takes physical form during Rosemary's battle with Eveline, in a scene filled with swift cuts that hide his face from the player. At the end, Rosemary expresses her gratitude for her father and his sacrifice, and Ethan sees that his daughter has grown up safely.^[12] Rose later visits Ethan's grave on his birthday before heading off in a car with an unnamed organization.^[5]

To promote Village, Capcom featured a discussion of Ethan in a September 2020 developer diary titled "The Making of Resident Evil Village: Winter Comes for Ethan" in September 2020, wherein staff members discuss Ethan's role within the game.^[13] The Resident Evil Village Deluxe Edition is bundled with an art book titled "The Tragedy of Ethan Winters".^[14] In addition, Epic Games included Ethan in a 2021 fan survey about potential crossover characters to be featured in Fortnite (2017).^[15]

In Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, players take Ethan's viewpoint as a first-person perspective as opposed to an on-screen avatar.^[16] While the Resident Evil series had become more action-oriented in some releases, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was designed as a return to survival elements with limited sources.^[17] According to Morimasa Sato, who was a writer for Resident Evil 7 and the director of Resident Evil Village, the development team initially thought of Ethan as merely "a camera for the player" and "transparent",^[18] while scriptwriter Antony Johnston said "It's a balancing act between giving Ethan his own personality."^[19]

Towards the end of development for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, its developers had begun planning for the next mainline Resident Evil game. A decision was made by the developers to set it as a direct continuation of Resident Evil 7 and Ethan's story arc, as they had developed an attachment to Ethan and saw potential in him as a character. Producer Peter Fabiano stated that the team wanted players to experience Village from Ethan's perspective. Sato described "Village" as the story of Ethan and "the entirety of who he is." ^[18][20]

Ethan's face is never shown within the gameplay for Resident Evil 7 or Resident Evil Village due to players controlling Ethan from a first-person perspective. However, the team did create facial features for his character model, which can be seen by other artists and modders.^[21][4] An unused version of Ethan's character model, hidden within the game's assets, has fully developed facial features.^[22] In the expansion "Shadows of Rose" for Resident Evil Village, Ethan appears in a third-person mode and despite attempts to obscure his face, players could see it by performing certain actions.^[23] In 2022, despite third person mode being included in the chapter, Ethan's face is still hidden.^[24]

Ethan was voiced by American actor Todd Soley for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil Village^[1][2] and by Hidenobu Kiuchi in the Japanese versions of the games.^[1][3] Ethan's appearance was based on Tunisian model Yaya Chamki.^[4]

Ethan has received positive reviews from critics for his role as a relatable "everyman".^[25] Chris Moyse from Destructoid and Liana Ruppert from Game Informer, credited the character's role in Resident Evil 7 as a factor behind the video game's popularity and ongoing commercial success.^[20][26][27] Josh West from GamesRadar+ suggested that Ethan's return to headline a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7 was unprecedented and noted that Capcom had never previously entrusted a single protagonist with back-to-back installments of the mainline Resident Evil series.^[28] Some video game journalists, such as Ray Porreca of Destructoid thought that the "murky" environments of Resident Evil 7 conflicted with Ethan's slightly formal attire, delineating him as "what a modern hero can look like".^[26] Porreca described Ethan as at odds with conventional Resident Evil protagonists, being an unskilled everyman who survives against overwhelming odds and thereby subverting player's expectations of "a game Resident Evil 7".^[26] The Escapist's Audric Figueroa agreed that Ethan is very different than previous Resident Evil protagonists, who are portrayed as heroic law enforcement agents fighting against corporations, as he is motivated by his personal relationship with Mia.^[7] Figueroa suggested that a mundane family man who is eager to rescue his wife is the "perfect protagonist" for the story, where domestic violence both "literal and metaphorical" forms the core of the game's "encounter philosophy".^[7]

In contrast, several reviewers have criticized Ethan for his lack of personality and character development. Game Informer's Andrew Reiner considered Ethan "as transparent as the specters he encounters", noting an incongruency between the character's occasional reactions to inconsequential details but mostly silent nature in the face of danger.^[29] Hannes Rossow from German publication GamePro was highly critical of the Ethan's perceived lack of personality in Resident Evil 7, writing that Ethan's prominence in Village had dampened his enthusiasm for the earlier game and expressed a desire for another, more developed protagonist.^[22] Meanwhile, Gene Park of The Washington Post called Ethan an "idiot" for his reactions to the events of Village, arguing that Ethan "has no character arc" and "isn't likely to enter the pantheon of great video game characters."^[2] Others have cited Ethan as one of the worst protagonists in the Resident Evil series. For instance, Ashley Bardhan from Kotaku compared Ethan to James Sunderland from Silent Hill, criticizing both characters for being "bumbling" and "regrettably uninteresting" to the extent that she was unable to find anything about them to care about compared to their missing wives,^[30] while Matthew Bryd of Den of Geek felt Ethan was the worst protagonist of a Resident Evil title and even gaming in general, citing "bad voice acting, bad writing, and questionable lore", as well as further character flaws.^[31] Conversely, Andy Kelly from PC Gamer and Jade King from TheGamer opined that being "boring" or "generic" is Ethan's most positive contribution to the player's gameplay experience, given the context of the dangerous environments and characters he faces.^[32][33]

As a result of Ethan's faceless presentation and lack of background information provided by Capcom, he is often discussed in fan theories about his true nature.^[21][34] Ian Walker from Kotaku was amused by Capcom's persistent attempts to hide Ethan's face behind the weapons he wields within promotional art.^[21] GamePro's Hannes Rossow called the attempts to maintain the illusion of Ethan as a faceless character absurd, as the character's actual face is known to exist within the game assets of Resident Evil 7,^[22] while Moises Taveras of Paste did not feel that Ethan belonged in the game world due to his ambiguous backstory and lack of physical appearance.^[35]

Some journalists have noted a tendency throughout the games for Ethan to suffer from serious injury or complete dismemberment of his limbs, particularly his hands, then quickly heal or re-attach them with little effort.^{[36][37][38][39]} In her discussion of allusions between Resident Evil 7 and horror cinema as part of the former's use of intertextuality, Dawn Stobbart described multiple instances where Ethan's journey mirrors that of scenes from the 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Ethan's predicament during the dinner table scene with the Baker family is analyzed as the most overt example: like recurring The Texas Chain Saw Massacre franchise character Sally Hardesty, Ethan is seated at the foot of the table as he awakens to a grotesque feast seemingly made from human entrails.^[40]

• Stobbart, Dawn (2019). Videogames and Horror: From Amnesia to Zombies, Run!. University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-1-786-83437-9.
• McGreevy, Alan; Fawcett, Christina; Ouellette, Marc (2020). Arno Görgen; Stefan Heinrich Simond (eds.). Krankheit in Digitalen Spielen: Interdisziplinäre Betrachtungen. transcript-Verlag. The House and the Infected Body: The Metonymy of Resident Evil 7. ISBN 978-3-8376-5328-1.

• Ethan Winters at the Internet Movie Database