Resident Evil: Little Known Details About Leon Kennedy (2024)

Just like any long-running franchise should, Resident Evil has a sizable cast of iconic, beloved characters, most of whom have been around for almost 30 years now. Debuting all the way back in 1996, the first Resident Evil may not have had the best writing or voice acting in the world, but it still managed to deliver two iconic protagonists in the form of Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. Thus began a long trend of Resident Evil games including some of the most well-known characters in all gaming, most of which are still just as relevant today as they were upon their first introduction.

Every Resident Evil fan has their own personal favorite legacy character, and those can vary wildly from smaller parts like Barry Burton, to larger-than-life figures like Albert Wesker. But when it comes to fans who grew up in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it's Leon S. Kennedy who's the most likely pick for their favorite Resident Evil character, and there's a lot about the protagonist that even die-hard fans might not know.

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Leon Kennedy Was Always Destined to be in a Resident Evil Sequel

After the first Resident Evil released in 1996, Capcom began working on a sequel almost immediately. Slated for a March 1997 release, Capcom became increasingly dissatisfied with the state of this sequel, and made the tough decision to completely axe this build on the game and start completely from scratch. Dubbed Resident Evil 1.5, not much from this prototype sequel remains in the final product of Resident Evil 2, except Leon Kennedy, who had been present from the very beginning. Looking pretty much the same as his final iteration, this original version of Leon Kennedy was still an R.C.P.D. recruit, but one that was there during the start Raccoon City outbreak.

Resident Evil's Leon Kennedy Was Designed to be Completely Different to Chris Redfield

In a 2009 post on PlatinumGames titled "Greetings!" Resident Evil 2's director Hideki Kamiya gave a little insight into the design of Leon Kennedy. According to the blog post, Kamiya wanted to make Resident Evil 2's protagonist completely different from the first game's "blunt, tough-guy" Chris Redfield. Though Kamiya stated that he loves that archetype and its use in the first Resident Evil, he wanted something different for the sequel, and that's where Leon Kennedy came into creation, designed to have weaknesses but still be "on the ball."

Leon Kennedy's Design May Have Influenced Devil May Cry's Dante

Resident Evil 4 had an incredibly difficult development cycle, going through a total of four different iterations before its final release. One of these iterations was a third-person hack-and-slash action game that didn't really fit the Resident Evil mythos, but had some real potential. That game would eventually become Devil May Cry, and while Dante was originally Tony Redgrave in the Resident Evil 4 build, his visual design shares a great number of similarities with Leon Kennedy's Resident Evil 4 design. Though it hasn't been confirmed whether Hideki Kamiya was inspired by Leon Kennedy when it came to creating Dante, the likeness is certainly there.

Leon Kennedy Hasn't Had the Best History With Relationships

According to the original manual for Resident Evil 2, Leon Kennedy is still suffering through a pretty bad break-up by the time the game starts, with it being the reason he decided to venture out to Raccoon City in the first place. This break-up might have saved his life, because rather than get a good night's sleep in before his first shift at the R.C.P.D., Leon decided to get drunk, leading to him being late, and thus missing the initial stages of the Raccoon City outbreak.

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