Highlights
- Leon Kennedy's best appearance in the Resident Evil franchise is in Resident Evil 4, where his character is developed and he becomes iconic.
- Leon's first appearance in Resident Evil 2 is crucial to the canon and establishes his origins as an important character in the horror gaming world.
- While Leon's appearances in Darkside Chronicles, Resident Evil 6, and Re:Verse & Revelations 2 offer fan service, they lack meaningful character development and story relevance.
Of all the major recurring characters within the terrifying world of Resident Evil, few are as important to both the story and the fanbase as Leon Kennedy. From his humble origins as a rookie cop unwittingly stranded in an infested Raccoon City to the man who kills the infected President of the United States, Leon has become a larger-than-life figure within the Resident Evil canon.
Not every appearance of Leon Kennedy within Resident Evil is equal, though. There are some games where he has a much larger role within the story, some where he takes more of a backseat, and some where everything is non-canon so nothing that happens to Leon actually matters at all.
S Tier
Resident Evil 4: The follow-up to Leon Kennedy's debut appearance stands out as not only one of the best stories ever told in the Resident Evil franchise but Leon's best appearance as well. With Leon being the sole protagonist of RE4, the game has much more space to delve into his character and develop Leon as a unique personality, which is really what's made the character so iconic to this day.
Resident Evil 2: Leon's first appearance can't be overstated in its importance to the Resident Evil canon and horror gaming as a whole. Leon is really only in a little over half of this game since the complete experience involves going through once as him and another time as Claire Redfield, but RE2 does a fantastic job establishing Leon's origins and the reasons that he's become indispensable as a character within this world.
A Tier
Darkside Chronicles: The strangely canon on-rails shooter Darkside Chronicles both retells Leon's story in Resident Evil 2 and also fills in the gap for Leon's story between RE2 and Resident Evil 4 through its Operation Javier scenario. Overall, the Operation Javier story feels like Leon's most interesting appearance outside the two most classic games, particularly for fans who want to see Leon in the transitory state between rookie cop and special agent.
B Tier
Resident Evil 6: Leon is one of the various protagonists that RE6 regularly switches in between. The story told through Leon in this game suffers from a lot of the same problems that the Resident Evil 6 era, in general, suffers from, which is that the story has just become too gaudy for its own good. Leon also winds up feeling like a bit of a nothing character in the grand scheme, with most of the important things going on during his story taking place because of Helena or Ada, with Leon himself getting little in the way of character development or big reveals.
C Tier
Re:Verse & Revelations 2: Leon's appearances as a playable multiplayer character in both Resident Evil Re:Verse and Revelations 2 are great fan service, but nothing more. Neither relates to his character in any meaningful way, which wasn't a requirement for these types of game modes, but it just doesn't stand out like the other entries above. It would have been interesting to actually see Leon with some kind of story role in Resident Evil Revelations 2 since the story takes place between RE5 and RE6, which is another gap in Leon's story where the character has no canon appearances.
D Tier
Operation Raccoon City: This is the only game in which Leon appears where he's part of the story, but that story is non-canon. That alone makes this appearance feel fairly underwhelming because nothing that happens really matters, and when the fact that Leon can actually be killed in this non-canon story is factored in, the whole appearance winds up feeling cheap. Combine that with the fact that this is one of the most universally panned Resident Evil games ever made and this feels easily like the weakest Leon appearance.