Ethan Winters

is a character in Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan), a 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 is also the protagonist of the 2021 sequel Resident Evil Village, where he is forced to locate his kidnapped daughter 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, with some praising his relatability, while others have criticized him for a lack of emotional range and character development. Conception and creation In Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, players take Ethan's viewpoint as an embodied presence as opposed to an on-screen avatar. The game's goal for players is to advance the narrative while keeping him alive with limited resources. According to Morimasa Sato, who was a writer for Resident Evil 7 and the director of the Resident Evil Village, the development team initially thought of Ethan as merely "a camera for the player" and "transparent".