In video games Nemesis first appears in the 1999
PlayStation game
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis as the title character and primary antagonist. The product of years of research, the prototype is deployed by the Umbrella Corporation as a field test to hunt and kill the STARS police team before they can expose Umbrella's activity in the Arklay mountains. The protagonist,
Jill Valentine, first encounters the Nemesis outside Raccoon City's police station where it kills
Brad Vickers and then pursues her, uttering "
STARS..." on sight. The Nemesis continues to stalk Valentine throughout the game, attacking with physical blows and grabs, and later, armed with a rocket launcher. After losing its overcoat as a result of heavy damage, the Nemesis mutates, and gains the ability to attack with long, extendable tentacles. Despite later being doused in acid, the Nemesis continues its pursuit, and mutates into a much larger, tentacled monster after absorbing a dead Tyrant, gaining the ability to spew poison. Jill finally defeats the Nemesis using a
rail cannon, and then depending on the choice of the player, she either kills it once and for all by unloading her weapons into it, or leaves it to die in the nuclear explosion that destroys Raccoon City. After its initial appearance, it shows up in other
Resident Evil titles such as
Resident Evil Survivor 2 – Code: Veronica, in which it will chase the player if they fail to complete a level before the time limit expires and kill them instantly if it hits them. It can also be fought as a secret
boss armed with a rocket launcher if the player has met the proper conditions upon finishing the game. The Nemesis returns for the
Resident Evil 3 chapter of
Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, in which it pursues Jill in the same manner as the original game and mutates into its secondary form as a boss. The Nemesis also appears in
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, in which its programming is damaged and Umbrella dispatches a task force to find a NE-Alpha parasite to repair it. Once the parasite is found, they defeat Nemesis and inject it with the parasite. In the game, it uses a gatling gun for the fight and is mainly based on its film counterpart. However, once the task force completes their mission, the Nemesis awakens to find its rocket launcher and proceeds to hunt after the STARS police team. In the 2020 remake of
Resident Evil 3, Nemesis returns as the game's first boss fight, wielding a flamethrower. Nemesis also appeared as a playable character in
Resident Evil: Resistance and in
Resident Evil Re:Verse, a companion game to
Resident Evil Village. The character has been featured in other games outside of the
Resident Evil franchise as well, such as in the Capcom title
Under the Skin alongside Jill, and serves as a boss the player must steal coins from in a Raccoon City-inspired level. In an interview,
Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds producer Ryouta Niitsuma stated a desire to use the Nemesis in the title as a "monster-type" character from the
Resident Evil series, but was dropped after considering it too "grotesque and disgusting" and in consideration of
ESRB ratings. The character would instead appear briefly in the game's ending sequence for
the Hulk. However, despite the initial concerns about its inclusion, the Nemesis appears as a playable character in
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, an updated version of
Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The Nemesis returns as a playable character in
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. In the story, following the Convergence, it is captured by
A.I.M.brella leader
M.O.D.O.K. and reprogrammed as his enforcer; it later battles and is defeated by
Chris Redfield and
Mike Haggar. In the tactical role-playing game
Project X Zone, Nemesis appears as a rival unit. He reappeared as a recurring rival unit in
Project X Zone 2 as well. Nemesis appeared in an online multiplayer
battle royale game Knives Out as a costume from July 29 to August 12, 2021. Nemesis, along with
Leon S. Kennedy and Jill Valentine, appeared in
Dead by Daylight as playable characters. Cards based on Nemesis appear in the
SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters series. He was also included in the 2012 mobile games
Minna to BIOHAZARD Clan Master in both its regular and damaged states from
Resident Evil 3. In the 2019 game
TEPPEN, a card for the character was added in its "Day of Nightmares" expansion, and later another in its "A Dark Agenda" expansion, this one modeled after its appearance in the
Resident Evil 3 remake. His outfit also appears in
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster (2024) for
Frank West. In printed trading card media, he appears in the
Bandai produced game
Resident Evil: The Deck Building Game.
In film The Nemesis is featured in the 2004 film,
Resident Evil: Apocalypse, portrayed by Matthew G. Taylor. The character's design is mostly unchanged, brandishing a rocket launcher and similar attire, but with the addition of a forearm-mounted rail gun, modeled after a heavily modified
minigun. Writer and producer
Paul W. S. Anderson noted that the gun's addition was inspired by the idea of the Nemesis "walking around with a gigantic, powerful weapon in each hand and almost indecisive as to which one to use". The costume for Nemesis was created by Kropserkel Inc. and PJFX Studios, and stands roughly tall, weighing nearly . While The Nemesis' design remained similar, the character itself was expanded upon, now portrayed as a
tragic villain. Formerly Matt Addison (portrayed by
Eric Mabius), a survivor of the events of the
first film, was infected with the T-virus after being scratched by a Licker and later captured and experimented upon by the Umbrella Corporation. Transformed into the Nemesis, he is sent to kill the surviving members of STARS, but remembers his humanity after fighting
Alice, and fights alongside the protagonists towards the film's conclusion. The Nemesis is eventually crushed beneath a crashing helicopter, and is later killed by the nuclear explosion that destroys Raccoon City. The comic also introduces characters from
Resident Evil 2 into the storyline, which results in several face-offs between the Nemesis and the mutated
William Birkin throughout the series. During these fights, Nemesis remembers before being experimented on his life as a boxer whose family had been infected and killed by a sadistic Umbrella executive. Encountering the man after defeating Birkin, Nemesis bites his head clean off in a fit of rage. In 2000,
Simon & Schuster published a
novelization of
Resident Evil 3, written by
S. D. Perry. Though left unchanged for the most part, the Nemesis is immediately recognized as a modified Tyrant in the novel, which Jill dubs the "Nemesis" after thinking about why it hunts her. Instead of mutating due to having taken damage, the Nemesis transforms voluntarily towards the conclusion of the story in its pursuit of Jill, with its second form from the game being its actual appearance beneath the coat. A novelization of
Apocalypse was released in 2004, written by
Keith R. A. DeCandido. In the book, Matt and the Nemesis act as separate personalities in the same body, both aware, but with the Nemesis dominant. Matt eventually regains control after his body is impaled on a metal shard while fighting Alice, by showing the Nemesis his memories of Umbrella's experimentation upon "them". The Nemesis is later mentioned in the 2007 novelization of
Resident Evil: Extinction, in which antagonist Doctor Isaacs considers the Nemesis both his greatest success and his greatest failure, hating mention of it and blaming its defection and destruction upon Umbrella's desire to immediately field test it. ==Promotion and reception==