Resident Evil Resistance stars a poor bastard named 'Martin Sandwich'

(Image credit: Capcom)

Capcom announced earlier today that the team-based survival horror game Project Resistance, now known as Resident Evil Resistance, will be included with Resident Evil 3 Remake when it comes out next year. And now it's introduced us to one of the characters who will attempt to survive and escape its diabolical maze of horrors. 

His name is Martin Sandwich.

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The young master Sandwich is a skilled engineer and mechanic, according to Capcom's description, which is quite an accomplishment considering that he appears to be about 12 years old. But even more impressive is that name, which wouldn't be out of place in a lineup that includes Bobson Dugnutt, Mike Truk, Todd Bonzalez, and Onson Sweemey.

It's a good fit, right?

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"Martin Sandwich" might seem like the inevitable outcome of Japanese developers trying to come up with American names, and I kind of love the idea of some poor guy, hired three weeks ago, stuck at a desk in the back corner struggling to crank out handles that will sound perfectly normal and unremarkable to gamers in the US, like, uhh, Raul Chamgerlain. 

But the far greater likelihood is that it's an intentional reference to Jill Sandwich, from the original Resident Evil, which was helpfully explained to me by Andy Kelly. Know Your Meme has the details, but the video pretty much tells the whole story:

Yeah, that's too much of a coincidence to be unintentional, especially since the other characters have relatively innocuous names (or at least, nothing up to the level of, say, Sleve McDichael): Samuel Jordan is a 21-year-old boxer, January Van Sant (okay, that's a little exotic), also 21, is a hacker, Valerie Harmon is a 23-year-old grad school student, the 25-year-old Tyrone Henry is a firefighter, and 22-year-old Becca Woolett is a park ranger. 

Sandwich, for the record (do his friends call him Sammy Man, I wonder?), is 19, and also appears to be a late addition to the squad: Neither he nor Becca were among the survivors who appears in the gameplay overview trailer released in September.

Resident Evil Resistance, as part of Resident Evil 3 Remake, will be out on April 3, 2020. Details are up at residentevil.com.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.