>>718276503
See >>718276512
He was brought back to be a shounen-esque rival for Chris. Because the guy who wrote in for Wesker to be brought back did a lot of work in that field and recognized the power of a rival.
Wesker was not meant to be the main antagonist, he was meant to act in parallel to Chris. CV even has a moment where it offers a "What if", as in, "What if Chris and Wesker worked together?".
In the revised Alexia vs Wesker scene in CVX, Wesker spots Chris and the exchange is:
>W: Chris!
>C: Wesker!
>W: Chris! Since you're one of my best men...
And at that moment, he's excited, he's directed to sound like he's cooling off from an adrenaline high, and then his voice lowers in a taunting way, not unlike his final scenes in the game.
>W: I'll let you handle this.
It is a fascinating moment, and Wesker from 4 on would NEVER do anything like that. He's a completely different character by that point.
>>718276651
Probably a few, but most of its visual influences are from films.
It is worth noting that staff from Char's Counterattack did work on RE- 4D Executer, another FLAGSHIP project, and Kamiya himself is a fan of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and included a reference to it in RE2 (the famous 'JoJo' locker that Marvin is sitting in front of).
>>718276574
Yes, he was. He was never mentioned before, but that works to the game's favor.
As I stated earlier, Marcus is someone who is forgotten and subsumed into his creation, much like Birkin. Zero is the story of people who have no stories, their identities and lives erased. Marcus, Billy, Birkin. Thus, Marcus' retconning actually gels with the game's ideas.
And again- what does that mean for Wesker if that's what happened to Birkin and Marcus? UC even calls back to this with Wesker's commentary on Sergei's transformation reflecting who he was on the inside.