Claire Redfield[a] is a character in Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan), a survival horror series created by the Japanese company Capcom.

In Resident Evil 2, Claire arrives in Raccoon City, a settlement in the Midwestern United States that has been overrun by zombies, to find her missing brother Chris Redfield.

She was exemplified as a female character who is as competent and skilled as her male counterparts, though she was criticized for being a "sexless object" and for her alternate costume in Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (2015).

Claire Redfield was introduced alongside the police officer Leon S. Kennedy as one of two playable protagonists in Capcom's 1998 survival horror video game Resident Evil 2.

[15][16] Claire was developed from an earlier character named Elza Walker, the original female lead of the game's first prototype,[15][17] who is a blonde motorcyclist who crashed her bike into Raccoon Police Station, where she has fled for safety.

[21] For Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (2015), Claire was written as practical and aggressive to contrast with her partner, the young, immature, and easily scared Moira Burton.

According to the producer Michiteru Okabe, they had not reduced the two characters to their gender and had instead given them unique personalities, which he said reflected positively on the video-game industry's direction at the time.

[2][3][4] In Resident Evil: Revelations 2, Claire was voiced by an actor using the pseudonym James Baker,[5] while Ananda Jacobs performed motion capture for the character.

[27][29][30] After defeating William Birkin, Claire arrives at NEST, an Umbrella underground facility, and finds a vaccine to cure Sherry, who has become infected with the G-virus.

[27][30] Claire escapes from the facility on a train, along with Leon and Sherry, before Raccoon City is destroyed by a nuclear strike as part of a U.S. government cover-up.

[27][28] Mikami, the lead producer of both Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999) and the concurrently-produced Code: Veronica, wanted each game to highlight an existing female character in the series.

[32] Code: Veronica is set three months after Claire's escape from Raccoon City; she is apprehended while trying to find Chris and raiding a European Umbrella facility.

[34] The game follows Claire and Barry Burton's daughter Moira as they are kidnapped, infected with the T-Phobos virus, and trapped on a mysterious, abandoned, prison island.

[40] Claire has also appeared with Leon in the Netflix series Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness (2021), in which TerraSave staff member encounters a mysterious image a young boy draws in a country she visited while providing refugee assistance.

: The Guide to Great Video Game Design described Claire as a perfect example of the theme "opposites attract" in Resident Evil 2 as a companion character who is capable of anything, while Sherry is a "defenseless little girl".

[66] Other critics praised Claire's role as a strong female lead character;[67][68][69] Syfy's Brittany Vincent described her as a "strong-willed young woman who's tough as nails and ready to take on any challenge".

[68] Critics have commented Claire is not oversexualized in her initial appearances,[70][71] and she has been exemplified as a female character from the series who is not exclusively evaluated on the basis of her gender.

[73] The academic writer Jenny Platz said women in video games are generally not shown with any gender fluidity, and that Claire is reduced to a "sexless object" who is comparable with the "typical trope" of "a virgin or tomboy".