Ethan Winters[a] 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 ruined estate in Louisiana.

[11] In the expansion "Shadows of Rose" for Resident Evil Village, Ethan appears in a third-person mode and despite attempts to obscure his face, players could see it by performing certain actions.

Later, Ethan discovers that he had died during his initial meeting with Jack Baker in Resident Evil 7, but the mold—a kind of fungus used to create humanoid creatures—had given him the capacity to regenerate.

[14] Sixteen years after the events of Resident Evil Village, the DLC expansion Shadows of Rose focuses on a Rosemary's teenage experience with her molded powers as the result of the mutated fungus, Megamycete.

[27] Ray Porreca of Destructoid thought that Ethan's clean-cut attire was a sharp contrast with the "murky" environments of Resident Evil 7, praising his markedly different style compared to previous protagonists of the series.

[16] Figueroa suggested that a mundane family man who is eager to rescue his wife is the "perfect protagonist" for the story, where domestic violence both "literal and metaphorical" forms the core of the game's "encounter philosophy".

Game Informer's Andrew Reiner criticized the mismatch between Ethan's occasional reactions versus his otherwise silent nature, calling him "as transparent as the specters he encounters".

"[2] Hannes Rossow from GamePro felt that Ethan lacked personality and dampened his enjoyment of the games, expressing desire for a protagonist with more character.

[30] Conversely, Andy Kelly from PC Gamer and Jade King from TheGamer opined that being "boring" or "generic" is Ethan's most positive contribution to the player's gameplay experience, given the context of the dangerous environments and characters he faces.

[10][33] Ian Walker from Kotaku was amused by Capcom's persistent attempts to hide Ethan's face behind the weapons he wields within promotional art.

[34] Some journalists have noted a tendency throughout the games for Ethan to suffer from serious injury or complete dismemberment of his limbs, particularly his hands, then quickly heal or re-attach them with little effort.

[35][36][37][38] In her discussion of allusions between Resident Evil 7 and horror cinema as part of the former's use of intertextuality, Dawn Stobbart described multiple instances where Ethan's journey mirrors that of scenes from the 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.