Warning: Contains (very minor) spoilers for the ending of Resident Evil Requiem.
In an intersection of my particular interests that I most certainly didn’t have on my 2026 bingo card, fans of the Resident Evil franchise – and in particular its recently-released ninth main entry, Resident Evil Requiem – have suddenly become obsessed with a very different favourite of mine: sci-fi otome gacha mobile game Love and Deepspace.
Often when fans of a well-regarded industry staple like RE take a sudden interest in a newcomer like LaDS, especially one that’s very openly female-gaze-coded, it’s to dunk on something they find objectionable. So I was very pleasantly surprised to learn that members of the Resi community have in fact taken to LaDS because of a sudden fondness for one of the characters – and it just so happens to be my own clear favourite husbando, aloof yet kindly doctor Zayne.
So, what made the Resi fandom decide to adopt LaDS in general and Zayne in particular? Well, it all comes down to a small scene in RE9 that gained a disproportionate amount of attention: a slight gesture co-protagonist Leon Kennedy makes in the game’s good ending that was interpreted by many players as him removing a wedding ring from his inner jacket pocket, presumably placing it back on his finger now that the danger of the situation has finally passed. This all happens while Leon’s back is to the camera, incidentally, so there’s a good deal of ambiguity at play here; but nevertheless, fandom did what fandom does and ran with the idea.
Officials at Capcom have gone back and forth on whether this was intentional or not, with game director Koshi Nakanishi initially dismissing the popular fan interpretation, but later electing to stir up further speculation by appearing to lean into the idea. Either way, though, there’s no putting that genie back in the bottle, and conjecture is now rife as to who Leon might have married during his 13-year-long absence from the games’ timeline. Ada? Claire? Ashley? Chris? Someone altogether more surprising? Given that Leon has generated a sort of adorably awkward chemistry with basically every other character he’s shared a scene with since 1998, the possibilities are abundant.
But just what does this have to do with Love and Deepspace? Well, even if you don’t play the game, its enormous popularity means that anyone who spends sufficient time on social media is probably familiar with the lovingly realised, hyper-detailed 3D models of the five love interests – and post-Requiem, it didn’t take eager shippers long to point out that LaDS’ Bachelor #2, Zayne, bears a strong similarity to the theoretical child of Leon and his long-time frenemy-with-benefits Ada Wong.
There is a certain resemblance between Zayne’s sharp features and those of Ada’s latest model in the RE Engine games, for sure; and while the likeness to Leon is a bit more tenuous, assuming that a preference for curtained fringes and practical yet dapper suits is genetic among bundles of pixels, I can definitely see that too.
There’s also the remarkable coincidence of both Zayne and RE9-era Leon having prominent scarring on their hands as a major plot point, although I’m not sure most Resi fans have got that far in their reasoning yet. Regardless, though, those exhibiting a tongue-in-cheek desperation to “prove” somehow that their ship is the one that sailed off-screen are going all-in on the theory that Zayne is the offspring of a Leon/Ada marriage. If nothing else, Leon’s seemingly bottomless well of awful puns surely means that he’s a prime candidate for fatherhood.
As a Resi fan who’s also well-versed in LaDS lore, I declare that there are pros and cons to this theory, as you’d expect. Leon, Ada, and Zayne are a rare group of video game characters for whom we have pretty firm canonical birth years, so as of October 2026 when RE9 takes place, we know that Leon is around 49, Ada a few years older at 52-ish, and Zayne a mere babe of five (since he won’t start exchanging longing looks with LaDS’ heroine until far-off future year 2048). So the Wong-Kennedys would be older parents, for sure, but it’s not totally unfeasible, especially if they managed to drag their whole will-they-won’t-they schtick out well into middle-age, which feels plausible.
Also, at least in LaDS’ English localisation, Zayne doesn’t actually have a canonical last name, so I mean… it could easily be Kennedy, or Wong, or some hyphenated mash-up of the two, certainly. Unfortunately for this theory, though, he is literally the only character in Love and Deepspace whose parents are both identified – and are in fact still alive, even making an occasional appearance in the story. And while they aren’t important enough to the plot to have names, they do have a firmly established backstory: both are doctors, like their son, and have spent most of the past several decades in far-flung places providing humanitarian emergency medical outreach — which makes them seem distinctively un-Leon-and-Ada-like.
So on balance it’s starting to look like Capcom and Infold haven’t actually been secretly collaborating on perhaps the least likely but arguably best video game crossover ever – but I do love a shared universe theory, the more unhinged the better, so I’m onboard even if my inner lorekeeper can’t stop pointing out these pesky contradictions. Yes, even though I’ve always personally preferred the idea of Leon ending up with either Claire, Ashley, or Luis (sob) – this is the first time I’ve seriously considered dabbling in Aeon (that’s Ada/Leon shipping, for the uninitiated).
Wait, I’ve just realised: “Aeon’s Canon” was, I kid you not, the seemingly arbitrary and nonsensical name of the new Zayne card released for LaDS’ second anniversary back in January! I mean: “Aeon” is “canon”? I take it all back, this cannot be a coincidence and is evidently proof of a deep-level multi-developer conspiracy…
Other LaDS fans are also revelling in the unexpected fun of finding their favourite game in the Resident Evil fandom’s spotlight, with some even pointing out that Zayne’s personal Mr Hyde – his alt-universe doppelganger and occasional main-timeline bodysnatcher Dawnbreaker, a man ostracised as a suspected serial killer when he is in fact euthanising victims of an incurable cosmic infection just before they transform into dangerous monsters – does kind of feel like he originates from the world of Resident Evil, actually, so who’s to say that isn’t where the connection lies? It’s all coming together.
