The tarantula from hell

What causes it in them? I never played/watched

A thing called the G-Virus, it mutates humans/animals or even plants into awful things, most commonly zombies or skinless creatures called Lickers. Then those things can bite or implant spawn into other things and it just spreads and spreads and it's such a great series plot wise, I recommend playing it/watching it

Ive seen a bit of the rez 2 remake I think. Does the previous game give you more intro to what's going on, or are they unrelated?

I love that remake they did such an amazing job on retaining the story while improving the graphics. They can all be played separately but every game gives you more detail into the story and origins of the G-virus and what happened after. One of my favs is Resident Evil 7, which isn't even a major part of the series but the "creep" factor is good and it shows more about how ordinary peoples lives were ruined because of the virus.

The graphics for the remake did seem pretty good. I may have to give it a proper watch-through to see if I can't follow the story and more about the virus. It seemed like a decent horror game at any rate, particularly with the Mr X guy

Love Mr X, it's not up everyones alley so if you don't like it then no sweat