Did the Resident Evil series have an impact on the zombie genre?

[Zacmac90]

I know zombies were already scary and stuff before Resident Evil but did Resident Evil help make them even more notorious than they already were since the undead were heavily used for the majority of Resident Evil.

Bonus Question- What character would u say best represents the Resident Evil series?

 

[AgentZero]

I don't think so. If anything Zombies have gotten less scary overtime. (Unless that's just me coming out of the womb with Night of the living dead part 3.) Although I have to admit, I'm pretty scared of the RE1 zombies. But I don't think it affected anything else.