Plot

Setting

The game is a direct sequel to the Resident Evil se- ries,*_{[10] and continues chronologically after Resident} Evil 4.*_{[11]The player characters and protagonists are}

Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar,*_{[4]and the game takes} place in 2009, eleven years after the events of the original Resident Evil.

During the game's events, Chris is a member of a group known as Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA), and is sent to investigate a terrorist bio-organic weapon (BOW) threat in an Africandesert area in Ki- juju, that serves as the game's setting.*_{[4]The antagonists} of the game includeAlbert Wesker, a reoccurring char- acter in the series, and Excella Gionne, a relative of the Tricell Pharmaceutical Company's founder, who operates the company's African branch.*_{[12]Ozwell E. Spencer,} the founder of Umbrella Corporation and a key figure in the background story of the series since the original Res- ident Evil, is also included in a flashback.*_[13]

Story

Five years after the events of Resident Evil 4, Chris Red- field, a former S.T.A.R.S member and now part of the BSAA, is dispatched to Kijuju, Africa to work withSheva Alomarto apprehend Ricardo Irving before he can sell a BOW on the black market. Upon arriving, they discover the locals have been converted by parasites into Majini, and that the members of the BSAA's Alpha team have been killed. Chris and Sheva are rescued by BSAA's Delta team, whose membership includes Sheva's mentor Josh Stone. In the data provided by Josh, Chris sees a photograph ofJill Valentine, his old partner, presumed dead after a confrontation withAlbert Wesker. Chris, Sheva, and Delta team close in on Irving, but he man- ages to escape with the help of a hooded figure, leav- ing behind documents that lead Chris and Sheva to oil fields in the marshlands where Irving's deal is to occur. They soon discover this was a diversion created by Irv- ing to allow the deal to take place. Chris and Sheva at- tempt to regroup with Delta team, but at the rendezvous, find the team slaughtered by a BOW; Sheva cannot find Josh among the bodies. Chris refuses to report to head- quarters, revealing his determination to learn if Jill is still alive.

Continuing through the marshlands, they find Josh in- jured but safe, and with his help track down Irving's boat. Irving injects himself with a variant of the parasite, Las Plagas, and mutates into a colossal octopus-like beast. Chris and Sheva defeat him, and with his dying words, directs the pair to a nearby cave to learn more. The cave, home of the Ndipaya tribe, is the source of the flower used to create the Progenitor virus, which led to the cre- ation of the T- and G-viruses, and has now been used to form a new, incredibly powerful strain called Uroboros. Chris and Sheva find evidence that Tricell, the company funding the BSAA, had taken over a former Umbrella un- derground laboratory and continued Umbrella's research. In the facility are thousands of capsules holding human test subjects. Chris discovers one of the capsules be- longs to Jill, but when they search it, they find the capsule

3.7. RESIDENT EVIL 5 129

empty. As they leave, they discover Tricell CEO, Excella Gionne has been plotting with Wesker to unleash a num- ber of missiles with the Uroboros virus across the globe (it is eventually revealed that Wesker hopes to sort out a chosen few from the chaos of infection and rule over them, creating his own new breed of humanity). Chris and Sheva pursue Excella, but are stopped by Wesker and the hooded figure, later revealed to be Jill, enslaved by a mind-control device on her chest. Excella and Wesker es- cape to a Tricell oil tanker while Chris and Sheva fight Jill, eventually subduing her and removing the device from her chest. After a brief reunion, Jill orders Chris to follow Wesker.

As Chris and Sheva make their way aboard the tanker, they come across Excella, who escapes, but drops a case of syringes. Sheva holds on to a number of them. When Chris and Sheva arrive on the main deck of the tanker, Wesker, through the tanker's intercom, reveals he has be- trayed and infected Excella with Uroboros. She mutates into a giant monster which Chris and Sheva eventually defeat. Jill radios in and informs Chris and Sheva that Wesker must regularly take precisely measured doses of a virus to maintain his superhuman strength and speed; a larger or smaller dose would act as poison for him. Sheva then realizes the syringes she recovered from Excella are doses of that drug. Chris and Sheva follow Wesker to a bomber aboard the tanker loaded with missiles containing the Uroboros virus. Eventually, the two are able to subdue Wesker long enough to inject him with additional doses. Wesker attempts to escape on the bomber, but is followed by Chris and Sheva who disable the bomber, causing it to crash land in a volcano. An enraged Wesker exposes him- self to Uroboros, and pursues Chris and Sheva through the volcano. Chris and Sheva fight and weaken Wesker to the point where he falls into the lava. They are then rescued by a helicopter piloted by Jill and Josh. In his dy- ing breaths, Wesker attempts to drag the helicopter into the volcano, but Chris and Sheva kill him withrocket- propelled grenades,*_{[14]before he is able to do so. In} the final cutscene of the game, Chris ponders whether it is truly worth fighting. He looks at Sheva and Jill and de- cides that it is worth it in order to live in a world without fear.

3.7.3

Development

Capcom officially announced Resident Evil 5 on July 20, 2005.*_{[15]Jun Takeuchi, the director ofOnimushaand} producer ofLost Planet: Extreme Condition, took over producer duties from Hiroyuki Kobayashi. Keiji Ina- fune, who served as promotional producer forResident Evil 2and executive producer for thePlayStation 2ver- sion of Resident Evil 4, oversaw the project. In Febru- ary 2007, members of Capcom'sClover Studiowere also called upon to help develop the game. However, many developers from the studio moved on to work on the Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, which debuted

for theWii.*_[16]*_{[17]Several staff members who also} worked on the original Resident Evil were involved in development.*_{[10]The game's scenario was written by} Haruo Murata and Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, based on a story idea by concept director Kenichi Ueda.*_{[18] Takeuchi} announced the game would utilize the same gameplay model introduced in Resident Evil 4, while implementing thematics from the original Resident Evil.*_[19]Tsukasa Takenaka provided additional story background and cre- ated the in-game files.*_[18]

Resident Evil 5 runs on version 1.4 of Capcom's internally developedMT Frameworkengine.*_{[20]In a May 2008} interview, Capcom chairman and CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto estimated the game's development costs up to that point at more than 2 billion yen (approx. US$19.3M).*_[21] Working withHollywood studios, the game'scutscenes were produced by recording bothfacial motion capture andAutomated Dialogue Replacement (ADR) simulta- neously.*_[22]

On January 21, 2009 D+PAD Magazine reported that Resident Evil 5 would be released with Limited Edition Xbox 360 box art,*_{[23]pictures of the Limited Edition} box claiming to allow 2–16 players to play offline via system link.*_{[23]Capcom initially responded stating that} their “box art isn't lying”, but refused to give any more details.*_{[24] However, soon after, Capcom issued an-} other statement that contradicted their original response stating that the information on the box art was an error and that the correct number of players supported by sys- tem link is only two.*_[25]

Music

Kota Suzuki served as the game's lead composer, with additional compositions provided by Hideki Okugawa, Akihiko Narita and Seiko Kobuchi.*_{[18]His score was} electronic, but includes 15 minutes of orchestral music that was recorded at the Newman Scoring Stage at20th Century Fox Studios inLos Angeles, with a 103-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony. Addi- tional orchestral music and the orchestral arrangements were created byWataru Hokoyama, who conducted the orchestra himself.*_{[26]Capcom recorded in Los Angeles} because they wanted aHollywood-style soundtrack that would increase the game's cinematic value and global in- terest. The game's soundtrack features an original theme song as well as live orchestral music compositions, a first for the game series. The theme song is composed by Kota Suzuki and sung by Oulimata Niang.*_[27]

Windows version additions

The Windows version of Resident Evil 5 features online co-operative play like the console versions and also takes advantage ofNvidia's new GeForce 3D Vision technol- ogy.*_{[28]The PC version comes with exclusive content,}

such as additional costumes (which have since been made available on consoles asdownloadable content) and a new mode in the Mercenaries minigame, No Mercy. Resident Evil 5 was released on the September 15 and 18 2009 in North America and Europe respectively, to moderate critical praise. This has been preceded by a benchmark tool release for both system performance evaluation as well as to test the new 3D technology which is imple- mented in all the cutscenes within the game.*_[29]