Into Africa With Resident Evil 5

Producer Jun Takeuchi talks light and dark in black and white.
6/6/2008 7:00 PM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 3

Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi is sticking to his guns. Earlier this year questions were raised about the way Capcom was handling the game's African setting. Many felt the first trailer for the game was insensitive to issues of race. The clip, which debuted at E3 last year, depicted S.T.A.R.S. operative Chris Redfield mobbed by angry African villagers -- a single, well-armed white man dispatching a sea of blacks. It wasn't hard to see where critics were coming from.

Speaking to the gaming press at a Capcom's Captivate '08 press event the developer aimed to set the record straight. "We chose Africa as the setting for very specific reasons," Takeuchi says through an interpreter. Redfield, he explains, is on a mission to find the source of the Progenitor virus and, just like all civilization, the mutant bug calls Africa its birthplace. "We feel that people got the wrong impression from the first trailer. Maybe it was just a little bit of a mix-up. But with what they'll see today and what they'll see in the future they'll get the right impression of the game."

To be honest, Takeuchi doesn't get off to the best start. The new trailer for Resident Evil 5 finds Chris Redfield back in familiar territory -- the same riot-stricken African village we saw in earlier clips. Redfield narrates as the images of unrest unfold. "I knew it from the moment I arrived," he intones in a foreboding deadpan. "There's no reason here. No humanity. Everywhere I look I find vacant stares. All I see is death." You couldn't write more xenophobic-sounding voice-over if you tried.

But as we get a closer look at Resident Evil 5 the concerns begin to fade. With co-producer Masachicka Kawata behind the wheel Takeuchi walks us through some gameplay. In that same village we see Redfield, again surrounded by infected enemies. The scenario feels quite a bit like the opening moments of Resident Evil 4 -- when Leon Kennedy finds himself under assault in a rural Spanish village. The crowd of shambling enemies looks slightly more multicultural -- like a United Colors of Benetton ad crafted by George Romero. Chris takes potshots at the slouching baddies. Their heads explode into masses of tentacles; alien appendages whip the hot, African air. Redfield was right. These guys aren't human. Not anymore.

Takeuchi remains emphatic about Resident Evil 5's apolitical stance. "We're in the business of making entertainment and not making political messages, so we're just trying to make an interesting new product." He may be missing a point. George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" was rife with subtext. In 1968 actor Duane Jones' turn as the lone sane survivor in a world gone mad was made doubly potent by the color of his skin. It's hard to deny that inverting the palate won't have a similar effect. Even the zombie myth, which originated in Haiti, was a parable about class and the way the working poor could be managed so long as they never taste the spice of life.

"I don't think it's just because it's a videogame that it's a problem," Jun Takeuchi adds. "This kind of problem appears in any form of media -- in TV or movies or books or whatever. It's a little difficult to use Africa as a setting with an entertainment product, but that's what we're going with."