Uncomfortable Echoes: A Conversation With Resident Evil 5 Director Jun Takeuchi
3/2/2009 7:05 PM | 35 Comments | Page 1 of 5
(Contributor: Scott Jones)
There's a sacred dogma in journalism that holds that you're not supposed to insert yourself into a story. Maintain objectivity, the intro classes say. Avoid the "I" pronoun. That's often easier said than done. I ran up against that wall when I first saw the trailer for
Resident Evil 5. The destitute, vacant-eyed black people in the trailer looked like they could've been in Haiti, where my parents were born. Even after learning that the game was set in Africa, I worried about whether I'd be able to play a game in which poor African villagers were the avatars of evil. In my own life, personally and professionally, I've dealt with and still deal with the legacy of negative stereotypes that dog people of African descent.
Jun Takeuchi
The controversy surrounding the game and its supposed portrayals of African life grew. Over time, I built up a mental block that prevented me from playing the preview builds of
RE5 that were sent to me. I finally broke through that barrier two weeks ago, in preparation for an interview with Jun Takeuchi, the creative lead on the
RE5 dev team. My experience playing the game brought up some uncomfortable historical echoes, but I went into the interview open-minded. More than anything, I was interested in a conversation, one where I'd be able to get understanding and hopefully grant some.
The interview happened at the Red Rock during DICE Summit 2009. Scott Jones and I went to a hotel suite where Capcom PR honcho Chris Kramer, Takeuchi and his translator were waiting for us. In the sometimes serious and sometimes silly conversation that followed, we talked less about gameplay mechanics or controls and more about the cultural understandings that come into play when creating and receiving a work like
Resident Evil 5.
Evan Narcisse: Let me begin, Takeuchi-san, by saying I'm a fan of your work, particularly
Lost Planet and Onimusha. I agreed with your talk yesterday when you said that Japanese pop culture would do very well across the world. I think
Resident Evil 5 looks amazing, and I like the way that co-op has been implemented.
Resident Evil 4 was seen as the highlight of the series so far. What kind of decisions did you make as a creative lead to try and raise the bar?
Chris and Sheva look as if they come to Kijuju from another reality.
was such a well-received game, both with critics and fans all over the world. We felt tremendous pressure when we started making this game to add something new to the Resident Evil series and to put something into the game that would separate it and take it a bit further than
Resident Evil 4. Our answer was to use the online capabilities of the current-gen consoles. We felt it was a very smooth process, going from
Resident Evil 4 and adding co-op.
Scott Jones: There's a weird discrepancy in the game between the people who star in the game and the people you fight. The people you control both look like they just came from a Bally's fitness center and just finished drinking wheatgrass shots. Then, they're in this place that's barren and the people there are killing goats. It's so raw. You have these people who are so well-groomed and fit and put-together, juxtaposed with enemies who seem like they're living this subsistence kind of life. Talk about that as a design decision.
