Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City – everything you need to know

The Resident Evil franchise has evolved quite a bit since its pre-rendered background days – most notably making the jump from Resident Evil 3’s traditional survival horror stylings, to a more action-orientated 3rd-person shooter format.

So what’s one more shift, eh?

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City looks to tip the scales in favour of more shooter action while dropping the isolated, lonely survival aspect, but still keeping a bit of the horror.

The game’s highlighted feature is “triple threat” play – essentially meaning that you will be facing two opposing forces as you play, one of which (protip: it’s the monsters) being the wild-card that acts violently and unpredictably.

Sound inviting? It does to us – so here’s everything you need to know about Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.

Biohazard

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City takes place between the events of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3, thus taking place in the zombie-infested Raccoon City (as the title would suggest).

Umbrella discovers that one of their scientists, Dr. William Birkin (whom Resident Evil fans should be very familiar with), plans on selling the experimental G-Virus to the US government, and as a result the company sends in a special team to take care of Birkin.

The Umbrella Security Soldiers (USS) sent to ‘deal’ with Berkin find themselves in a bit of a predicament (i.e., dead), when the cornered Berkin injects himself with the virus, effectively mutating into a hideous monstrosity. You know the one – it has a big eye on it’s shoulder. In the process, the mutated abomination clumsily releases the zombifying T-Virus into the city, turning everyone into a shuffling heap of rotting flesh.

Realising that this is probably a bad thing, Umbrella Corp sends in a second USS team to clean up the mess and destroy all evidence of Umbrella’s involvement, which naturally includes killing anyone who survived.

At the same time, the US Government sends in its own special forces to figure out what happened in the city, obviously conflicting with the USS’ objectives. Caught in the cross-fire, rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy, and Claire Redfield struggle with their own adventure, which Resident Evil fans will recall fondly.

Rewrite history

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City gives you the opportunity to re-write the game’s history. You’ll be faced with many decisions, which invariable lead to alternative “what if” scenarios – probably the most pervasive of which, being the one where you can kill Leon S. Kennedy.

Playing as the bad guys from Umbrella’s perspective means your goals are now in-line with covering up the truth, collecting intel and reporting back to Umbrella to make sure they succeed in their plans.

Choose your side

The game features 12 playable characters in total, 6 for the USS team, and 6 for the US Special Force team.

USS Team

Lupo – team leader;
Vector – recon expert and is equipped with a cloaking ability;
Beltway – explosives expert;
Bertha – medic;
Spectre – sharpshooter;
Four Eyes – scientist, with the ability to control the bio-organic weapons (BOWs).

US Spec Ops

Dee-Ay – team leader;
Willow – recon expert;
Tweed – demolitions expert;
Harley – medic;
Party Girl – sniper;
Shona – field scientist.

If you’re wondering what you’ll be going up against in the city, aside from each other – there’s the zombie horde, but note you can also look forward to being chased down by Hunters, Lickers and Tyrants – and then there’s the Nemesis… which is exclusive to Xbox 360.

Friendly fire

The game has a single-player campaign, but places a lot of value on multiplayer – featuring a co-op campaign where you can bring along 3 other friends.

Multiplayer pits the USS against the US Special Operatives – but while that’s going on, players will also have to contend with the other nasties in the city, and run the risk of becoming one of the monsters.

Zombies will shuffle around and if they get too close to the characters, players will have to grapple around with them to avoid becoming infected. If a character is infected they’ll be immune and invisible to the zombies for a time, before eventually losing control – something which is remedied with a teammate’s bullet in your skull.

While you’re a zombie, you’ll attack your own team (uncontrollably) so really, there’s no other option. It’s okay, you’ll respawn.

The game also features the bleed effect, where a severely wounded character will, well, bleed, making them the prime target for zombies to attack.

Features

Single-player campaign.
Online Multiplayer modes.
12 Playable characters.
Hero Mode – play as characters from the series, such as Leon S. Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine and Carlos Oliveira, plus Ada Wong, HUNK, Nicholai Ginovaef and a new character, Lone Wolf.
Xbox-exclusive Nemesis Mode.
Finally have your chance to kill Leon S. Kennedy and his emo-hair.

The game is out on PS3 and Xbox 360 next Friday, 23 March, 2012.