With anticipation mounting for the launch of Resident Evil: Requiem later this month, attention is already shifting to what might come next. Persistent rumours suggest that a remake of Resident Evil 5 is in development – though it feels like that speculation has been circulating for years. Still, while much of the conversation centres on the franchise’s future, I wanted to revisit RE5, which many fans believe marked the point where the series truly began to lose its identity.
While Resident Evil 4 began the series’ shift from unrelenting survival horror toward a more action-oriented style, it was Resident Evil 5 that truly cemented that transformation. By fully embracing spectacle and co-op gunplay over slow-burn tension, it redefined what a Resident Evil game could be – for better or worse. In the years since its release, it has remained one of the most divisive entries in the franchise.
But if you think this represents a low point for the games, then the follow ups (such as RE6, Operation Raccoon City, and Umbrella Corps) must be so low down that they’re in one of those inexplicably cavernous labs that constantly appear in these games. I happen to like 5 and always have. It’s the perfect continuation of 4’s frantic and often over the top gameplay, that feels like the natural evolution for the series.
People point to 5 with its endless explosions, gun-toting enemies, emphasis on killing large hordes, and action set pieces. But those have been a part of the series since at least Resident Evil 3 and everyone likes that one. Well, sort of not really, but we pretend we do.
See, whilst people think of Resident Evil as being this thoughtful series that takes place in creaky old buildings avoiding incredibly slow zombies, that’s only true for a couple of the games. Even back on the PS1, the series tried to up everything to eleven. Resident Evil 2, for example, was basically about a city-wide apocalypse (though you only got to see a couple of streets and the world’s most toilet-free police station).
Resident Evil 5 takes the action to Africa, where we play as returning series protagonist Chris Redfield, sent to hunt down an arms dealer peddling viruses and living biological weapons. You may have noticed something odd about this version of Chris, and you’d be right, his hair is wavy.
Remember PS1 Chris? The vaguely athletic bloke with the charm of a damp tea towel who spent most of his time shuffling about the Spencer Mansion collecting novelty keys? Well, that Chris is dead. Possibly crushed under the weight of this Chris’ arms, which are now so comically oversized they could qualify for their own postcode.
This game is where Chris’ cynical actions hero persona started to come through. He’s been doing this shit for a while at this point, and the game opens with him and his pattern Jill Valentine (who, alongside Chris, served as co-protagonist of the very first game, as well as the leading the third) confronting series antagonist Albert Wesker. Jill is lost in that fight, she and Wesker fall out of a window and off a cliff – taking with her the hopes of a new game where she again plays the lead role (we’ve only been waiting since 1999).
In Africa, Chris is joined by Sheva Alomar, an African anti-terrorism agent who’s there so Capcom could counter the accusations of racism against black Africans with screenshots of black-on-black violence. I like Sheva, she’s cool. And I’m not just saying that because her unlockable tribal outfit gave me jungle fever so bad I actually thought I had malaria.
I suppose that’s the first thing we need to address with RE 5 – the racism controversy. Actually no, the first thing is the god awful yellow filter. What was up with this generation of games that developers felt the need to make the whole thing look like it was pissed on, like some Bill Schmeling artwork? Anyway, racism. People, people got up in arms about the very white Chris indiscriminately gunning down black people.
Of course, anything can seem bad if you divorce it from it’s context. But in the context of the game, it is very clear that these are not normal people and Chris is fighting for his life. And if you changed the people to say, Spaniards, rednecks, Romanians, or the Chinese (all of whom feature in a Residential Evil game), it’d play out exactly the same. It’s not as if Chris is going rogue American police officer on this shit.
Resident Evil 5 itself has a bit of a reputation – unfairly, in my opinion – as the moment the series fully abandoned horror. This is bollocks. What RE5 actually represents is Capcom finally admitting they’d rather make an action horror game where you kick things to death and jump out of windows. Subtle scares and creeping dread aren’t the only things that make for good horror.
Being relentlessly bombarded by an incredible amount of bastards can be just as scary – just ask any newly single woman with a lot of male friends. Enemies swarm you in heart-attack inducing numbers, and the pacing is absolutely relentless. Every five minutes something explodes, or a big lad with an axe or chainsaw shows up, or a bat the size of a Ford Focus crashes through the wall and demands to be shot with a rocket launcher. It’s here to throw absolutely everything at you and then chuck in a QTE to make sure you’re not collapsed on the floor, suffering from a stress-induced stroke.
The shooting feels meaty, with every gun sounding like it’s committing a war crime, and landing a proper headshot still gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling you normally only get from finding a tenner in an old coat. The guns themselves are one of the best arsenals in the whole series. You start with the usual pea-shooter handgun, but by the end you’ve collected enough firepower to invade a small country.
Which is handy, as the enemies here are easily some of the most aggressive pricks in the whole series. This lot don’t shamble or lurch. They sprint. They charge at you like you owe them money, waving machetes, crossbows, and occasionally, chainsaws and giant axes. The standard Majini (a parasite infected human) might just be 4’s Ganados with a new hat, but they’re faster, nastier, and show up in genuinely alarming numbers. But that’s ok, you were smart and got the SIG 556 machine gun fully upgraded and now you’ve practically already won.
Capcom clearly decided that horde tactics were the future, and every encounter feels like a desperate last stand in a game where your AI partner handles like a drunk puppy. Even the elite enemies are great. Big, hulking bastards with no sense of personal space. The chainsaw guys are back, and they’re just as pant-shittingly terrifying as ever.
The bosses are a bit more of a mixed bag. Whilst you’ve got your expected giant humanoid and animalistic mutants (like a bat, a squidy type of thing, and 4’s returning troll-like el gigantes), there are also the Uroboros. These are massive twisted creatures made up of the black, parasitic goo that is the game’s central virus. They have a cool design, being like someone animated the logos of black metal bands.
But they’re also a bloody chore to kill – usually having some gimmick to do so. One of these boses, fairly late into the game, is a right pain in the arse. You’re supposed to set it on fire and then shoot its weak points. Standard stuff. But though you’re given a flamethrower and incendiary grenades to do this – it’s just awkward to do what the game wants, as though the creature has some really specific hitboxes. It also has way too much health. After a few attempts I said “sod this” and came back with a rocket launcher. I doubt I’m the only one.
The co-op is where the game truly shines, however. Play it with a friend and it’s an all-timer. What can often feel like overwhelming odds when playing by yourself, is actually quite a nice challenge in co-op, and it requires near perfect teamwork to get through some of the later levels on professional.
God help you if you play solo, because then you have to deal with Sheva as your AI partner. Poor Sheva. She could’ve been iconic. First black playable character in the series, great design, and yet Capcom gave her the combat awareness of a lobotomised Tamagotchi.
Sheva’s AI likes to waste ammo like there’s a prize for it, heals you when you’re already fine, and has the uncanny ability to walk directly into every danger in a 500-yard radius. Babysitting her is less like co-op and more like you’re an unpaid carer for a woman who’s just necked a full box of Night Nurse and wandered into a war zone.
In conclusion, RE5 is one of the finest games in the series and genuinely holds up as a co-op experience to this very day. It’s also one of the dumbest games ever made but so what? Resident Evil has always been dumb. And Chris punching boulders and dropping Albert Wesker into a volcano is no more out there than Raccoon City, a US city, being nuked by the US government; or a pharmaceutical company spending billions on developing living weapons with less obedience than the average Yorkshire Terrier.
Some of the twists and turns in this game certainly feel like something out of a soap opera. Obviously Albert Wesker is alive after that cold opening. And so too is Jill. The latter is being controlled by the former, using a rather obvious glowing device that’s stuck to her chest. Which would be fine if she was able to cover it up – but she’s wearing a skin right body suit that has (barely) enough room to contain her honkers and nothing else. And why this elaborate device? This is a world where a thousand different mind controlling viruses exist. What I’m saying is that Wesker certainly made some choices.
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