Raccoon City

Raccoon City is an American mid-western city depicted in the Resident Evil series of survival horror games created by Capcom. It serves as the primary settings for Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, as well as in the Outbreak series. The city also appears in the film adaptations.

Location and economy
Raccoon City is based upon an archetypical industrialized mid-western American town, most likely located in Colorado or South Dakota. The economy of Raccoon City is largely dominated by the Umbrella Corporation. The corporation generously financed most of the city's projects, giving the company a positive image to the people of Raccoon City. Although 30% of the citizens are employed by the international corporation, most are unaware of the company's many illegal activities.

The population of the Raccoon City is said to be over 100,000, which is mentioned at the end of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. The urban area is divided into several districts, including Uptown, Downtown and the more industrialized Cedar District. The suburbs also lie to the north and east of the city core. Other districts include Old Court and Raven's Gate. The city sits on several rivers: the Marble River, the Circular River and the Aimes River, of which the Marble is the largest.

The nearest town to Raccoon City is Stone-Ville, which is connected to the city by a train line. The main thoroughfares in the city include Ennerdale Street, Central Street, Raccoon Street, and Mission Street. (For a full list of Streets in Raccoon City see here)

The city appears to be run by a Municipal Government. This is suggested by the presence of a Mayor and a City Hall.

History
Raccoon City was governed by Mayor Michael Warren, who was elected in 1987 and served in that position for eleven years. Warren was the engineer responsible for the establishment of the cable car transportation system and also made contributions to the city's electrical system. In his campaign to modernize the city, he made a deal with the Umbrella Corporation, which provided funding for several of Warren's projects, including public utilities, welfare work, and law enforcement. The campaign was known as the "A Bright 21st century for Raccoon City" project, financed by the Umbrella Corporation.

Because of Warren's campaign, the fanciful town gradually transformed from a rural community to an industrialized city. However, the city's expansion and modernization was accompanied by rising crime rates and even terrorist activities. The Raccoon Police Department (R.P.D.) established the Special Tactics And Rescue Squad (S.T.A.R.S.) in 1996 as a countermeasure to the wave of crime.

Due to Warren's cooperation with Umbrella, the company became a large part of the people's everyday lives, most of whom were employed by Umbrella. Many stores fronted for the corporation and its influences were a major say in the City Council, truly becoming the main leadership of the city with the mayor as a front man for its ambitions.

The Arklay Mountains incident
A series of bizarre cannibal homicides occurred in the forests of the Arklay Mountains north-west of the city, beginning in May 1998 and continuing through the following months. Victims were mauled by dogs and partially eaten by humans or other unidentified creatures. The Raccoon Police were at a loss to explain or stop the phenomenon, blaming it on cult activity. On July 23, S.T.A.R.S. was deployed to the area to investigate. S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team's helicopter made a forced landing in the area due to mechanical problems, and S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team was sent to rescue them. Of the twelve S.T.A.R.S. members and a R.P.D. backup pilot sent to the Arklay Mountains, only five returned alive. They reported having discovered a mansion where the Umbrella Corporation had been conducting illegal biological weapons experiments with a mutagenic agent called the t-Virus. The grounds were crawling with the results of that research, including zombies. However, the mansion and all evidence had been destroyed, and due to Umbrella's influence on the city and the corrupt Chief of Police Brian Irons, who was under Umbrella's pay-roll, the survivors' claims were dismissed and no formal investigations were undertaken.

Raccoon City incident
Another viral outbreak involving the same virus, occurred two months later on September 22, 1998, when Umbrella attempted to retrieve a sample of the powerful G-virus from William Birkin, one of its more reclusive researchers. After he was shot multiple times, Birkin was left mortally injured and, knowing its regenerative capabilities, injected himself with a sample of the G-Virus that the Umbrella personnel sent to retrieve anything the virus didn't take. Unfortunately, its mutagenic properties overtook his humanity and transformed him into an unstoppable mutant, killing machine. He destroyed the paramilitary team which had attempted to steal the virus from him, and in the process, vials containing the t-virus were dropped, releasing it into the sewers. The t-virus was then carried by rats throughout the city, leading to a full-scale outbreak. By the 24th of September, the city was in total chaos.

Recognizing an "incident," Umbrella officials called for an evacuation of the city, placing high priorities on key, essential members. By dawn of September 25, U.S. Army units were called in to evacuate citizens and began setting up barricades around the city's perimeter, effectively enforcing a quarantine. The R.P.D. tried and failed to contain the hordes of zombies created by the t-virus, using barricades and heavy force (though since they were not trained to handle zombie outbreaks, their efforts were all doomed to failure from the start). Matters were not helped by the actions of Brian Irons, who attempted to trap officers and civilians within the police station, scattered weapons and ammunition around the building and cut off communication to the outside. The police station itself was besieged on September 26. The officers then made a last attempt to destroy the zombies in the streets on September 27, but failed when their road block was overrun by hordes of zombies. The survivors within held off the zombies for days until only three living officers remained, Brian Irons, Officer Marvin Branagh, and an unnamed officer. Umbrella also sent in several Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service (U.B.C.S.) platoons for search-and-rescue missions on the 26th and the 27th, which ended disastrously for the survivors. The supervisors of these squads were also secretly tasked with gathering field data about Umbrella's bio-weapons as well as destroying any incriminating evidence. The US Army unit as well as Special Forces deployed to Raccoon City to rescue civilians was also killed by multiple Tyrants and as a result the military did not risk any further search and rescue missions.

By September 29, nearly everyone in the city had either been killed by the monsters and bio-weapons released from Umbrella's laboratories, or had succumbed to the t-virus and become zombies. The military barricades surrounding the city had begun to fail in some places, allowing unwary visitors to enter the city, and allowing some of the city's few survivors to escape.

On the night of September 30, faced with the possibility of the infection escaping the city and causing a nationwide outbreak, the President and Congress of the United States decided to sterilise Raccoon City despite attempts by Umbrella operatives within the government to convince the government to hold off on the strike. The operation, which was codenamed "Mission Code: XX", and called "Bacillus Terminate Operation" in a news report concerning the destruction of the city, consisting of a nuclear missile strike aimed at the city center. The entire area of Raccoon City was obliterated, as well as Arklay Forest and the death toll was estimated to have exceeded 100,000 people. The President resigned after this event, faced with public outrage at his decision to destroy the city.

What was left of Raccoon City and the surrounding area was searched and categorized thoroughly for any possible survivors and biohazard threats by the U.S. government and Umbrella in early October 1998. By May 1999, the search and categorizing operation ended with no survivors found. But there were small traces of active T and G-virus strains found. The ruins of Raccoon City and twenty miles around it were declared a possible biohazard threat and became a highly-classified, restricted area that only the U.S. government and Umbrella personnel could enter.

As seen at the end of Resident Evil Outbreak, the area that used to be Raccoon City is gated off from the rest of the world, and Umbrella had built a classified research and testing facility. All that is known about this facility is that it is used for experiments and testing and it keeps a close watch for any trespassers or biohazard threats. But as of Resident Evil 4, when Umbrella collapsed, the U.S. government took over the facility. Now that the complex is run by the U.S. military, it focuses on the close watch duties in the gated and surrounding areas that the Umbrella Corporation once did.

Destruction
Raccoon City has been destroyed differently throughout the series. In Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, a single thermonuclear missile is launched from a distant missile silo or bomber aircraft, and strikes the city center near the RPD. The resultant detonation destroys the entire city in a gigantic mushroom cloud, visible for miles. A blue pulse traveling with the shock wave has been interpreted as an electromagnetic pulse. The missile was likely thermonuclear, as such weapons employ extreme heat and the nature of the outbreak necessitated such a weapon.

In Resident Evil Outbreak, three nuclear missiles streak over the city and impact next to the highway, collapsing it and spreading a fiery shockwave through the city. Though it is believed the missiles were conventional, the cloud visible over Raccoon City after the destruction is a mushroom cloud characteristic of nuclear weapons. In Resident Evil Outbreak: File 2, multiple rockets were fired from military aircraft after the three cruise missiles hit, and two of the four possible endings show the main characters escaping the city by highway at the zero hour, nearly overtaken by the explosions. Upon examining the image of the craters in the Epilogue, other craters can be seen away from the main 3, this may mean that the destruction was the same in both games, but with File #1 only showing three missiles.

The Umbrella Chronicles retconned the destruction of Raccoon City, once again. This time a single missile is show flying over Raccoon City and air bursting as a nuke would, but the files within the game say that the city was destroyed by a new form of conventional missile, possibly a thermobaric weapon. Other scenes borrowed from Outbreak indicate more than one missile.

The recently released movie Resident Evil: Degeneration retcons the destruction yet again towards that of Resident Evil 3's, stating that a nuclear missile was fired at the city by the military, as shown by a newscast in the movie's beginning. Video footage later in the film also supports this version, as Raccoon City is shown being vaporized by a nuclear missile. Thus, the single thermonuclear strike is the canonical ending of the city.

Notable locations
The following are sites or locations visited by the characters in the Resident Evil series.

Resident Evil Ø

 * Umbrella Corporation Management Training Facility &mdash; A facility owned by Umbrella and used to train it's employees. The facility is located deep in the Arklay Mountains and was run by James Marcus until his mysterious death.


 * Umbrella Church &mdash; A completely normal and ordinary church. Is is located directly next to the Management Training Facility. The church is a cover for a laboratory located directly beneath it and operated by James Marcus. Marcus used the lab to research the Progenitor Virus and eventually combined it with leech DNA to create the t-virus. The lab also contains Marcus' private quarters and an underground cable car that connects to a Vacant Factory.


 * Arklay Treatment Plant &mdash; Used for sewage handling and treatment, owned by Umbrella. It is now abandoned. It has a large dam that is damming (presumably) the Marble River. Umbrella uses the facility to dispose of all its failed test subjects. The plant also has a large lift that ascends to a heliport that overlooks the Spencer Estate.

Resident Evil

 * Spencer Estate &mdash; This massive mansion was designed by renowned architect George Trevor for eccentric billionaire and Umbrella Incorporated founder Ozwell E. Spencer. The mansion is located in a remote section of the Arklay Mountains and is completely isolated. Underneath the mansion is the Arklay Research Facility, a laboratory dedicated to the research of the t-virus and the development of B.O.W.'s.

Resident Evil 2

 * Emmy's Diner &mdash; Only seen in the intro, this "greasy spoon" was Claire Redfield's first stop in Raccoon City. She was nearly killed by a zombie lurking within, but was saved by Leon S. Kennedy at the last moment. In the novelization of the game by S.D. Perry, she mentions that this diner is frequented by Claire's brother, Chris Redfield, due to his inability to cook.


 * Taxago Gas Station &mdash; Only seen in the intro, this gas station is where the unknown trucker is bitten in the arm by a zombie. The trucker later succumbs to the virus and rams his truck into Leon and Claire's police car, causing a massive explosion. This forces the two to separate on the streets of Raccoon, each having to find a different route to the police station. Its name seems to be a pun of Texaco.


 * Kendo Gun Shop &mdash; A local armory surplus which was owned and operated by Robert Kendo. Robert was a good friend of Barry Burton and his brother Joseph Kendo designed the S.T.A.R.S. Samurai Edge Custom Beretta handgun. The gun shop was invaded by zombies and Kendo was immediately killed and eaten in the onslaught.


 * Raccoon Police Department &mdash; This large building houses the R.P.D, along with the S.T.A.R.S. headquarters. It has a library, a clock tower, a helipad on the roof, and the main hall is decorated with a fountain. Sewers can be reached from the kennel in the basement of the building, or through the hidden passage in Chief Brian Irons office.


 * Sewage Disposal Plant &mdash; This facility can be reached through the manhole behind the R.P.D. building or through the sewer entrance in the kennel of the R.P.D. building. Only Ada Wong or Sherry Birkin can visit this location, depending on if you are playing as Leon or Claire.


 * Umbrella Sewer Facility &mdash; This is a hidden facility within the sewers of Raccoon City. It can only be accessed through a mechanical device that requires two medals, Eagle and Wolf, to reveal the entrance. The facility contains a cable car that is used as transportation to the Vacant Factory.


 * Subterranean Laboratory &mdash; One of Umbrella's secret laboratories was located below an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Raccoon City. This lab was used primarily by William Birkin and his staff for research into the t-virus and the new G-virus.

Resident Evil 3

 * Uptown&mdash;Uptown Raccoon occupied the city's southern portion. This area, also called the Cedar District, is bordered in part by the Marble River.
 * Jill's Apartment Building&mdash;Jill's Apartment can be seen in the intro while Jill gives her monologue. The building is infested with zombies and a good portion of it is on fire. Jill escapes through one of the entrances on the main level and this is where the game begins.
 * Warehouse&mdash; Jill meets salesman/aspiring novelist Dario Rosso here. Rosso chooses to barricade himself inside a container within the warehouse instead of accompanying Jill in her escape. It can be revisited later to discover the repercussions of Rosso's decision.
 * Jack's Bar&mdash;This bar is where Jill first meets with Alpha Pilot Brad Vickers. Brad tells Jill about the Nemesis and runs off through the front door.
 * Kendo Gun Shop&mdash;Though inaccessible in this game, the Kendo van and the alley behind the shop can be seen. It is one of the first areas visited in Resident Evil 2.
 * Boutique&mdash;The actual name of the boutique is unknown. It is next door to Jack's Bar and is only accessible with a special key. Jill is able to change her outfit in this boutique.
 * Umbrella Sales Office&mdash;A regional sales office owned by Umbrella. It is a very basic office with a small storage room for various chemicals.
 * Raccoon Police Department&mdash;The zombies have yet to break through the barricades when Jill visits the police station, so very few sections can be accessed as opposed to Resident Evil 2.
 * Downtown&mdash;Raccoon's Downtown section was located north of the Uptown area.
 * Eagle's Pet Shop&mdash;The actual pet shop is inaccessible, but it can be seen outside of the garage. When Jill first arrives in front of it, there are three Cerberus that have broken out of the store.
 * Grill 13&mdash;A restaurant that is abandoned. The kitchen has several propane tanks leaking gas and the basement is flooded due to a ruptured pipe.
 * The Raccoon Press&mdash;The office where one of Raccoon's most famous newspapers is published. The building was heavily damaged in the outbreak and the majority of it is on fire.
 * Raccoon City Hall&mdash;City Hall has a very unique jewel-decorated clock dial mechanism that controls the gate. All twelve gems must be present in the mechanism for the gate to be open. A statue of Michael Warren is located in the area. City Hall itself is not accessible to the player, but the paths next to the building lead to Lonsdale Yard and the STAGLA gas station.
 * Lonsdale Yard&mdash;Accessible through City Hall, this yard serves as the main station for the trolley system. The trolley is a tourist attraction and travels past such notable locations as Saint Michael Clock Tower.
 * STAGLA&mdash;This gas station is located near city hall. It is deserted like the rest of the city and has a steel shutter protecting the entrance.
 * Saint Michael Clock Tower&mdash;Prior to the outbreak, the Clock Tower was a popular tourist site located in the north of the city. The site was a dedicated extraction point for the U.B.C.S. but was heavily damaged by the rescue helicopter crashing into it.
 * Raccoon City Hospital&mdash;Raccoon's largest hospital was established in 1992, a few blocks from the Clock Tower.
 * Raccoon Park&mdash;A large park was located behind the Clock Tower. It contained a forest path, a cemetery, and an adjacent cabin. The Park was connected by rope bridge to a Dead Factory which housed an Umbrella facility.
 * Dead Factory&mdash;This apparently abandoned structure was used by Umbrella for processing of unwanted or hazardous biological material.

Resident Evil Outbreak

 * Umbrella Corporation Office and Research Facility&mdash;Umbrella's main corporate office was located in Uptown Raccoon City. This facility was Umbrella's public location. The laboratories contained Hunters and Tyrant T-0400TP. The adjacent underground waterworks lead directly onto Main Street South.


 * J's Bar&mdash;A bar located in the Uptown area. Many often confuse this bar with the bar seen in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. However, it is obvious that these are both different bars from the different layouts and different entrances.


 * Raccoon Mall&mdash; After escaping J's bar the player walks through an overpass with signs for the Raccoon Mall, however due to the massive zombie mob on the street below the player cannot enter.


 * The Apple Inn&mdash;Two fire fighters searching for survivors were killed when a faulty boiler explodes in the heart of the hotel.


 * Raccoon University&mdash;A descent sized university that was located on the east side of the city. As with many establishments in town, Umbrella's influence extended even here.


 * Raccoon Zoo&mdash;The city boasted a popular zoo near a main trolley hub in the northwest part of town. Its mascot, "Mr. Raccoon", was known throughout the city. When the outbreak spread here, it infected several exotic species including hyenas, lions, and an elephant.


 * Raccoon Subway&mdash;The city's subway system was little safer than the surface at the height of the outbreak. Wrecked trains congested the tunnels and mutant fleas proliferated among piles of refuse, making the underground a dubious refuge.

Raccoon City in other media
In the Resident Evil film series, Raccoon City was a huge metropolis built by the Umbrella Corporation and was used for conducting scientific research and experimentation. The Raccoon City in the films was much larger than in the games, with a population approaching 1 million people and a sprawling city center.

Resident Evil


In the 2002 film Resident Evil, Raccoon City was built by the Umbrella Corporation and staged research in a large top-secret underground facility called The Hive. Most of its 853,200 residents were oblivious to the experiments beneath its streets.

In 2002, the t-virus escaped into the ventilation systems. Then, the giant supercomputer known as The Red Queen shut down The Hive, gassed some of its employees with Halon, dropped the occupied elevators at high speed, and drowned the others. Umbrella later sent in a special elite team of commandos in order to retrieve information about what had happened.

The team entered The Hive through a secret passage located within the a mansion. It is later revealed, that the viral outbreak was intentionally done in order to smuggle out the t-virus and sell it on the black market. Just hours later, only two survivors emerged from The Hive, Matt Addison and Alice. Both were seized by Umbrella's scientists and taken to the Raccoon City Hospital for quarantine and experimentation.

Locations

 * The Hive&mdash;The giant underground complex located below the streets of Raccoon City. The building was created by the Umbrella Corporation to secretly conduct viral research. During the t-virus outbreak in The Hive, Umbrella dispatched a team to investigate and re-open the facility.


 * Spencer Mansion&mdash;The mansion that is one of two entry points into The Hive. The mansion is the secret way into the facility and is only known to a few Umbrella personnel. The mansion closely resembles the one seen in the Resident Evil Gamecube remake.


 * Raccoon City Hospital&mdash;The general hospital located in downtown Raccoon City. The hospital was used for quarantine centre after the viral outbreak.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse
In the 2004 film Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the Umbrella Corporation sent in a research team to re-open The Hive. The team's insertion point was the main entrance beneath Raccoon City. Shortly after entering The Hive the entire team was slaughtered by T-virus zombies that had been sealed within the complex. With the entrance now open, Umbrella realized that before long, these highly infectious zombies would make their way to the surface and begin an unstoppable amplification of the infection.

Knowing that containing the outbreak would be nearly impossible, an emergency plan to evacuate key Umbrella personnel from the city was activated. Important researchers and administrators were collected by two-man teams and removed from the city. After the completion of this operation, the city was sealed. Raccoon City was considered a loss, and to keep the infection from spreading past the city limits, gates at the entry and egress points of the city were closed. Traffic into and out of the city was halted.

A screening center was established at one such point, Raven's Gate Bridge, the city's primary traffic artery. Manned by medics and heavily armed corporate soldiers, this checkpoint was a minor effort to save some civilians from the rapidly expanding disaster. Uninfected civilians were permitted to pass, and control of the increasingly panicked population was maintained by Raccoon City Police units and Umbrella soldiers. However, once an infected civilian did reach the blockade (and was subsequently killed), orders were given to completely seal the city. The gates were closed and locked down, stranding the helpless civilians still within the city limits.

Mercenary soldiers working for Umbrella attempted, and failed, to turn the tide of the zombie onslaught. Losses were staggering and not effective. With all units nearly dead, Umbrella's last-line plan was put into motion.

Shortly before dawn on September 30, 1998, a cruise missile equipped with a thermonuclear warhead was launched into the heart of downtown Raccoon City. Umbrella Corporation public relations spin doctors were able to feed a convincing story to the media, who then reported that the city's destruction was due to a terrible accident at the Raccoon City Nuclear Power Facility nearby. Attempts by some of the survivors to spread the truth about what had really happened, met with failure.

Locations

 * City Hall&mdash;A towering, post-modern building at the center of the city, Raccoon City Hall was ground zero for the nuclear strike which destroyed the city.


 * Arklay Overpass&mdash;This bridge carried a secondary road across the river, providing access to and from the city.


 * Raven's Gate Bridge&mdash;Raccoon City's highway and primary access point, leading to the Raven's Gate suburbs and the Arklay Mountains. During the T-virus outbreak, Raven's Gate Bridge was used as a screening point and was the only entrance into Raccoon City.


 * Raven's Gate Church&mdash;The biggest church of Raccoon City, near the Raven's Gate Bridge. The church was infested with lickers, but two survivors (the priest and a civilian) hid here. The church is of Gothic style and possesses several statues of angels.


 * Raccoon City Junior School&mdash;The elementary school in Raccoon City, Charles Ashford's daughter, Angela, attended the school prior to the outbreak. After the mission to extract her from the city failed, she returned to the school and used it as a refuge.


 * Raccoon Police Department&mdash;The R.P.D. building is a '70s concrete structure. At the beginning of the Raccoon City outbreak, the police try to detain the zombies and to help the survivors, using the building as a center of operations. Some hours later, when Alice comes to the building, fleeing from Nemesis, it is already completely deserted.


 * Raccoon City Nuclear Power Facility&mdash;Raccoon City's only power plant, the R.C.N.P. formed the foundation of Umbrella's cover-up of the outbreak. The story fed to the public explained that the nuclear destruction of the city was a result of a disastrous accident at the plant.


 * Raccoon City Entry Point&mdash;Access to the Hive research complex below Raccoon City was gained in two places. The main entrance was directly beneath the city's center and was fed by a number of entries from various buildings in downtown to avoid arousing suspicion (several hundred workers entering one building and not actually working in that building would be suspicious). These entrances led to the main entry point beneath the city. Later, just prior to the surface outbreak in the city, this entrance was used by a follow-up team to investigate the Hive's status.

Survivors

 * Ada Wong
 * Alyssa Ashcroft
 * Barry Burton
 * Claire Redfield
 * Carlos Oliveira
 * Cindy Lennox
 * Curtis Miller
 * David King
 * Danny
 * Frederic Downing
 * George Hamilton
 * Gill
 * HUNK
 * Harry
 * Jim Chapman
 * Kevin Ryman
 * Leon S. Kennedy
 * Linda
 * Michael Warren
 * Mark Wilkins
 * Night Hawk
 * Nicholai Ginovaef (possibly)
 * Ozwell E. Spencer
 * Sergei Vladimir
 * Rodriguez
 * Tyler Hamilton
 * Yoko Suzuki

Trivia
At the beginning of Resident Evil 2, the player comes across a store named Arukas. Spelled backwards, it reads Sakura, a reference to the Capcom series Street Fighter.