Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, is an upcoming 2012 third-person shooter video game with online playability for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. It is developed by Slant Six Games and published by Capcom. The game will be a new installment in the Resident Evil series of video games and will be developed by Slant Six Games instead of Capcom. It is set at the same time as Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, but is unrelated to the main series storyline and is a "what-if", non-canon entry in the series.

Plot
The game is separated into two sides: the U.S.S. side and the SPECOPS side (DLC). Each side has six chapters, where players can choose four of the six playable characters per side.

U.S.S. storyline
U.S.S. Delta team (also known as "Wolfpack") enters the Raccoon City Underground Laboratory, where they meet up with Alpha team leader HUNK. Their mission to assist the Alphas in stopping Dr. Birkin from handing over his G-Virus research to the US Military and retrieve the G-Virus. On their way to Birkin's lab, they find that Birkin has paid-off numerous UBCS mercenaries into working for him while the deal goes forward. When they reach Birkin's lab, the doctor is fired upon from behind a closed door and HUNK and another Alpha leave with the samples. Heading up the elevator to meet up with Goblin 6, they soon find that Birkin has survived the attack and infected himself with the virus. The creature proceeds to kill off most of Alpha team before disappearing; HUNK offers to go back in search of the sample.

Not long after the battle, it becomes evident that the t-Virus has leaked city-wide, and people begin to transform into zombies soon after. In what they see as a punishment by USS Command, Delta team is ordered to remove evidence of Umbrella's role in the outbreak. Heading into Raccoon City Hall, Delta Team meets UBCS mercenary and monitor Nicholai Zinoviev; he is soon revealed as a traitor and attempts to kill the Wolfpack.

Later, the team is sent out around Raccoon Park to find the Nemesis-T Type, which has gone rogue. A second parasite is injected into its body in order to bring it back under control. Shortly after this mission is completed, the team is then sent out to the Raccoon City Police Department, ordered to kill any surviving police officers and destroy evidence linking the company to the outbreak. When this is all done, the team exits the station, and soon after encounter Leon S. Kennedy, whom they begin to hunt down.

Development
The May 2011 edition of the Official Xbox Magazine, to be released on April 5, shows an image of an individual in a gas mask along Umbrella, Inc. logo on the issue's cover. On November 1, 2010 Kotaku reported on a rumor that Slant Six Games, developer of SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation, was developing Resident Evil: Raccoon City. On its website, Slant Six Games wrote that it was currently developing "an amazing new project" that was unannounced, which was developed in conjunction with a "new publishing partner on a world class franchise."

In an interview with 1up.com, Masachika Kawata estimated the game, as of March 30, 2011, to be 45% complete.

Wolfpack
An elite team of the Umbrella Security Service sent to kill any survivors and destroy all the evidence about the company's culpability for the infamous outbreak.
 * "VECTOR" - Master of stealth, real name unknown
 * Hector Hivers - Explosives expert, codename "BELTWAY"
 * Karen LesProux - Team leader, codename "LUPO"
 * Vladimir Bodrovski - Designated marksman, codename "SPECTRE"
 * Michaela Heinzwaffen - Team medic, codename "BERTHA"
 * Christine Yamata - Field scientist, codename "FOUR EYES"

Echo Six
An elite squad of the SPEC OPS FIELD UNIT sent by the US Government to find the truth about the outbreak and rescue the civilians of Raccoon City.
 * Caroline Floyd - Recon, codename "Willow"
 * Crispin Jettingham - Team leader / Assault, codename "Dee-Ay"
 * Marissa Ronson - Demolitions expert, codename "Tweed"
 * Erez Morris - Team medic, codename "Harley"
 * Lawrence Kimbala - Field scientist, codename "Shona"
 * Sienna Fowler - Marksman, codename "Party Girl"

Playables in Heroes Mode
Currently, eight playable classic characters from Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 were recently confirmed as playable in the new Heroes Mode. Also, a new character nicknamed LONE WOLF was confirmed to enter in the mode.
 * Leon S. Kennedy - A rookie cop and one of the surviving Raccoon City Police Department, and as a cop, he is targeted by the U.S.S.
 * Claire Redfield - College student and sister to Chris Redfield. She was "prosecuted" by the WOLFPACK.
 * Jill Valentine - A former S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team member and a survivor of the "mansion incident".
 * Carlos Oliveira - One of the few surviving U.B.C.S. mecenaries, he was confirmed in the same trailer as Jill.
 * HUNK - A U.S.S. veteran member known as "Mr. Death", confirmed via Inserted Evil clue #4; the Wolfpack met with him after he obtained a G-Virus sample.
 * Nicholai Zinoviev - A Russian mercenary of the U.B.C.S., he was confirmed to play a important role in the main game.
 * LONE WOLF - A legendary helicopter pilot of Umbrella, it is unknown if he appears in the main game, but he was confirmed as a playable character in the Heroes Mode.
 * Ada Wong - A female spy sent by The Organization to obtain a G-virus sample.

Gameplay
The game has players taking the role of one of the members of a U.S.S. clean up crew. Alongside a single player mode, the game will also offer a 4 player co-operative mode as the player experiences the events of the game. Operation Raccoon City will allow the player to make decisions that could have major repercussions on series canon, such as causing the death of Leon S. Kennedy or Claire Redfield during the course of the game.

A multiplayer mode is confirmed, which pits the U.S.S. against the Government Spec Ops, with the latter looking to uncover the situation Umbrella is attempting to hide. In addition, there are a few elements being added to the multiplayer. One of which is the presence of zombies on the multiplayer maps, including Hunters and Tyrants being spawned occasionally. This is similar to Mercenaries, but with a twist: Normal zombies can be used as shields. Being shot may cause bleeding, which causes a feeding frenzy to converge on the bleeding character. The player must hide or hold their position while the bleeding subsides and the zombies become more passive again.

Capcom-unity later announced at E3 that LUPO, and FOUR EYES are new playable characters and that players will also get a chance to kill Claire Redfield. At E3 2011, the gameplay shows that if a member of the team becomes infected and their health bar runs out, the player turns into a zombie and can attack their former teammates. Gameinformer also added that the government Spec Ops might be playable team in the game and might be set out similar to the U.S.S..&#91;4&#93;

Confirmed weapons
The weapons for the game are directly taken for Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and Slant Six SOCOM titles, takes the more notable weapons for this games. A great part of the weapons are confirmed via Kendo Gun Shop webpage, via Inserted Evil in the fifth clue.

All the playable characters begin the game with a standard handgun and a combat knife. The selectable weapons are separed in six categories yet, free to choose only one before the campaign begins: shotguns, sniper rifles, assault rifles, machine guns and submachine guns, and each category has between 3 and 6 weapons. Other weapons, like handguns,flamethrowers and grenade launchers are confirmed in game, but is unknown if the players can select these, start with these, or need obtain them in the game. The "magnums" (and/or revolvers) category is not confirmed yet, but the standard Desert Eagle (aka "L. Hawk") is listed as a "handgun". Currently, the grenade launcher only uses explosive rounds ammo, despite the incendiary, acid and nitrogen rounds from Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3.

Other non-playable characters and bosses use weapons not shown on the Kendo Gun Shop web page. Nemesis-T Type uses his trademark FIM-92 Stinger rocket launcher, as well as the Gatling minigun from his movie appearance. Claire Redfield uses a Penn Arms L1 rather than her signature M79 Grenade launcher against U.S.S.. Also, in Claire's render, she is shown using a shotgun rather than her canon bowgun. Nicholai Ginovaef uses a H&amp;K PSG1, likely in Outbreak File 2.

It is unknown if the classic characters like Leon and Claire use their trademark sidearms H&K VP70 and Browning HP, respectivly, but both weapons were confirmed to be in the game. During the Heroes Mode trailer, Carlos Oliveira and Nicholai Ginovaef were shown using a SIG P226 as the standard sidearm of the U.B.C.S.. The render of Ada Wong was shown using the Blacktail and the Samurai Edge for Jill Valentine.

Another weapon pack is taken from Resident Evil 5, with weapons like the AK-74, H&K MP5, H&amp;K PSG-1 and others. The Alfred Ashford's sniper rifle from Code: Veronica was confirmed to be in the game.

The grenades in game can be used by U.S.S. members, U.B.C.S. mercenaries, RPD Officers and Government Spec Ops. Currently, just the frag and flash grenades are confirmed, with the proximity bomb used by BELTWAY and Nicholai.

The knife has some special action techniques, merging with martial arts attacks to kill enemies. Blades include survival knifes, machetes and daggers used by Wolfpack members and classic characters in the Heroes Mode.

Downloadable weapons
Operation Raccoon City is the first game in the series to include DLC weapons, currently eight in total: Machine Pistol, Combat Shotgun (Armsel Stryker), Perforator, Combat SMG (TDI VECTOR), Anti-material rifle (Barret M87), Matilda (H&K VP70 burst), Cowboy Shotgun, and Classic Launcher (M79). Some of these weapons has based in country-like style and another ones has notorious designs.

Release
The release date has been confirmed to be March 20th 2012 (North America), March 23rd 2012 (Europe) and April 26th 2012 (Japan).

A special edition of the game includes a steel cover for the game, 8 exclusive weapons and one alternate costume for Lupo, Vector, Spectre, Beltway, Bertha, Four Eyes.

If you pre-order the game at GameStop, BestBuy, Amazon.com, GAME (gets the same as GameStop), you will receive two DLC weapons different for each retailer.

Trivia

 * Originally shown was that the U.S.S only had four playable characters, that number was later increased to six.
 * According to Kawata, there are currently discussions on introducing brand-new B.O.W.s into the game.
 * In the demo, signs written on walls written in blood are seen around (often asking for HELP), this was already in the beta version of the original Resident Evil (1996), but for unknown reasons, blood signs were cut from the final product.
 * It is interesting to note that any recreated cut-scene in this game from RE2 or RE3 has the original lines of dialog.