Raccoon City

Raccoon City is a city depicted in Capcom's survival horror video game series Resident Evil and the setting for the earlier games in the main series (from Resident Evil 0 up until Resident Evil 3), as well as the Outbreak series.

Location and economy
Raccoon City is based upon an archetypical industrial and commercial mid-western American city in North America, USA. The economy of Raccoon City is largely donminated 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. At least 30% of the citizens are also employed by the international corporation, most are unaware of the company's many illegal activities and so those people would be in the jobs like Pharmacuticle selling.

The population of the city is over 100,000, as stated at the end of Resident Evil 3 and is given as 853,200 in the first Resident Evil film. Its description as being both a Midwestern and mountain city would place it in either Montana or Colorado, and it is possibly based partly off of the city of Boulder, Colorado. Like Raccoon City, Boulder is a city of about 100,000 that is surrounded by mountains and vast forest environments, and is home to high-tech industries, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Image of Boulder, Colorado.

However, the Arklay Mountains, which are depicted in the opening scenes of Resident Evil 0 and the remake, as well as in a painting in the Patient's Room in Resident Evil 3, look nothing like the Rocky Mountains. Also, Boulder is only thirty miles away from Denver, unlike Raccoon City, which is a fairly isolated city. In all three images of the Arklay Mountains, they seem to resemble the Appalachian Mountains that cover most of the state of Pennsylvania, which is why some people believe that Raccoon City is based out of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania town of Pottsville, in Schuylkill County, does resemble Raccoon City. (A picture of Pottsville can be viewed here.) Pottsville is secluded (it is almost 100 miles northwest of Philadelphia, the nearest major city), and the small city is surrounded by nothing but mountains and forests. Also, the main influences of the Resident Evil games, George Romero's Living Dead films, were all filmed in, and set in, Pennsylvania.

In the film "Resident Evil: Apocalypse", Terri Morales stands in front of a weather map that depicts most of eastern Pennsylvania. In the first deleted scene featured on the special DVD, Terri points out the Arklay Mountains on the map, which are in an area that corresponds to the Poconos in real life. The spot where Raccoon City is located appears to be Philadelphia. However, this is only displayed in the second Resident Evil movie and it should not be referred to toward the video game series. (The movie was in fact filmed in Toronto, Ontario, as evidenced by the appearances of Toronto City Hall and, for a split second, CN Tower in the film.)

The novelizations of the games by S.D. Perry also state that Raccoon City is located in Pennsylvania; however, like the films, the novels are not officially recognized by Capcom as part of the series' canon. The areas surrounding the city contain a large forest, a lake, and the Arklay Mountains to the north, suggesting that the city is located near the Appalachian Mountains or Rocky Mountains ranges.

Interestingly, a town that went through similar events as Raccoon City did is Centralia, Pennsylvania, where a natural underground mine fire still burns today from the 1960's. Centralia was also the basis for the location for the Silent Hill series, another well-known survival horror series of games.

However, the state of Pennsylvania is not considered part of the Midwestern United States. The description of Raccoon City as Midwestern may have been an error on the part of Capcom, as the Midwest is a famously flat part of the United States, while Raccoon City is surrounded by mountains. A safer bet would be to say that Raccoon City is located in Appalachia, or more specifically, central Pennsylvania.

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 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 terrorist activities may have been an anti-Umbrella movement designed to make the city stop the corporation). The Raccoon Police Department (R.P.D.) established the Special Tactics And Rescue Service (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. As stated above, most of the Raccoon City citizens are employed by Umbrella. Many stores front for the Corporation and its influences are a major say in the City Council, truly becoming the main leadership of the city, using 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 of the city, beginning in May, 1998, and continuing through the following months. Victims appeared to have been mauled by dogs and other, unidentified creatures. The Raccoon Police were at a loss to explain or stop the phenomenon, and in July, S.T.A.R.S. was deployed to the area to investigate. Bravo Team's helicopter made a forced landing in the area due to mechanical problems, and 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 (in the origonal and remake, the canon is considered by rescuing all rescue-able members). 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, under Umbrella's payroll, the survivors' claims were dismissed and no formal investigation was undertaken.

Raccoon City outbreak
A second viral outbreak occurred two months later, on September 22nd. When Umbrella attempted to retrieve a sample of the powerful G-Virus from William Birkin, one of its more reclusive researchers, Birkin was left mortally injured and injected himself with a sample of the G-Virus, knowing its regenerative capabilities. 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 G-Virus, and in the process, the T-Virus was released into the sewers. The T-Virus was then carried by rats throughout the city, leading to a full-scale outbreak.

(Umbrella Scientist James Marcus released the T-Virus at the mansion after being assassinated by Albert Wesker and William Birkin. Marcus had planned to release it into Raccoon City, but was killed by Rebecca Chambers and Billy Coen in the Umbrella Training Facility in the Arklay Mountains.)

Recognizing an "incident", Umbrella officials began to evacuate the city, placing high priorities on key, essential members. By dawn of September 25th, 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. 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 cutting off communication to the outside. The police station itself was besieged on September 26th. The officers made a last attempt to destroy the zombies in the street on September 27th but failed when their road block was overrun by zombies. The survivors within held off the zombies for days until only two living officers remained. Umbrella also sent in several Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service (U.B.C.S.) squads for search-and-rescue missions on the 26th and 27th of September, 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.

By September 29th, 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 Raccoon's few survivors to escape.

Some time between the night of September 30th and the dawn of October 1st, the United States government decided to sterilize Raccoon City with a nuclear weapon despite attempts by Umbrella to convince the Joint Chiefs of Staff to hold off the strike. The operation, which was called "Bacillus Terminate" and "Order XX" by Umbrella operatives, consisted of a single thermonuclear warhead launched from a high-altitude bomber aircraft. The entire area of Raccoon City was incinerated. The death toll was estimated to exceed 100,000.

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 the Umbrella Corporation in early October of 1998. In late February of 2000 the search and categorizing operation ended with no survivors found. But there were small traces of active T-virus and G-virus strains found. The ruins of Raccoon City and twenty miles around it was declared a possible biohazard threat and became a highly-classified, restricted area and only the U.S government and Umbrella Corporation can enter this area. As seen at the end of Resident Evil Outbreak, the area of what used to be Raccoon City is gated off from the rest of the world, and Umbrella Corporation 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 went under the U.S government took over the facility. Now the facility is run by the U.S military and it focuses on the close watch duties in the gated area and surrounding areas that Umbrella once did.

The end of Raccoon City
There is some confusion as to the means of Raccoon City's destruction due to its different depictions in different games in the series. In Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, a single missile, possibly thermonuclear in nature is launched from a distant missile silo or bomber aircraft and destroys the entire city. A blue pulse traveling with the shock wave has been interpreted as EMP.

In the semi-canonical Resident Evil Outbreak, several thermonuclear warheads are shown streaking over the city and the blast craters appear inconsistent with conventional weapons, as the blast craters are more than half-a mile deep in some places. According to some, the craters were made by conventional weapons, but the missiles shown couldn't have carried enough explosive to make such a crater. In Resident Evil Outbreak: File 2, it is shown that multiple rockets were fired from military aircraft, and two of the four possible endings show the main characters escaping the city by highway at the zero hour, nearly overtaken by explosions. As unlikely as such a scenario is with conventional weapons, it is far less probable with thermonuclear weapons. The heat flash of a nuclear weapon would have instantly incinerated the survivors and their vehicle, and even if they had survived, they would quickly perish from radiation exposure. However, many variables must be considered and it is possible that the U.S. Government used all of these measures to ensure the complete destruction of Raccoon City and the T-Virus.

Notes found throughout the Resident Evil series suggest that isolated T-Virus infections were occurring between May and September of 1998. If this is true, it shows that the virus released in the Arklay Mountains escaped the destruction of the mansion and had made its way into the city, perhaps as an airborne pathogen or through infected animals. Some have argued that after that first spill, the death of Raccoon City was inevitable; the second spill in September merely accelerated the outbreak.

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

Resident Evil 2

 * Raccoon Police Department


 * Umbrella Subterranean Laboratory - 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 and G viruses. It was here that Birkin injected himself with the G-Virus after being fatally wounded by Umbrella commandos.  The laboratory contained facilities for viral research and vaccine synthesis, a station for cryogenic experiments, a smelting pool, and two train terminals (a rotating turntable elevator on the uppermost level and a freight train at the bottom platform).  The facility is accessible through the Umbrella training facility in Resident Evil 0 where you fight Tyrant for the first time.


 * Emmy's Diner - This "greasy spoon" was Claire Redfield's first stop in Raccoon City. She was nearly killed by zombies lurking within, but was fortunately rescued by Leon S. Kennedy at the last moment.


 * Kendo's Gun Shop - A local armory surplus which was run by Robert Kendo. It was invaded by zombies and Kendo was killed in the onslaught.

Resident Evil 3

 * Uptown - Uptown Raccoon occupied the southern city portion of Raccoon. This area, also called the Cedar District, contained Jack's Bar, Kendo's Gun Shop, a boutique, the Umbrella sales office, Dario's Warehouse, and the Raccoon City Police Precinct. The area is bordered in part by the Marble River.


 * Downtown - Raccoon's Downtown section was located north to the Uptown area. This part of the city contained a restaurant called Cafe 13, a movie theater, the office of the Raccoon Press, and City Hall.


 * St. Michael Clock Tower - 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 a crashing helicopter.


 * Raccoon City Hospital - Raccoon's largest hospital was established in 1992, a few blocks from the Clock Tower. During the outbreak, hospital staff on Umbrella's payroll engineered a vaccine for the T-Virus. Unfortunately, the hospital was overrun before the vaccine could be produced in large quantities. U.B.C.S. supervisor Nicholai Ginovaef destroyed the hospital to eliminate evidence of Umbrella's experiments.


 * Raccoon Park - 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 - This apparently abandoned structure was used by Umbrella for processing of unwanted or hazardous biological material. In the months leading up to the outbreak, this included an increasing number of destroyed zombies, which taxed the facility's capabilities. The site contained a small water-treatment facility, a large room used for chemically processing dead experimental subjects, an incinerator room, and a small helipad.  At some point, U.S. Army forces attacked the facility, bringing to bear an experimental railgun.  Umbrella responded by deploying several T-103 Tyrants against the attackers.  Jill Valentine and Carlos Oliveira escaped from this facility by helicopter moments before the destruction of Raccoon City.

Resident Evil Outbreak

 * Umbrella Corporation Office and Research Facility - Umbrella's main corporate office was located in Downtown Raccoon City. This facility was Umbrella's public location. The laboratories contained Hunters and a T-103 Tyrant Unit. Umbrella researchers Linda and Carter developed a cure to the T-Virus here.


 * J's Bar - 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.


 * The Apple Inn - Two fire fighters searching for survivors are killed when a faulty boiler explodes in the heart of this hotel. The resulting explosion spreads fire throughout the building and traps a number of survivors inside with the zombies and mutants roaming the halls.


 * Raccoon City University - A good-sized University was located on the east side of the city. As with many establishments in Raccoon, Umbrella's influence extended even here.  Some of the faculty toiled at perfecting biological weapons. Others, somehow privy to Umbrella's T-Virus research, worked at a cure. In another parallel to Raccoon City Hospital, the University was destroyed by Nicholai Ginovaef.


 * Raccoon City Zoo - Raccoon 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 a very angry elephant.


 * Raccoon City Subway - Raccoon's subway system was little safer than the surface at the height of the outbreak. Wrecked trains congested the tunnels and mutant ticks proliferated in the dark tunnels, making the underground a dubious refuge. The line visited by survivors during the events of Outbreak File 2 ran underneath Raccoon St., a major road which passed through central Raccoon City.

Raccoon City in other media
In the Resident Evil films Raccoon City was a huge metropolis that was very busy conducting scientific research.

Resident Evil
In the 2002 film Resident Evil, Raccoon City was built by the Umbrella Corporation and staged research in a top-secret underground facility known as The Hive. Most of its 800,000 residents were oblivious to the experiments beneath its streets.

On September 29, 2002, the T-Virus escaped into the ventilation systems. A giant supercomputer known as the Red Queen shut down the Hive and gassed all of its employees with Halon except two who were drowned. Umbrella later sent in a special elite team of commandos in order to retrieve information about the incident.

The team entered the Hive through a secret passage located within the Spencer Mansion. The viral outbreak was intentionally released in order to smuggle out the T-Virus and sell it on the black market. During the outbreak 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 - is the giant underground complex in Resident Evil located below the streets of Raccoon City. The building was created by Umbrella to conduct viral research. During the T-Virus outbreak in The Hive, Umbrella dispatched a team to investigate and re-open the facility.


 * Spencer Mansion - is 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 mansions is closely resembled to that seen in Resident Evil.


 * Raccoon City Hospital - is the general hospital located in Raccoon City. The hospital is used as quarantine center after the viral outbreak.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse
In the 2004 sequel, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Umbrella 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 inside the complex. With the seal now broken, 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 it 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 control 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 effectiveness nearly nil. With all units dead, infected, or evacuated, Umbrella's last-line plan was put in motion.

Shortly before dawn on September 30th, 2002, a cruise missile equipped with a thermonuclear warhead was launched into the heart of downtown Raccoon City. Umbrella 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 happened met with failure.

Locations

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


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


 * Raven's Gate Bridge - 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 - 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) hide here. The church is of Gothic style and possesses several statues of angels.


 * Raccoon City Junior School - The elementary school in Raccoon City, Ashford's daughter, Angela Ashford, 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. The Students were transformed into Zombies, possibley explaining why a R.P.D.Police K-9 Van was parked outside.


 * Raccoon Police Department - The RPD building is a 70's concrete structure. At the beginning of the Raccoon City outbreak, the cops try to detain the zombies and to help the survivors, using the building as centre of operations. Some hours later, when Alice comes to the building, fleeing of Nemesis, this one already is completely deserted.


 * Raccoon City Nuclear Power Facility - Raccoon City's only power plant, the RCNP formed the foundation of the Umbrella 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 - Access to the Hive research complex below Raccoon City was gained in two places. The main entrance was directly beneath centre city, 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 arouse suspision). 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.