Resident Evil 5 Producer Dismisses Racism Claims
Anyone who viewed the second Resident Evil 5 trailer could have told you the minefield of political correctness that Capcom was walking into. Now, it’s not a touchy subject because the content was specifically offensive, but because specific people were offended by it. During an interview, the producer for Resident Evil 5, Masachika Kawata, commented on his feelings of the “racism” in the game, or more appropriately, the lack there of.
“We chose Africa because we’re extending the storyline logically. Following the tradition of the Resident Evil franchise, you’ll remember from Code Veronica – the Progenitor virus comes from Africa so we wanted to go back to the root of where the virus originated. For the people who think it’s racist… well, we can’t please everyone. We’re in the entertainment business – we’re not here to state our political opinion or anything like that. It’s unfortunate that some people felt that way.”
Frankly, the idea that the Resident Evil team intentionally set the location in Africa simply to make the enemies African is absurd.
While we’re on the topic of offending certain people, I might as well point out that he also stated that Resident Evil 5 has such graphical finesse that the Wii wouldn’t even be able to run the title screen.