Capcom's Masachika Kawata has spoken on the allegations of racism in his team’s upcoming Resident Evil 5, claiming that the Africa setting has always been in line with the series’ story and that his development team have no political agendas when it comes to making software.
A surprising volume of accusations of racist intent were squared at Capcom from many corners of the internet following the game’s video showcase at E3 2007. Condemnation was largely rooted in game’s illustration and animation of black zombies, of which the game’s white protagonist kills in great numbers. Speaking to CVG, Kawata stated that “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.”
He also expanded on the reason behind electing Africa as the game’s setting: “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. We've gone where the story has taken us.”
Following the controversy back in June 2007, a number of Resident Evil 5 videos surfaced showing a more racially-diverse spread of enemies as well as an African female protagonist. However, the game’s producer, Jun Takeuchi, claimed that the videos were not responding to racism accusations but instead part of the plan all along.
Speaking of that plan, Kawata acknowledges the pressure on his team to follow Resident Evil 4, a winner of numerous GOTY awards as well as finishing second place in the Edge supplement The 100 Best Videogames. “We didn't create Resident Evil 4,” he said, “Shinji Mikami created it. Mr Mikami is pretty much a genius anyway, so Resident Evil 4 was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing. We're under a lot of pressure to live up to expectations, but we've done what we wanted to do.”