Resident Evil 5: 2008 or 2009?

[Alexia_Ashford]

Even if it was a marketing ploy, it's still something written by Capcom which categorically states the events of RE5 as early 2009, and it introduced us to "Alysson" or however its spelt. That would be another reason for me not to second guess the dates already written in the games manual.

[Stu]

Yet in the game, she wasn't even named, so it's not like we can even be sure that was her name anyway.

[Stu]

Even if it was a marketing ploy, it's still something written by Capcom which categorically states the events of RE5 as early 2009, and it introduced us to "Alysson" or however its spelt. That would be another reason for me not to second guess the dates already written in the games manual.

Yeah but Paul (is that News Bot's name? I forget) has been talking lately about the importance of what the writers of Resident Evil have worked on before...that blog falls so far from that area to me.

[Carnivol]

I should've added the math bit to my little 2008 support post
But, yeah, 2008 for RE5, really. The game itself becomes self-inconsistent the moment you try to apply any of the proposed 2009 dates to it.


Also, if ARG's such as Adam's blog (and the B.S.A.A. desktop to boot) is to be considered 110% canon in every possibly way, all other content better be revised to reflect the Twitter posts too.

As far as content like that goes - Games should always come first. Period. External content/supplemental material stands second in line - no matter if it's "Licensed by Capcom" - Just like expanded universe material does in Star Wars (Star Wars is such a nice sample too, 'cause it really would be nice if it weren't so ). The moment supplemental material does not hold water when put up against the games themselves, or introduces any form for contradiction/plot-hole/issue that previously was not there; It's out. If a game comes out later that contradicts supplemental material; the supplemental material is out. Depending on the circumstances; if a game dodges a subject, that is not necessarily the same as if it's contradicting it.

Resident Evil is a video game series that has expanded in many ways, not an instruction booklet with a video game adaption.

[TheBatMan]

The character age thing can easily be overlooked. It just adds further fuel to my theory that RE5 was originally meant to be set in 2008 but got put back to 2009 to coincide with the eventual release date.

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/5681/chronicle.jpg

This timeline from the official kaitaishinsho plus Adam's blog, BSAA website, RE5 Declassified booklet and the games manual say 2009. Whether you want to question the canonicity of these materials is up to you, but EVERY source Capcom has released point out that capcom had the game set in 2009. If there was any doubt about this you would have thought at least one of them would be leaning towards 2008.

Hell, wasn't it even just Chris Kramer who said the game was set 10 years after RE2? And we all know how reliable he can be...

[Dracarys]

Why would Capcom care about changing the date of RE5 events.

RE1 - Set 2 years in the future
RE2 - Present, roughly. Would have been the future with original game idea.
RE3 - The past
CV - The past
REmake - The Past
RE0 - The past
RE4 - The past
RE: UC Umbrella's End - The past
RE: DSC Op Javier - The past

Now why are they suddenly going to care about being in the present?

[Carnivol]

On a developer/publisher's care-o-meter... there's probably not even any sign of there ever being life on it when it comes to care for potential minor mishaps in manuals, errors in guidebooks, etc. and the inconsistencies brought upon the world via everyday marketing campaigns.


Sure. Some of those things are good fun. Make for a good read. Fill in some random gaps. But they surely aren't making a good case for themselves if they actually are straight out impossible (or just ridiculous) if you pit 'em up against their respective accompanying game(s). You're at least off to a good start if there's actually an official statement/footnote in some supplemental material that points out "This is what the game said, which is unfortunately incorrect because of bla bla bla bla. We're sorry. This publication corrects this." but if there's no such thing, then they either didn't know what they were writing or they're very unprofessional... the latter not exactly sounding very credible either. Unfortunately, we've yet to see any of that (closest would be whatever you would call Wesker's Report). Mostly 'cause people who's job is to write/compile supplemental material and manuals don't really care or they don't do as much research as you'd like to think they do. It's not universal, of course. There are some companies that do incredible indepth companion books for their games. But it's far from the norm. Sometimes you also have cases like Adam's Blog and the BSAA Desktop where the dates just reflect the date of "today's date." To make them more "accessible" (and save yourself the trouble of manipulating the dates on blogspot)


If it really makes someone lose sleep at night; See 2009 as a really poor way of saying "Present Day" (As in not 1998 anymore). One thing's for sure... Adam's Blog and BSAA desktop building up to RE5 taking place on the 6th of March 2009 sure as hell doesn't float well with the game's own Village Youth's Diary and a set of other random little details

[TheBatMan]

Why would Capcom care about changing the date of RE5 events.

RE1 - Set 2 years in the future
RE2 - Present, roughly. Would have been the future with original game idea.
RE3 - The past
CV - The past
REmake - The Past
RE0 - The past
RE4 - The past
RE: UC Umbrella's End - The past
RE: DSC Op Javier - The past

Now why are they suddenly going to care about being in the present?

Because if you actually took some time to think about it, the plot necessities of those games meant they could not be set in the future could they? The only exception on that list would be RE4.

The village youth's diary could also be explained. They live in the marshlands in the middle of nowhere. They could easily be infected for nine months and still go about their normal lives. No one would come across them and they would be monitored by Irving at the oil field. Remember he did say the village was a field test so that alone implies its infection was separate to that of Kijuju. That and it was a completely different strain of plagas altogether.

It was probably the same with the village in re4. Some of them were prob infected for a while before Leon came along, didn't stop them getting on with life.

[Alexia_Ashford]

The village youth's diary could also be explained. They live in the marshlands in the middle of nowhere. They could easily be infected for nine months and still go about their normal lives. No one would come across them and they would be monitored by Irving at the oil field. Remember he did say the village was a field test so that alone implies its infection was separate to that of Kijuju. That and it was a completely different strain of plagas altogether.

I was going to post something along these lines. There's no year on that diary and as such, to use it as evidence that RE5 took place in 2008 is really irrelevant. I'd always assumed it had referred to the previous year as it was a field test with a different type of Plaga, and we have seen before that Ganado/Majini are capable of leading normal lives while being infected (the Ganado farming in RE4), though we don't really know to what extent as it was a Plaga Type 3. There's no reason why that journal entry can't be April 2008.

The other random details hold as much weight as the ones which suggest it was 2009 (including the game's manual).

[Carnivol]

True @RE4 people kept living on with their lives. The people in the Village turned all primitive, unlike the tiny mountain village of tree huggers and hippies in RE4. Kijuju (and naturally the surrounding areas) generally "should" have proper contact with the outside world and can't possibly be entirely self-sufficient. Part of this is evident by the fact that there's even such a thing as a local oil industry there, the large docks (filled with containers), the mines, etc... (the oil fields have at least been there for at least one generation). Then again, at least the mine fields are about as corrupt as it gets... so if they're the only ones in the area, they might as well have been able to keep it all under wraps, as stuff like that just "shouldn't" go unnoticed. (Of course, the secret construction of large underground laboratories is common everyday practice in the RE world. Guess Fritzl made Umbrella proud.)

This could of course stretch knee deep into the make believe and let's pretend territory... and, well, the Village itself (Chapter 3, iirc) is hilariously inconveniently placed (as even mentioned in the diary) and it's oddly primitive, even by local standards. Especially when you consider the fact that they must have access to some sort of educational system out there. Oh, well. At least the primitive appearance of the locals is explained.

This is not much of a great argument (as we know how censorship works), but Kijuju's also entirely devoid of children (already) by the time Chris and Sheva comes in. Even in the non-hostile parts. Of course, going by the diary, the cocktail the people in the village were given seems to've killed the children within only 48 hours. So this may have happened at any given point in time in Kijuju too.

I don't remember where all the random details are given in the game (though, I've been thinking about replaying it to clean out some random stuff before the DLC comes out), but there's of course one little detail that I remember which I guess "could" speak in favor of 2009.
I seem to recall Chris saings "a few years ago" rather than "a couple of years ago" when talking about what happened to Jill. Which... well... isn't really more than nitpicking at the way someone might just talk, but at least it opens the possibility of 2006 being more than just 2 years ago.

[Alexia_Ashford]

I would have imagined the swamp Majini have been there for quite some time, and they're self-sufficient like the Ganado in RE4, perhaps by fishing in the area or something. Another thing that suggests to me it was 2009 is the fact it's mentioned in Adam's blog how they were locking down/quarantining Kijuju (and that was dated as 2009), and by the time Chris arrives, Kijuju is already quarantined and the Majini are still infecting civilians (the Majini at the start of the game who gets a Plaga shoved down his throat). Because of these details and because the actual manual itself puts it at 2009, I really have a hard time accepting it as happening in 2008. But everyone is entitled to their opinion.

[REmaster]

Now the real question is, will RE6 take place around 2015 (WOW that makes me feel old), or 2010? Just when we finally get the storyline taking place in modern times and not in 1998, will the proccess repeat itself?

[Smiley]

Yeeeah.

And you don't think (taking into account all the facts to the contrary) that it might just be an oversight on the developer's part, no?

I'm more inclined to believe the game's manual, TheBatMan, and Project Umbrella over your "math" (you live in the UK by the way, it's called maths).

The game's manual claims the UC TALOS scenario happened in 2002. Wesker specifically states 2003 during that portion of the game. Manual is more or less irrelevant.

Adam's blog, and other RE promos are all on you pal. And though I can credit someone for writing a timeline based on their analysis of what to pick and choose from for a fan based site, it still comes off as messy any way you look at it for determining the time frame.

[Smiley]

Even if it was a marketing ploy, it's still something written by Capcom which categorically states the events of RE5 as early 2009, and it introduced us to "Alysson" or however its spelt. That would be another reason for me not to second guess the dates already written in the games manual.

I will remind people that the "Alyson" character isn't even credited with a name for the actual RE5 product. And just cause it comes right out of capcom doesn't mean the promos are canon. Or are the live action "fear you can't forget" promos and DSC tweets part of the canon experience?

[Stu]

I will remind people that the "Alyson" character isn't even credited with a name for the actual RE5 product.

Why are you reminding people when it was only brought up a few posts earlier?