Resident Evil 5: 2008 or 2009?

[TheBatMan]

Jill's birthday cannot be between October 1st and Dec 31st because she has already had her 28th birthday by Feb 2003.

Character ages are not reliable. Capcom don't have a clue about specific dates for character's birthdays, they just simply update them year by year, which is lazy.

The translated story talks about the RE4 outbreak that happened five years ago, plus this comes from a book that has a timeline stating the game takes place in 2009.

Uroboros missiles in that file could easily be an early prototype. Wesker wouldn't launch his plan until he knew it would be ready would he?

Plagas 3 field test at the village was done in the marshlands, on a tribe that has no contact with the outside world and in a location nowhere close to any populated areas. Perfectly reasonable for them to be infected for 9 months and no body know, except for Irving, who's oil field was the only thing close to them for miles around.

Type 2 was released on a heavily populated urban area, so it doesn't take rocket science to know the BSAA would come a calling eventually.

[Smiley]

Jill's birthday cannot be between October 1st and Dec 31st because she has already had her 28th birthday by Feb 2003.

Character ages are not reliable. Capcom don't have a clue about specific dates for character's birthdays, they just simply update them year by year, which is lazy.

The translated story talks about the RE4 outbreak that happened five years ago, plus this comes from a book that has a timeline stating the game takes place in 2009.

Uroboros missiles in that file could easily be an early prototype. Wesker wouldn't launch his plan until he knew it would be ready would he?

Plagas 3 field test at the village was done in the marshlands, on a tribe that has no contact with the outside world and in a location nowhere close to any populated areas. Perfectly reasonable for them to be infected for 9 months and no body know, except for Irving, who's oil field was the only thing close to them for miles around.

Type 2 was released on a heavily populated urban area, so it doesn't take rocket science to know the BSAA would come a calling eventually.

We have in-game clues to Jill's age...and that is RE5 bro.

[Carnivol]

Jill's birthday cannot be between October 1st and Dec 31st because she has already had her 28th birthday by Feb 2003.

Seeing as she's supposedly born in 1974... I don't quite see the problem there, as she should've already turned 28 by the end of 2002.

[Dracarys]

Jill's birthday cannot be between October 1st and Dec 31st because she has already had her 28th birthday by Feb 2003.

Character ages are not reliable. Capcom don't have a clue about specific dates for character's birthdays, they just simply update them year by year, which is lazy.

Once again you are messing up on the math. In Feb 2003 Jill would be 28 and later in the year between Oct-Dec she would turn 29. There is no error there.

Uroboros missiles in that file could easily be an early prototype. Wesker wouldn't launch his plan until he knew it would be ready would he?

If it was only a prototype why would they bother to load into into missiles? Seems pretty pointless, plus the files refer to the Reapers as an Uroboros creation.

Plagas 3 field test at the village was done in the marshlands, on a tribe that has no contact with the outside world and in a location nowhere close to any populated areas. Perfectly reasonable for them to be infected for 9 months and no body know, except for Irving, who's oil field was the only thing close to them for miles around.

You just assume no contact with the outside world, as stated they were not throwing spears and such before infection, the youth states they started dressing like the ancestors. I'd argue that anyone who keeps a diary and in english isn't cut off from civilisation that much. With their violent behavior and lack of women would need question if they even had the ability to survive a year, don't seem the farming type to me. Is also a file that states "Their advanced architectural techniques are used throughout the world to repair and maintain many damaged ancient ruins. This how the world at large knows of the Ndipaya." So obvious some people have a big interest in them. Not to mention the workers of the oil field would have noticed at some point through an entire year.

Type 2 was released on a heavily populated urban area, so it doesn't take rocket science to know the BSAA would come a calling eventually.

...but as I said why would they wait almost a year before field testing, they release Type 2 only shortly before RE5 starts also, if they just figured the BSAA would show up once an infection started why not do it a year earlier? Its because RE5 takes place not long after creation when the BSAA had already gathered info on goings on in the area and were about to investigate that Tricell decided to do that. Unless that is the BSAA took an entire year to react and Tricell waited all that time, which isn't feasible.

[TheBatMan]

Once again you are messing up on the math. In Feb 2003 Jill would be 28 and later in the year between Oct-Dec she would turn 29. There is no error there.

I know, i'm confusing myself now. I shall concede the age subject then.

Uroboros could still be a prototype, missiles or not. The T-Virus was perfected in Jan 1978, yet research was not fully completed until ten years later. The Reapers are irrelevant, you don't think any of them would be kept alive for study?

The village is a perfect place for a covert field test. The Ndipaya had been self-sufficient for centuries. If contact was lost with one village in the marshlands, who would really know about it? Or care? Plus all the workers at the Oil Fields were Tricell employees, they wouldn't care either.

They didn't infect Kijuju a year earlier because Uroboros wasn't finalised yet. They picked this time for a reason which was Irving's weapons deal. Type 2 strain wasn't new. Wesker had given it to Tricell five years ago. Sure, it had been modified and this was likely the first field test that involved the new infection method of just shoving the parasite down one's throat, but the original type 2 had probably been tested on a small scale many times before. They had to do the major field test at this point because they knew the BSAA would be coming as they had gathered Intel that Irving was in the area.

[Carnivol]

No, you are missing the point. Jill was 23 in RE1, which was July 1998. Fast forward five years later to Feb 2003 where she took part in Operation TALOS she is listed as age 28, as in she has already had her birthday for that year. If her birthday wasn't until Oct-Dec she would only be listed as 27. Her age in RE5, whatever way you look at it, is wrong.

I thought this was simple math...
The difference between 1998 and 2003 is 5 years, right?

We're able to conclude that Jill's birthday is in the later half of the year, as based on her tombstone she was presumably born in 1974 and her being 23 in RE1-3 makes simple math suggest that the difference between 74 and 98 is 24. By the end of the year 1998 (after-RE1-3) Jill would evt. turn 24.

Jump to February 2003, Jill will not have celebrate her birthday yet for that year (but by the end of the year - she will turn 29).

The math is simple. RE1-3 age (23) + difference in years between '98 and '03 (5) = Jill Valentine's age is 28 in February 2003 (and do another +5 to get the RE5 age of 33. Which technically should put RE5 sometime 2008, as by the end of 2008... Jill should have been 34.)

[edit]
Oh! Saw you took that part out.

[TheBatMan]

Yeah, my maths has always been pretty poor I'm not ashamed to admit. I still can't accept character ages as a concrete reason though. Not when Capcom themselves are saying its 2009.

There is nothing in game that says 2008 which cannot be explained away to some degree. The same may be said of 2009 to some people but the balance favours 2009 because of the game manual and all the supplemental material.

Hell, going back to the math, I even double-checked Jill's age in the bio 5 guide and on the very next page at the top it reads this:

BIOHAZARD 1998.7......1998.9......1998.12......2003.2......2 004......2009
CALENDAR

2009 is just referenced far too many times for it to be a mistake. One typo in a small timeline at the back of the game manual is a totally different story.

If something concrete comes up in Gold Edition to confirm it was 2008 all along then I will be the first one to hold my hands up and admit I was wrong but until then it's 2009 all the way for me.

[Carnivol]

To be honest, I'm in neither camps (2008/2009). I'm just "testing all the claims," so to speak. As they've obviously dug themselves a bit of a grave on the subject.

2009 is just referenced far too many times for it to be a mistake. One typo in a small timeline at the back of the game manual is a totally different story.

I suppose it could be a case of the snowball effect-type, which likely wouldn't be the first/only time that appears to've happened

[TheBatMan]

Could be. Anyway, when is The True Story Behind Biohazard translation going to be completed, 2010 or 2011? ha ha.

[Carnivol]

Could be. Anyway, when is The True Story Behind Biohazard translation going to be completed, 2010 or 2011? ha ha.

Actually, the translation itself has been done for ages now. It's just that cross-checking the terminology with the official translations used in the games and stuff has taken a while + been adding a few random notes here and there (and the fact that I've had other things to do too. Both site related, unrelated, life/work and other stuff.)

Anyway, It'll be up this year. That's for sure. Probably wont have to wait much longer either. Promise. I was originally trying to just finish the last bits 'n pieces on my end by Christmas - 2009... but failed!

[Stars1356]

I really think the game was set in 2008 because they wanted to match up the story will the current date but since the game didn't come out until 2009 a lot of things are messed up. Capcom is saying the game is 2009 but there are things in game that say otherwise like the ages. Capcom should have had the developers change things in the game so it was 2009 or just leave it be. If they wanted it to be 2009 so they could use Adam's blog or the BSAA website well I really see it as a waste.

[Shadow Stalker]

Yeah, my maths has always been pretty poor I'm not ashamed to admit. I still can't accept character ages as a concrete reason though. Not when Capcom themselves are saying its 2009.

There is nothing in game that says 2008 which cannot be explained away to some degree. The same may be said of 2009 to some people but the balance favours 2009 because of the game manual and all the supplemental material.

Hell, going back to the math, I even double-checked Jill's age in the bio 5 guide and on the very next page at the top it reads this:

BIOHAZARD 1998.7......1998.9......1998.12......2003.2......2 004......2009
CALENDAR

2009 is just referenced far too many times for it to be a mistake. One typo in a small timeline at the back of the game manual is a totally different story.

If something concrete comes up in Gold Edition to confirm it was 2008 all along then I will be the first one to hold my hands up and admit I was wrong but until then it's 2009 all the way for me.

Fair enough.

[Carnivol]

Just noticed a little detail during my re-run of the game (warming up for Lost in Nightmare )

In 3-2, when you run through the abandoned TriCell camp (right after the village - obviously the one from the Village Youth's Diary - right before you hit the oil fields), things appear to be in pretty good shape (just abandoned).

There's a clipboard there with the Type 3 Plagas Field Test document laying out in the open in the first tent (as we know, that one hasn't really got any dates and just says that they did stuff about a week prior to whenever it was written)

However, in the same tent, there's a spot (the night stand) you can investigate and get the message "There's a faint smell of antiseptic. Was it used recently...?"
In the other tent there's another one that says "Smells like medicine in here. Is that antiseptic?" (+you can have your char question why there's a hospital bed out there and a stuff)

Anyway, whatever year it is, I'd say this possibly further leans towards Village Youth's Diary being fairly "recent" (as far as the game's internal timeline goes) (Though... for all we know, I guess they could have other purposes for the camp, but that doesn't really seem likely and why would they keep old Type 3 papers just neatly left behind on a bed there ages after the actual Type 3 "test" was initiated?)

[Carnivol]

Let there be a double post!

Exactly right. But her gravestone in RE5 says 1974-2006. There's your 'in game' evidence for characters ages being unreliable!

Wanna see something hilarious?
The Jill Valentine profile in Lost in Nightmares lists her as 30. Meaning that "technically" (as far as the game itself goes) Lost in Nightmares should take place in 2005


(Which of course isn't possibly if you chross-check No. 04 Chris Redfield and No. 10 Jill Valentine with eachother, as previously mentioned; one gives a date for when Jill was declared and the other says how long the search took before she was declared dead.)


Ooooh... Capcom *applauds*

[TheBatMan]

Ha ha, brilliant!