Resident Evil 5: 2008 or 2009?

[TheDevilBringer]

No you are right, it is a mess. But there is certainly no clear evidence in the game that more or less confirm events took place in 2008 as the Devil Bringer suggests. Yes there are elements that point to 08, but there are just as many that say 09.

I even said on the first page of the thread that I believed it was originally 08 but got pushed back to 09 to coincide with the release date.

Even if Devil Bringer is genuine and what he says is true, then the game is still offically set in 2009 yes?

You misunderstand my point. The game was designed to be in '08. That being the only date anywhere in the game and it being the planned release window should all certainly suggest this. Yes, in Marketing terms, it is now '09. But nothing in the game was altered to suggest that. In all honesty, until RE6 comes around - 5 no longer has a solid year. It was developed as 2008. Due to the new release window it was being sold as 2009. So until a sequel sets it in stone, people can choose to believe the initial development team or the marketing team. Working on games that have done this kind of thing - I never consider the PD teams alterations to be cannon unless the next game takes them into account (and it rarely does). Because the people that developed this game set it in '08. That was the true design. I just find it slightly absurd that all the arguments are based on information outside the actual game.

[TheBatMan]

You misunderstand my point. The game was designed to be in '08. That being the only date anywhere in the game and it being the planned release window should all certainly suggest this. Yes, in Marketing terms, it is now '09. But nothing in the game was altered to suggest that. In all honesty, until RE6 comes around - 5 no longer has a solid year. It was developed as 2008. Due to the new release window it was being sold as 2009. So until a sequel sets it in stone, people can choose to believe the initial development team or the marketing team. Working on games that have done this kind of thing - I never consider the PD teams alterations to be cannon unless the next game takes them into account (and it rarely does). Because the people that developed this game set it in '08. That was the true design. I just find it slightly absurd that all the arguments are based on information outside the actual game.

But as I keep saying, how do you know the game was designed to be set in 2008? That date is not mentioned anywhere in the game except for one very blurred occasion on a tiny monitor in the background the full date of which we already know cannot be the date of the game's events.

If the game was designed for 2008 why is there no indication in the game itself for us all to obviously believe it to be so?

You tell me why it was designed and exactly how it was designed to be set in 2008 because there is nothing glaringly obvious to say so.

Nothing in the game suggests 2008 any more than it suggests 2009. All the files fit 2009 pretty well. I also can't believe the development team would intentionally allow the marketing people to just change a key story point such as the year the game takes place just to meet the advertising campaign for a release date. I mean, it could have fucked up the whole story if the files no longer fitted!

The RE5 development team also co-wrote the Bio 5 Kaitaishinsho which contains numerous references to events taking place in 2009. This had nothing to do with the marketing people.

[TheDevilBringer]

lol, there is a single date anywhere in the game... and it's 08. If you read anything about the game before it got moved to 09 (from the first article to info on the character design) it was always "ten years after the mansion" which would happen to be the planned release window. And you're asking the wrong question... there is no solid date at the start of the game simply because they were avoiding putting in a date that would end up being past when/if development ran over schedule. You should ask why is 2008 visable at all and, with that, why does a user need to zoom in using a scoped weapon to view it? Because the art assets were made with the intention of the title being set in '08. When the title got pushed back, the dev team didn't manually go hunting for any art assets that would have to updated. Had they made it completely clear it was 2008, they would have to alter the product to avoid making all the planned pre-release marketing tactics instantly useless. Also, you seem uncertain on how game production works and assume the date is key to the story. Dev teams are making the game, PD is "sellin it" with their ad campaign. The devs have no control over marketing... which is why the date is never clearly indicated. And by the time Kaitaishinsho was being worked on, the games ship date was already moved to '09. It wasn't as if marketing didn't inform the higher ups and key members of the dev team their plans... also, if it has anything to do with the game, it wouldn't necessarily be credited but marketing played a large roll in it and even got to proof read it. That's a part of their job. My point has never been the game MUST be in 2008... RE6 can come out set in 2012 and claim 5 happened a year earlier... the date doesn't change the games story. But in terms of 5's design and development, it was 2008. And marketing materials don't count as proof otherwise.

[Carnivol]

I think people are overestimating the involvement of the "dev team" in the writing of the Kaitaishinsho. I can't say I know for sure how those are written, but from general experience with similar production is that they write a short Q&A with some staff member(s), get access to an art dump, possibly get access to a tiny pile of random notes, and get a free copy of the game to play around with. And then they send their near printing ready work off to the license holder, who'll usually give it to their least occupied interns who'll get to quickly skim through the thing and look for things that might not be compliant with some company policy or guidelines. This is much less than someone like, say, Cavia, probably had access to while doing Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles and the amount of hours spent tearing Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica to pieces, to ensure that the main outline for certain events is still correct and that the only creative liberties they evt. take are truly done with the blessing of Capcom (who's actually pouring money into it, rather letting someone else pay them to use their property). Changes to the narrative structure is of course done entirely for gameplay purposes and don't really actually change the overall picture.

As for the whole development team vs marketing team on the subject of decision making; games, like many other things, are produced in a very conveyor belt like structure, once the QA team signs off and then the internal certification team gives their final thumbs up on a release candidate, the game is out of the hands of the development team and things are forwarded for manufacturing and the marketing team are putting their fingerprints on things (this is usually anything between 2-4 months before the game's going on sale). The dev team is pretty much taken away from their game several months prior to launch, unless they have a small team set up to provide additional support for the game, post-release (w/patches, DLC, etc.).

Now, of course, one interesting thing on Capcom's end of things (in terms of pro-combined efforts) is that they are somewhat a bit of a tight knit group over there when it comes to certain things. And it is pretty funny that Adam's obviously using a Ben Judd photo and that Gearoid Reidy appears in one of the chat windows on the BSAA desktop. Also keep in mind that the same man behind the 2008 / 10 years after comments was also part of, if I'm not mistaken, their marketing division - which puts him in the same booth as those who've done all the printed material (and usually also those that in companies does the yay/nay for various licensed books and such)


Anyway,
It's true that there appears to be only one date in RE5 (to my knowledge, anyway) that straight out mentions the year 2008 (but its context/meaning is pretty much unknown, making it likely to be irrelevant as an actual argument for the whole 2008 or 2009 thing), and anything we can draw from it would merely be circumstantial assumptions[*], but it was pretty easy to back up a 2008 claim by just skimming through the game's content. It was also pretty easy to challenge the 2009 claim.

[*] Personally, I'm under the impression that what you're looking at is what likely is intended as the date for when Jill was REMOVED from the lab/capsule (hence why it's empty) and which would be more or less right before she was transformed into the "Bird Woman". An event I more or less suspect to've taken place shortly before the game starts (as in just a matter of months) If I get bored out of my mind one day, maybe I'll try to wrap up a simple outline of events as I see them. No Stone Unturned.

[Smiley]

If you make your outline how will you follow up on LiN and her death? The gravestone gives us so much grief from her being born in 1974 to her death in 2006. The 30, 33 additional information just sinks lower in the scope of things.

My only hunch for why they made her 30 in LiN was that they took 33 and subtracted 3 years...like a bunch of idiots...so that does lead me to think 2009 could have been what they had in mind if that was the case. Problem is they should have just taken her birth year and added in the eight years to spare us more confusion.

[TheDevilBringer]

It could also have to do with the month LIN takes place as opposed to the month RE5 occured (or, more likely, was planned to occur), and the month/day she was born. Offhand, they probably didn't take much time and could have been one person asking, "How old was she at this point?" "30, I think?" and done. I have had this kind of thing happen on games I worked on.

[Carnivol]

Don't think there's any math to be had regarding Jill's age there. As the age is just impossible. Even if we strip away the 2006 date, we're still left with the general idea of it taking place in Autumn (August, I believe). And we've been able to at least draw the conclusion that Jill's born in Q4 1974. So the last point for Jill to still be 30 would be Autumn 2005. Which is also only 7 years after the Raccoon City incident.

There's of course nothing that indicates the size of the time gap between RE5 and LIN, although Chris does use a rather vague "a few years ago" (or something like that) instead of "two years ago" or "a couple of years ago" when giving Sheva the short version. Which means the dialog is at least certainly open for it to be more than two years (2006 -> 2008/2009)

If you make your outline how will you follow up on LiN and her death?

I'd have to work with the art of covering all grounds. Actually, the thing I'll probably be focusing on if I get around to it is to initially start with the more solid stuff, and the further into the vague I get... add notes. As I clearly can't just write 2005 for LIN, as that'd be straight out contradicting the profile documents in the game that clearly state that it is a 2006 incident... Of course, I dunno much about the files archive in Resident Evil 6, but I do know that I'll be ignoring pretty much anything from "The History of Resident Evil", as that thing is just a slightly adjusted and translated copy & paste of a supplemental timeline that I've several times been poking at for containing erroneous facts.

Anyway, this'll be a little backburner project that'll lurk in my head for a while and certainly isn't something I want people to one day take as a conclusive thing. It'll be more like a... little something that'll raise awareness of a few details and maybe serve as a trigger to get others to go on their own little hunts.

The gravestone gives us so much grief from her being born in 1974 to her death in 2006. The 30, 33 additional information just sinks lower in the scope of things.

My only hunch for why they made her 30 in LiN was that they took 33 and subtracted 3 years...like a bunch of idiots...so that does lead me to think 2009 could have been what they had in mind if that was the case. Problem is they should have just taken her birth year and added in the eight years to spare us more confusion.

Your guess is as good as mine. They "probably" didn't have any art assets ready for a menu from the game's initial development... so whoever did the front end content for the DLC probably just went "Oy! How long before the main game was this again? Was it 3 years? Yeah... think it was 3 years! I'll just 33-3=30 this one! Thanks for the help, guys... not :|" or maybe it's some weird case of "You didn't get the memo?"

[TheDevilBringer]

I did the math after my last post and noticed that, as well. I think it was a simple "oops" when they got to the DLC since it seems all the changes has caused Capcom to be confused about the timeline and established dates. I forgot to ask, though, what of Chris? What is the gap between his age in LIN and 5? It really won't be proof eitherway but it'd be intresting to know if they just made a general mistake in LIN or if it's character based.

[TheBatMan]

Chris is listed as 32 in LIN and 35 in the main game. 3 years difference.

I agree with you that Capcom got confused with time line, we've seen this numerous times in the past and that is probably why they never listed a present date in the main game.

The only thing I can't get my head around is that the game was clearly designed for 2008 because there is nothing at all in game that makes that clear.

But it's probably the switching of 2008 to 09 and backwards and forwards again that leads to these mistakes with character ages.

[Dracarys]

As a guess I would say whoever did the profile screens on LiN just looked at the age given in the original RE5 and thought "That was released in 2009, LiN is 2006 so subtract 3" without properly checking into RE5s date or even the D.O.B that RE5 gives. If they had they would see the math error they created instantly.


@TheDevilBringer - Chris' age is also reduced 3 years, so if it is an error they did it twice. Could easily happen though doing the method I imagined.


Ignoring ages (though I do think none are in error aside from LiN) I still go with a late May/June 2008 estimate for all the reasons in the lower half of this post. Is just too long a period of multiple nothing if not 2008.

[TheBatMan]

The town majini that were infected was the field test for Type 2 plagas, a file specifically states the BSAA would be a test for them to engage. This is important since obviously type 2 Plagas would have been created before the Type 3.

The Type 3 were given to the tribal villagers, the date of the village youth diary lists April for when they were infected, so if it takes place early 2009 like some people say that would mean they degenerated into savages and for almost a year no one noticed? They weren't like we see them before infection, someone would have noticed in all that time. Not to mention that would mean Tricell waited almost a year before fully testing Type 2 Plagas also, something that seems very doubtful since they would want test data ASAP and they wouldn't plan a year ahead for the BSAA in the hopes they investgate the area, they would have done something else sooner.

But like we've already said, it's perfectly reasonable to assume the village would go unnoticed for a long period of time. They were out in the middle of nowhere and were under constant observation by Tricell.

As for the plaga development, it could be argued that Type 3 may of come first because they still require the old egg insertion method and the waiting ages for the parasite to mature. Type 2 have improved beyond that with oral implantation and the parasite taking only 10 seconds or so to overtake the host. The number may represent the differing strains, not necessarily the order they were created.

Doesn't the type 3 field test file say it was a failure anyway? That may have prompted them to re-evaluate Type 2 and come up with the quicker host takeover method, which would obviously take some time, say roughly nine months, ha ha!

[Carnivol]

Man... those TriCell guys must be having weird demands and expectations for their infections. Turning the entire village upside down over night through simple injections being deemed too slow, but forcing a squiggling potato down someone's throat is an ideal alternative.

What were the differences between the two supposed to be anyway? Other than injection methods and the fact that Type 3 kills both women and children (and was also a failure?), while Type 2 seems to be sparing the women (and is horribly impractical... as you need pull a friggin cart full of potatoes around if you're planning to do anything.... unless the already infected shit them out like eggs or cough 'em up like hair balls or something)


Also, were the armed soldiers in the later half of the game Type 2 or 3?

[Dracarys]

Type 2 plagas are modified basic plagas that allow instant control via an adult plaga takeover (unlike it growing like in RE4). Type 3 are basic plagas inplanted with a control plaga gene, the reason that causes some village majini to grow large.

The armed soldiers would have been type 2.