Resident Evil 5 Interview Confirms Africa Setting, Explains Why [Media]

Since the Resident Evil 5 trailer debuted, it's stirred controversy. And even more recently, it's stirred controversy again. Now a Famitsu interview has surfaced with the game's producer Takeuchi-san. Aside from telling us quite a bit more about the RE5, he confirms that the game is set in Africa and explains the team's choice for this, skirting the racial tension around the topic.

...we really wanted to show the origins of the virus. So for the setting we thought, how about using the place where humankind was born?...we thought we would use Africa, which is now called the birthplace of humanity, as the model. He also explains that a "concept of light and darkness has always been a theme of Biohazard...as abstract [ideas]" and now the theme is working its way into the core mechanics. To me it's sounding more and more to be influenced by the famous Joseph Conrad novel The Heart of Darkness, a blending of both the metaphorical and literal "white" vs. "black" effects of European ivory-fueled colonialism. But Conrad's text has more than once been accused of its own racism, most famously by Chinua Achebe.

Resident Evil 5 Famitsu Interview With Takeuchi-san [Capcom Blog] Thanks Scott!