Capcom learned from RE5 racism row

By Ellie Gibson Published 25 August, 2010

Took steps to stop it happening again.

Capcom has said it learned its lesson from the controversy which blew up over Resident Evil 5.

As you may recall, some critics argued there was racist imagery in a trailer released for the game - a charge which was defended by Capcom.

Now the company has rules in place to ensure this type of thing doesn't happen again, according to PR manager Melody Pfeiffer.

"Since the RE5 controversy, we have become much more aware of how important it is that we are part of the asset creation process early on so that we are able to have a say in the end product," she told Gamasutra.

"We are also designing a lot of our own assets from this side of the pond so that we are able to make strategic pieces of content that make sense for our market.

"We are working really closely with our producers in Japan to construct these materials for the West and they are open more then ever to hearing our thoughts and ideas for assets."

Resident Evil 5 was released in March 2009 to critical acclaim - Eurogamer's own Kristan Reed gave it 7/10 in his review. Yes, it is a good score.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (69) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Dolly #1 2 years ago

    Don't think they did nowt wrong myself. People just having a moan for the sake of it, as per usual

  • Zomoniac #2 2 years ago

    What steps? Don't do something stupid like just remove all black people from your games (which surely would be far more racist).

  • Goodfella #3 2 years ago

    Yup, just the PC brigade and knee jerk reactions, etc.

  • andywilkie35 #4 2 years ago

    Hiarious! Fucking unbelievable, people really will whinge about anything these days.

  • bad09 #5 2 years ago

    Don't worry Capcom you did nothing wrong, it just a lot of people are over sensitive morons who take media as a life lesson and take offense if the wind changes direction.

    The actual game however is all kinds of wrong, please make RE6 at least a little like an RE game :)

  • Old_Books #6 2 years ago

    +1 to Dolly and bad09

  • riceNpea #7 2 years ago

    so what's it learned exactly? how to bow down and pander to a minority of people who will do they best to perceive racism where it doesn't exist? i would hope not.


    f**k them. the game was set in Africa so it makes sense that the people populating the game were black. if you want to find racism in that then your are an over-sensitive, hyper-critical arse clown who damages and weakens the real fight against racial prejudice.

  • dsmx #8 2 years ago

    I fail to see what was racist about having black people as zombies when the game was set in Africa.

  • Skurmedel #9 2 years ago

    I can see the next Resident Evil game being announced with a all ethnicities cast, like an American sitcom with "universal appeal". Nevermind if it's set in Beijing, throw some white guys in there, and an Inuit and a Samoan.
    Edited by Skurmedel at 25/08/10 @ 09:31

  • abigsmurf #10 2 years ago

    Does this mean they'll also stop portraying white Europeans as 19th century peasant farmers?

    At least in RE5 it was more believable as being set in the present day with modern(ish) clothing, housing and weapons more advanced than crossbows.

  • DUFFMAN5 #11 2 years ago

    I have an idea Capcom...make them Zombies,(I do not care what colour they were) then we can all rejoice at the REAL Resi coming back from the dead ;)
    Edited by DUFFMAN5 at 25/08/10 @ 09:34

  • Genji #12 2 years ago

    I did find that scene with Chris pissing on a black zombie's corpse, saying "take that you stupid monkey" to be a bit tasteless though. The outtake where they were all eating fried chicken was also a bit far.

  • tobsen #13 2 years ago

    One typical phenomenon of racist cliches is that many people who are not at the receiving end of them fail or refuse to recognize them.

  • el_pollo_diablo #14 2 years ago

    "I fail to see what was racist about having black people as zombies when the game was set in Africa."

    I think it was more about what people saw as loaded imagery above anything else, in the sense that trailers featured (or at least hinted at) lynchings and so on. You also have to remember that over in the states they have a pretty bad history with regards to the rights of black people which in many respects still goes on (think Rodney King, the widespread slurring against Obama, and all the rest of it). So it was really about far more than just the setting of the game.

    Just wanted to clarify that those who did weren't necessarily out of their minds to do so. I wouldn't personally say it was racist, but would certainly agree that it was pretty culturally ignorant at times.

    (edit: and I think the fact that in Japan things like gollywogs are still seen as perfectly acceptable didn't help either.)
    Edited by el_pollo_diablo at 25/08/10 @ 09:40

  • HisDudness #15 2 years ago

    Being over-protective and paternalistic of perceived oppressed peoples IS racist! Africans have every right to be cast as zombies on their own continent you stupid liberal guilt-laden wankers. Stop interfering with artists over political correctness or you risk losing any sense of authenticity in your product.

  • GreyBeard #16 2 years ago

    PR having a hand in design... Gee, why does that sound like a terrible idea?

  • riceNpea #17 2 years ago

    50 cent: Blood on the Sand, now thats racist mofo

  • waynenot #18 2 years ago

    "Since the RE5 controversy, we have become much more aware of how important it is that we are part of the asset creation process early on so that we are able to have a say in the end product,"

    Yeah, having some marketing berk's input is vital to the creative process. It was set in Africa - black people live on that continent - get the fuck over it.

  • systems #19 2 years ago

    So now there'll be no hispanic or black zombies in future Capcom games?

    Can't say it bothered me what colour they were. In L4D they're mostly white and I love shooting them too. I'll shoot zombies of all colours.

    So are they going to play it safe then and go back to Nazis? I think we can all agree that Nazis were a bit naughty. But then again, Nazis were all white so it'd be racist to kill them too.

    Robot Nazis are the future I'm telling you.

  • Nuronv #20 2 years ago

    "7/10 in his review. Yes, it is a good score."

    I see what you did there Ellie

  • bratmandu #21 2 years ago

    Damn virtual foreigners, they took our jobs! The digital BNP will be on the case.

  • nickthegun #22 2 years ago

    Heh. It must be hilarious having the PR team working on design.

    Japan: 'How about this?'
    PR: Racist
    Japan: 'How about this?'
    PR: She looks like a stripper
    Japan: 'How about this?'
    PR: Offensive to Koreans
    Japan: 'How about this?'
    PR: Offensive to Jews
    Japan: 'How about this?'
    PR: Its ok. Now try making her younger...and make her boyfriend a vampire...and make her ride a pony

  • SnoppleMonster #23 2 years ago

    It was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction though...

    7/10 is a throughly appropriate score for this game. Certainly not the best Resident Evil has been. It's almost as if the producers of RE5 didn't quite understand why RE4 was so ruddy awesome.

    But it's not terrible..... far from it. It's just more like Gears of War than a Resident Evil game though.

  • riceNpea #24 2 years ago

    Super Mario. now he is well racist

  • Markitron #25 2 years ago

    It wasnt racist at all, they rightly denied it then so why confirm it now?

  • Bobbus74 #26 2 years ago

    Pathetic Pollitical Correctness once again. If you see racism in this game it's because YOU have a racist mind. Leave the rest of us alone to enjoy and play what we like.

  • MikeN #27 2 years ago

    I thought the claims of racism in RE5 were exaggerated for the most part until I got to the level with the tribal villages in the swamp. I know they tried to give it an in-game explanation with the journal entries but mostly it just seemed to be an excuse to shoot black guys who were chucking spears at you.

  • bad09 #28 2 years ago

    "7/10 is a thoroughly appropriate score for this game. Certainly not the best Resident Evil has been. It's almost as if the producers of RE5 (and RE4) didn't quite understand why RE 1-CV Was so ruddy awesome."

    Sorry, I just had to fix that for you there SnoppleMonster ;)

  • RevanNL #29 2 years ago

    It wasn't the fact that the enemies were black, but the fact that the enemies in the early trailers were being slaughtered by whitey.

  • ZizouFC #30 2 years ago

    @EarlBassett

    I'm a white South African.... and I completely understand where you are coming from.

    ='(

  • coomber #31 2 years ago

    "One typical phenomenon of racist cliches is that many people who are not at the receiving end of them fail or refuse to recognize them. "

    You're right. Because the BNP has been saying for years that the problem with black people is their tendency to allow white scientists to turn them into tendril-spewing monsters. It's that old cliche again!

    EDIT: And while I'm here, the most cretinous of all the tabloid-esque coverage of this story came on this very website. So shame on you, EG.
    Edited by coomber at 25/08/10 @ 10:19

  • Jay-ITFC #32 2 years ago

    I hope Capcom learned that they got it spot on. Roughly 75% of Africa's population is black, same as in the game.

  • riceNpea #33 2 years ago

    Mafia II. racist. italians everywhere all up to no good.

  • riceNpea #34 2 years ago


    " I especially like the term 'racist' as it would imply that there are multiple races/species of humans which are unable to breed with each other succesfully. "

    @notmyrealname

    you need to invest in an up-to-date dictionary.or an education

  • tobsen #35 2 years ago

    I especially like the term 'racist' as it would imply that there are multiple races/species of humans which are unable to breed with each other succesfully.

    Yes, that's actually what some racist ideologies imply.

  • midnight_walker #36 2 years ago

    Black people in Africa shocker! More on this at 6.

  • RexRunti #37 2 years ago

    The game itself was OK. However most of the racist arguments came from an early trailer that after seeing wave after wave of black zombies you were meant to feel a sense of shock and disgust when a beautiful white woman (the only other white person shown aside from the protaginist) was dragged screaming into a shack by a group of male black zombies. This trailer was changed pretty quickly to include a black woman instead.

  • Retro_ #38 2 years ago

    Oh dear, It seems they're all at it. The next Red Faction game appears to have our hero blasting Martians deep in the bowls of the planet. I'm sure the Pro Martian Lobby will be up in arms and call Volition Alienists and ask everyone to ban this filth for fear of our children becoming hostile to Aliens..... especially Xenomorphs who only want to be loved..... apparently.

  • roquey Verified Lead Quality Assurance Tester and Compliance Specialist, Universally Speaking #39 2 years ago

    It wasnt completely racist if racist atall? Wesker was white... So was Jill for that matter.

  • kangarootoo #40 2 years ago

    It is just possibly that the game wasn't "completely" anything. These discussions always seem to end up as being two sides, each arguing an opposite extreme. The result is an intelligence vacuum.

    And the accusation wasn't that the game was racist, but that it naively used imagery that could be compared to racist imagery of days gone by. Discuss. Like adults. If you can.

  • jpj84 #41 2 years ago

    Wasn't RE4 racist?

    Seemed to imply that Spain hadn't moved out of the middle ages. And was covered in swamps.

    Actually, how come no-one picked up on this when it was released? - I can't conceive of how they could have made the setting of RE4 look less like Spain.

  • Sunyavadin #42 2 years ago

    This just in: RE5 remake on the Playstation 5 to be a "reimagining" set in pre-1994 South Africa, featuring only white zombies, as blacks aren't allowed anywhere...

  • TheTrueSpin #43 2 years ago

    So killing white people in RE1 was fine, killing hispanics in RE4 was fine... but killing black people in RE5 is wrong. Oh my.

  • Kaminari #44 2 years ago

    The outside world according to Japanese people is hilariously pathetic. Black and Spanish peasants are necessarily zombies, they can't be anything else. Koreans are the source of evil as well -- quite funny, considering that most Japs are of Korean origin.

    Thankfully things are changing there, but not thanks to Capcom.

  • Dark_Stranger #45 2 years ago

    so the next game will contain only amathradites to cover both sexes and they will all be boring gray to not discriminate against any specific colour, apart from gray (john major).

  • kangarootoo #46 2 years ago

    @notmyrealname

    First off, the point made was that you bunched race and species together as interchangable. They are not. If you consulted a dictionary, you would discover this. Hence the reference.

    Second, the HUMAN RACE has a history of xenophobia. Japan doesn't have a monopoly on it. Anywhere you care to go on the planet, the degree of xenophobia tends to increase as the mix of different races falls. Japan (relatively speaking) isn't a very multicultural place, hence xenophobia (whether based on ignorance rather than malice) might well be more commonplace than say Holland. But that isn't a Japanese thing, its a human thing, and you can find plenty of similar examples all over the world.

  • Phishfood #47 2 years ago

    Racism? Yes there were way too many WHITE people in RE5. Its Africa dammit!

  • Feanor #48 2 years ago

    Remember the EG preview where Dan Whitehead wanted us to believe the racism in RE 5 could easily be a bigger scandal than the violence in Manhunt 2?

    [link url=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/resident-evil-5-hands-on-chapter1to3?page=3
    ]http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/reside...[/link]

    Funny how that never happened, huh.

  • Shikasama #49 2 years ago

    Awesome! Someone with a PR Business Degree is involved in the process of making and designing games.
    FUCKING WHOO!

  • banjo21 #50 2 years ago

    I hope that pr team and the nob who started the farce read this site. Can't be bothered wasting any more time on them.

  • SG #51 2 years ago

    Jesus fuck can people really find noting better to complain about?!

    Fuck off.

    FUCK.

    OFF.

  • Osmond #52 2 years ago

    Lets hope they learned that almost every title they put out shouldnt have Co-op as the main draw and those who want SP only, shouldnt have to make do with flacky a.i. .
    Edited by Osmond at 25/08/10 @ 14:51

  • mushroomyakuza #53 2 years ago

    Let's just hope the next one is scary. 7/10 is dead on.

  • mumblyjoe #54 2 years ago

    Hang on... people were angry cause a game set in africa featured black people??

  • lavalant #55 2 years ago

    What did they learn exactly?

    If you've got a white man running round killing black people, better make sure he has a black co-op partner.

  • Shinetop #56 2 years ago

    Whichever way you slice it, racism is abominable. I won't stand for it. Also the Japanese are all racist xenophobic idiots.

  • Dark_Stranger #57 2 years ago

    what? someone neg'ed my comment about amathradites? guess they have a winkey & minnie.

  • MisterFalseName #58 2 years ago

    It has nothing to do with political correctness - this is completely the wrong term, and used in the same way that, say, The Daily Mail would use it. It's more about racial sensitivity.

    That said, I personally think the furore was over nothing, anyway.

  • Raiftel #59 2 years ago

    They had African zombies dragging white women into rape huts and chucking spears at you. Even though I liked the game, it is kind of racist.

  • samadriel #60 2 years ago

    Gamers must be the thickest demographic in the book.

  • patchbox360 #61 2 years ago

    in left for dead 2 your a black character gunning down white zombies so it goes both ways - i think its the fact capcom used loaded imagery to sell the game that was racist as opposed to the game it self and if you are not aware of the loaded imagery then you not able to realise why some people find it racist - the end

  • jstar #62 2 years ago

    so basically that means the chances of black africans apearing as zombies in capcom games are slim to none. Therefore, Capcom virtually has a no black african zombie policy... hmmm.. did someone forget to look up discrimination in the dictionary...

  • Ryze #63 2 years ago

    Wow - so many people who can't read, and assume the issue was with having black zombies.

    Such ignorance...

  • SavageEvil #64 2 years ago

    Talk about much ado about nothing. Sigh the sad state of the world we live in. RE5 was set in Africa, presumably in a place that has a greater ratio of dark skinned people than any other kind of people. The reason I got the game was to play to the end, noticing the plethora of spanish/italian looking men aside from the black men that you fended off confused the living hell out of me, I lost track of where the game was taking place. Only to be reminded by the African tribe of flesh eating basketball players. I don't share the xenophobic ways of the common individual, but you know this world is still a very hateful and intolerable and very ignorant, we trample others beliefs and choices because they do not coincide with our own. Then we get the coalition of whatever group going after anyone who depicts their (race, group or belief) in any light other than a flattering one.

  • Bluetooth #65 2 years ago

    Wow, this really is PC gone mad. The game had ZERO racist implications at all... it's about zombies and the game is set in Africa, which happens to be majority black people. You know, like the previous ones set in America/Spain/random white place that had white people in. Maybe this is to do with the lack of PCness over in Japan (they never had the history of white-black segregation, slavery, race riots, Martin Luther King etc) so they never felt that featuring black enemies would bring about any hate other than "hey, I'm shooting a zombie, and he/she's black".

    Looks like they've woken up to PC World though.

  • Power_n_Glory #66 2 years ago

    They had African zombies dragging white women into rape huts and chucking spears at you. Even though I liked the game, it is kind of racist.

    I think Mel Gibson was influenced by the imagery in this game.lol

    This is a deep topic which most people won't understand. If anyone has heard the Mel Gibson conversation, you'd be left baffled by the random racist comment. 'Where did that come from?' I asked myself.

    He's been playing Resident Evil! lol Most people won't understand how complex this issue is. Wrong place to discuss it really.
    Edited by Power_n_Glory at 25/08/10 @ 21:34

  • SpaceMonkey77 #67 2 years ago

    I think that Capcom's intentions were not to offend with RE5. They know very well that the western market is where they really make their money these days. I think they could have been a little naive to certain potential racial tensions, in the U.S dark past past, as such things are no privy information that gets coverage in japan, a place where human rights are scarce enough.

    Sure japan is xenophobic and mess up in many ways, but that's no the case for everyone there.

  • el_pollo_diablo #68 2 years ago

    @RABicle

    +1. You're totally right.

    Some of the posts here simplify things to the point of absurdity. I posted early myself and my karma score went straight to -5 for pointing out that the "but Africa is full of black people therefore the game can't be racist" argument was bullshit. Or at least somewhat irrelevant. This thread has made me a bit annoyed and a bit sad.
    Edited by el_pollo_diablo at 26/08/10 @ 10:07

  • Quak #69 2 years ago

    Ok so now we're back to shooting white people in Europe or the USA, as opposed to black people in Africa, so everything is alright.