Resident Evil 2 is a 1998 survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom for the PlayStation. The player controls rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy and college student Claire Redfield, who must escape Raccoon City after its citizens are transformed into zombies by a biological weapon two months after the events of the original Resident Evil. The gameplay focuses on exploration, puzzles, and combat; the main difference from its predecessor are the branching paths, with each player character having unique storylines, partners and obstacles.
Resident Evil 2 was produced by Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami, directed by Hideki Kamiya, and developed by a team of approximately 50 across 21 months. The initial version, commonly referred to as Resident Evil 1.5, differs drastically; it was canceled at approximately two thirds completion because Mikami decided it was inadequate. The final design introduced a more cinematic presentation.
Resident Evil 2 received acclaim for its atmosphere, setting, graphics, audio, scenarios, overall gameplay, and its improvements over the original game, but with some criticism towards its controls, voice acting, and certain gameplay elements. It is widely listed among the best video games ever made. It is the best-selling Resident Evil game for a single platform at more than copies sold across all platforms. It was ported to Windows, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and GameCube, and a modified 2.5D version was released for the Game.com handheld. The story of Resident Evil 2 was retold and built upon in several later games, and has been adapted into a variety of licensed works. It was followed by Resident Evil 3: Nemesis in 1999. A remake was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in 2019.
Gameplay
thumb|left|[[Gameplay of Resident Evil 2, with Leon S. Kennedy engaging zombies in the police station
The game uses tank controls, meaning that pressing up moves the character forward, down reverses, and left and right rotates, independently of the camera perspective. On the status screen, the player can check the condition of the player character, view a map of the area, re-read obtained files, and equip or combine items. The characters' current health can also be determined by their posture and movement speed. For example, a character will hold their stomach in pain if wounded, and will limp slowly if on the verge of death. The player character will take damage whenever they are caught by an enemy or hazard, and if they take too much damage, they will die, causing a game over. Herbs and first aid spray can be used to heal. Safe rooms scattered throughout the city contain typewriters, where the player may spend ink ribbons to save their progress, and item boxes that can store items, which are necessary because the player characters can only carry a limited number of items with them.
Contrasting with Chris and Jill's different abilities in the previous game, Leon and Claire differ only in their starting key items (a lighter and a lockpick, respectively). The game introduces a "Zapping System" where the two player characters are each confronted with differing puzzles, plot threads, and encounters. Like the previous game, there are multiple endings, but unlike the previous game, which ending the player sees is determined solely by which of the four scenarios is being played.
The graphics are composed of real-time generated polygonal characters and item models, superimposed over pre-rendered backgrounds that are viewed from fixed camera angles. Higher ranks may unlock additional weapons and costumes. Resident Evil 2 contains two standalone missions: "The 4th Survivor" and "The To-fu Survivor". In both, the player must reach the goal while fighting every enemy along the way with only the default item loadout. The PlayStation version requires the player complete both scenarios with high ranks in order to unlock these missions, while the Dreamcast version has them accessible from the beginning. All later versions, excluding the Nintendo 64 version, have an additional "Extreme Battle" minigame, where the player, either as Leon, Claire, Ada or Chris Redfield from the first game, must plant four antivirus bombs around one of three maps while fighting through a gauntlet of enemies with limited supplies.
Plot
Depending on which order the scenarios are played in, the player experiences one of two courses of events which mutually contradict each other. This plot summary covers only the path followed by playing the Claire A and Leon B scenarios, which was suggested by Capcom to be the canon version of events.
On September 30, 1998, two months after the events of the first Resident Evil, most citizens of the Midwestern American mountain community of Raccoon City have been transformed into zombies by the T-virus, a biological weapon secretly developed by the pharmaceutical company Umbrella. Leon S. Kennedy, a Raccoon Police Department officer on his first day of duty, meets Claire Redfield, a college student looking for her brother Chris. After being separated, Leon and Claire each make their own way to the Raccoon Police Station. They discover that most of the RPD has been killed, and that Chris has left town to investigate Umbrella's headquarters in Europe. They split up to look for survivors and find a way out of the city. While searching for an escape route, Claire meets a little girl, Sherry Birkin, who is on the run from an unknown creature, and Leon encounters Ada Wong, who claims to be looking for her boyfriend John, an Umbrella researcher from Chicago.
RPD Chief Brian Irons had been bribed by Umbrella to hide evidence of the company's experiments in the outskirts of the city. He concealed their development of the new G-virus, an agent capable of mutating a human into the ultimate bioweapon. Leon has multiple encounters with a Tyrant zombie called Mr. X, a monster air-dropped into the police station by Umbrella to seek the G-virus. Irons tries to murder Claire but is killed by a G-virus mutant. Claire and Sherry escape through the sewers and become separated. After splitting up with Leon, Ada finds Sherry and picks up a golden pendant the girl loses while running away. Further into the sewers, Ada reluctantly teams up with Leon again, after he insists on his duty to protect her. They encounter a middle-aged woman who fires at Ada, but Leon jumps between them and takes a bullet himself. Ada ignores the unconscious Leon and follows the woman, who reveals herself to be Sherry's mother Annette and the wife of William Birkin, the Umbrella scientist who created the G-virus. In an attempt to protect his life's work from a security team sent by the Umbrella headquarters, he injected himself with the virus, which turned him into a malformed creature. He killed the Security team, and caused the T-virus to leak into Raccoon City's drinking water, causing the citizens to become infected. William is now chasing Sherry because of her genetic make-up. Ada learns that the golden locket contains a sample of the G-virus, and later – taken over by her emotions – returns to Leon, tending to his bullet wound. Leon does not believe her, saying he trusts Ada. Just as Annette is about to shoot Leon, the Tyrant appears, and she retreats. Ada returns to save Leon and battles the Tyrant, which falls into a pit of molten metal. Ada is mortally wounded from the fight; she and Leon confess their love for each other before Ada stops breathing. Meanwhile, Annette tries to escape with another sample of the G-virus but is fatally wounded by her mutated husband; before she dies, she tells Claire how to create a vaccine that will stop the mutations caused by the embryo within Sherry. After preparing the cure, Leon and Claire reunite at an emergency escape train and inject Sherry with the vaccine, which saves her life. En route, Leon is assisted in terminating the now-mutated Super Tyrant by an unseen figure; Leon briefly thinks it is Ada, but is unable to positively identify her voice over the noise. HUNK, one of the surviving special agents sent by Umbrella, completes his G-virus retrieval mission. Resident Evil 2 was developed by a group of about 45 people that later became part of Capcom Production Studio 4. Director Hideki Kamiya led the team, which was composed of newer Capcom employees and over half of the staff from the original Resident Evil. Development cost more than $1 million.
Resident Evil 1.5
thumb|In Resident Evil 1.5, an early version, players controlled protagonist Elza Walker. The interior of the police station was completely different, with a more modern design.|alt=A young woman in a red and white racing suit is shooting at a pair of undead police officers, while two more enemies sneak up on her from behind. The office of the police station they are fighting in has sheets of paper scattered on the floor, and the whole scene features a bluish tint.
The first footage of Resident Evil 2 was shown at the V Jump Festival '96 in July. This build, later dubbed Resident Evil 1.5 by Mikami, differed drastically from the final version. Its plot followed the same basic outline and features a zombie outbreak in Raccoon City two months after the events of the first game. However, Umbrella had already been closed as a consequence of its illegal experiments.
The development team sought to retain the degree of fear from the original game, and introduced two characters without experience of terrifying situations: Leon S. Kennedy, largely identical to his persona in the final build, and Elza Walker, a college student and motorcycle racer vacationing in Raccoon City, her hometown. Mikami also revealed in 1996 that the sequel would have new monsters, and the number of onscreen enemies would be increased to "around seven or more" to produce "the sensation of terror as the monsters swarm around the character".
Real-world examples influenced character designs by artists Isao Ohishi and Ryoji Shimogama. For example, Ohishi based Leon on his bloodhound, and Annette Birkin on actress Jodie Foster. The character models were altered by costume changes and by damage received from enemies. Mikami later explained that the game would not have reached the desired quality on time, and that the gameplay and locations were dull.
During a period in which the team made no progress rewriting the scenario, Okamoto was introduced to screenwriter Noboru Sugimura, who was enthusiastic about the first game's story. Sugimura was initially consulted on a trial basis, but Okamoto was impressed by the ease with which Sugimara solved script problems, and soon asked him to compose the entire scenario for Resident Evil 2. As Okamoto did not want to simply enforce the new direction, he had Sugimura discuss the plot revisions with Mikami and the development staff.
Few assets from Resident Evil 1.5 could be recycled, as the principal locations in the final build had been made to look more extravagant and artistic, based on photographs taken of the interiors of Western-style buildings in Japanese cities. which was partly inspired by Back to the Future Part II, a time travel-themed film sequel that offers a different perspective on the story of the original film. The voice-overs by the all-Canadian cast of Resident Evil 2 were recorded before the actual cutscenes were completed, with each of the actors selected from a roster of ten people per role. Thereafter, the full-motion videos (FMVs) were created by filming stop-motion animations of action figures, which were then rendered to completed pictures with computer graphics (CG) tools. Ada is the only main character not to appear in a pre-rendered cutscene, as her model could not be finished in time.
Music
The music for Resident Evil 2 was composed by Masami Ueda, Shusaku Uchiyama, and Syun Nishigaki, except one track composed by Naoshi Mizuta. The music conveys "desperation" as its underlying theme. The main theme, a versatile three-note leitmotif, appears several times throughout the story, included in compositions such as "Prologue", "Raccoon City", and "The Third Malformation of G". Various musical styles, ranging from ambient horror to industrial, represent the different game environments. For example, the streets of Raccoon City are emphasized with militaristic percussion-based music, and the police station features ominous piano underscores. Key events of the story are supported with orchestral and cinematic compositions – a move that was inspired by blockbuster films. The first, Biohazard 2 Original Soundtrack, is the main release and includes most of the significant compositions. The European version of Biohazard 2 Original Soundtrack has an identical CD, Resident Evil 2 Original Soundtrack. In the North American version, the opening theme "The Beginning of Story" is split into four individual tracks. Disc jockey Piston Nishizawa created electronic remixes for several of the compositions, which were later released as the album Biohazard 2 Remix: Metamorphoses.
Marketing
In Japan, marketing included a live action television commercial directed by renowned zombie film director George A. Romero. The commercial was filmed on location at Lincoln Heights Jail and starred Brad Renfro as Leon Kennedy and Adrienne Frantz as Claire Redfield. The game had a marketing budget of $5 million.
Releases
thumb|upright|A port of Resident Evil 2 to the [[Dreamcast added support for the Visual Memory Unit, which displays the condition of the player character.|alt=An image showing the Visual Memory Unit peripheral for Sega's Dreamcast console.]]
After its initial release for the PlayStation in January 1998, Resident Evil 2 was reissued and ported to other systems, many gaining new features in the process.
Dual Shock Ver.
The first re-release is the Dual Shock Ver., which supports the vibration and analog control functions of the PlayStation's DualShock controller. Other additions include a new unlockable minigame called "Extreme Battle", and a "Rookie" mode that enables the player to start the main story with a powerful weapon and infinite ammunition. The Japanese release of the Dual Shock Ver. contains a "U.S.A. Version" mode based on the difficulty level of Resident Evil 2s Western versions. The Dual Shock Ver. served as the basis for the majority of ports, such as the Windows 9x-based PC-CD version Resident Evil 2 Platinum. The PC version retains all previously added features and can be run in higher resolutions.
The Dreamcast version keeps the additions from the original PC release, and incorporates real-time display of the character's condition on the Visual Memory Unit peripheral. The Japanese edition of the Dreamcast port has the subtitle Value Plus and a playable demo of Resident Evil – Code: Veronica. An unmodified port of the Dual Shock Ver. was released for the GameCube. The initial PlayStation version was re-released on the Japanese PlayStation Network in 2007, and the service's North American counterpart received the Dual Shock Ver. two years later.
Nintendo 64
Released on November 16, 1999, the Nintendo 64 port of Resident Evil 2 is one of the few games released for the console to feature full-motion video cutscenes, overcoming the limited storage space on the cartridge. The PlayStation version with two CD-ROMs of up to per disc was faithfully replicated (with unique enhancements) on a Nintendo 64 Game Pak. In the process, audio and video assets had to be more aggressively and creatively compressed, using novel techniques that shift the burden away from storage and toward the console's high real-time processing power. Resident Evil 2 was ported to the console by a team led by nine full-time and one part-time personnel from Angel Studios. This version offers bonus features that were not included on any other port, such as alternate costumes, a randomizer mode (which places items differently during each playthrough), the ability to adjust the degree of violence and to change the blood color as well as a more responsive first-person control scheme. written by Tetsuro Oyama. Hidden throughout the four scenarios, they reveal new information about the series' lore and connect the story of Resident Evil 2 to those of the other installments, including some that had not been released yet. Other visual enhancements include smoother character animations and sharper, perspective-corrected textures for the 3D models. Some features from the other enhanced versions based on the Dual Shock Ver. do not appear in the Nintendo 64 version, such as the "Extreme Battle" minigame.
Other versions
A port of Resident Evil 2 for the Sega Saturn was developed at Capcom, with plans for it to use the console's 4 MB RAM cartridge, but technical difficulties led to its cancellation in October 1998.
Tiger Electronics released a black and white sprite-based 2.5D version for its Game.com handheld in late 1998. It includes only Leon's story path, and lacks many of the original game's core features, including cutscenes and music. This was the first Resident Evil game to be released on a handheld console and to be rated Teen 13+ by the ESRB.
On June 26, 2024, Resident Evil was released on GOG.com, with Resident Evil 2 released on August 27, and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis released on September 25. They were sold both individually and as a $24.99 bundle. The PC port is based on the Dual Shock ver. and includes high-resolution character models and an art gallery. On August 19, 2025, Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis released on the PlayStation 4 and 5 platforms. On April 1, 2026, the GOG.com release of Resident Evil 2, along with the rest of the original trilogy, were released on Steam.