Raccoon City: Umbrella's Company Town and the 1998 Outbreak That Destroyed It

Raccoon City is a fictional city in the American Midwest and the main setting of Resident Evil's early games. It grew rich as the home of the Umbrella Corporation, which secretly built bio-weapon labs in and under it, and in September 1998 Umbrella's t-Virus escaped into the streets. Within days most of its roughly 100,000 people were dead or infected, and on 1 October 1998 the US government destroyed the city with a missile. (Resident Evil 2 (1998); Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

Where is Raccoon City and what was it like?#

Raccoon City sits in a valley in the Midwest, surrounded by the forests of the Arklay Mountains. Before 1998 it was an ordinary small American city with a downtown, a police station, a hospital, a university, a zoo and a clock tower that showed up on its postcards, and a tram line and a subway connected its neighbourhoods. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil Outbreak)

Behind the ordinary front, Raccoon City belonged to Umbrella. The pharmaceutical company was the biggest employer in town and paid for much of the city's growth, from new buildings to its hospital. That money bought influence. Umbrella had friends in city hall, and the head of the Raccoon City Police Department, Chief Brian Irons, took Umbrella's bribes to keep his officers away from its business. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil 2 (1998); Resident Evil 2 (2019))

Umbrella's real work happened out of sight. Its Arklay Laboratory was hidden under the Spencer Mansion in the mountains, and a far larger lab, run by William Birkin, lay deep beneath the city itself. (Resident Evil (1996); Resident Evil 2 (1998))

The Mansion Incident: the first warning#

The trouble started in the mountains. In the summer of 1998, people began dying in the forests outside Raccoon City in what the local papers called cannibal murders. The city's elite police unit, S.T.A.R.S., was sent in, and in July its teams found the Spencer Mansion overrun by Umbrella's own creatures. Most of S.T.A.R.S. died there. Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Barry Burton, Rebecca Chambers and pilot Brad Vickers escaped, and the lab was destroyed. The full story is in the Resident Evil 1 story. (Resident Evil (1996))

The survivors tried to warn the city, but nobody in charge would listen. With Chief Irons protecting Umbrella, S.T.A.R.S. was suspended and its members were treated as cranks. (Resident Evil 2 (1998); Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)

How the 1998 Raccoon City outbreak started#

In September 1998 Umbrella sent a team to take Birkin's new G-virus by force, after he refused to give it up. The soldiers shot him in his lab, and samples of the t-Virus broke in the struggle. Dying, Birkin injected himself with the G-virus and killed most of the team, and rats carried the spilled t-Virus out through the sewers. Within days the infection had reached the city's water and people were falling sick all over town. (Resident Evil 2 (1998); Resident Evil 2 (2019))

By late September the city had collapsed. The police tried to hold the streets and failed, Umbrella sent in its own mercenaries, the U.B.C.S., to evacuate civilians and cover its tracks, and Umbrella's creatures were let loose among the zombies. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil Outbreak)

• Resident Evil 3 follows Jill as she tries to escape, hunted by the bio-weapon Nemesis, from the first days of the outbreak to its final hours. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil 3 (2020))
• Resident Evil 2 follows rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, who arrive on 29 September, meet Birkin's daughter Sherry Birkin and escape through the lab under the city. (Resident Evil 2 (1998); Resident Evil 2 (2019))
• Resident Evil Outbreak and Outbreak File #2 follow ordinary citizens trying to survive the same days. (Resident Evil Outbreak; Resident Evil Outbreak File #2)

The destruction of Raccoon City#

The US government decided the city could not be saved. At sunrise on 1 October 1998, a missile struck Raccoon City and destroyed it, killing everyone still inside. Jill and Carlos Oliveira watch from a helicopter as the city burns. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil 3 (2020))

The fallout shaped the rest of the series. The disaster led to lawsuits that dragged on for years and eventually broke Umbrella, and agencies such as the BSAA were later set up to deal with the bio-weapons Umbrella left behind. The timeline tracks what came next. (Resident Evil 5)

Raccoon City in Resident Evil Requiem#

In Resident Evil Requiem, set in 2026, the series goes back to the ruins nearly three decades on. Leon returns to Raccoon City, now a wrecked, abandoned shell, and fights his way back through what is left of the police station where his career began. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Raccoon City in the films and series#

Every live-action film uses Raccoon City, each in its own continuity, and the full order is in the Resident Evil films in order. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

• Resident Evil (2002) puts Umbrella's underground Hive beneath the city, and Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) shows the outbreak reaching the streets before Umbrella destroys the city with a nuclear strike. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil: Apocalypse)
• Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) sends Alice back to the ruins and the Hive below them. (Resident Evil: The Final Chapter)
• Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021) shows a dying company town that Umbrella is abandoning, folding the mansion and police station stories into one night. See Welcome to Raccoon City explained. (Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City)
• Resident Evil (2026), Zach Cregger's reboot, follows a courier called Bryan through the mountains and into the city on the night it falls, ending at Raccoon City General Hospital. See Resident Evil (2026) explained. (Resident Evil (2026))
• Netflix's Resident Evil (2022) moves the idea elsewhere, to New Raccoon City, a new Umbrella company town in South Africa. See the Netflix series. (Resident Evil (2022 series))