Resident Evil 3 Team Couldn’t Make Sense of Raccoon City
The Resident Evil series has remained both one of the most established franchises in the horror genre and one of the most controversial stories in gaming over the years. However, recent revelations suggest that Capcom remains confused about Raccoon City. Resident Evil 3 director Kazuhiro Aoyama stated that upon seeing the city’s final state, he “didn’t understand what was going on.”
Raccoon City’s Fate Sparks Controversy Again
In the finale of 1999’s Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Raccoon City was completely destroyed by a thermobaric missile strike. At the time, the city was virtually wiped off the map. However, in the new game, Resident Evil 9: Requiem, the same Raccoon City is still largely intact. Even iconic structures like the RPD police station remain in place. This situation has greatly surprised former series director Aoyama.
In an interview with Under the Mayo, Aoyama recalled their original vision, saying, “At that time, we wanted Raccoon City to be completely destroyed.” The game’s closing text clearly stated this: “Raccoon City has been completely wiped off the map.” Despite this, the fact that the city’s skyscrapers and landmarks remained standing in Requiem surprised both developers and fans.
Requiem is positioned as a sequel to Resident Evil 3 Remake rather than the original story. In the remake, the city’s bombing scene was shown more subtly—the view from Jill Valentine’s helicopter shows the city engulfed in smoke rather than completely burned. This gave the new production team the flexibility to keep some areas “alive.”
Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi admitted that this was a completely conscious choice. “We calculated how much of the city would be destroyed with physics simulations, and we saw that it was possible for some areas to remain,” Nakanishi explained. So, there’s no time travel involved; It’s just a modern Capcom “retcon” to its own game universe. Still, many fans still can’t understand how Raccoon City survived so easily.
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