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"Ready, partner?"

"Has it never occurred to you that this planet is overpopulated? Only a handful of humans truly matter. Everyone else is just so much chaff. So now I have to separate this chaff from the wheat. And with Uroboros, I can finally accomplish this."
Albert Wesker

Resident Evil 5 is the seventh main game in Capcom's Resident Evil franchise, released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC in 2009 and for Nintendo Switch in 2019. Initially announced in 2005, a few months after the release of Resident Evil 4, RE5 was notably the first Resident Evil game in the main series produced after Shinji Mikami left Capcom.

In an effort to reach a wider userbase, Capcom developed RE5 as a multiplatform release from the get-go rather than targeting a specific console as was the case with previous numbered installments. Featuring the same play mechanics and interface introduced in RE4, RE5 added an online co-op system that allowed the main story to be experienced by up to two players simultaneously. The developers also addressed criticism of RE4's loose ties to previous games by writing a storyline for RE5 focusing on the longtime rivalry between Chris Redfield and his arch-nemesis Albert Wesker 10 years after the events of Code: Veronica. It went on to become Capcom's best-selling game of all time by a significant margin, only being beaten out by Monster Hunter: World in 2018.

Chris Redfield, now working for BSAA - an international group dedicated to dealing with bio-terrorist threats - has traveled to the African nation of Kijuju to deal an outbreak of what appears to be an altered version of Las Plagas. Allying himself with a Kijuju native and fellow BSAA operative named Sheva Alomar, their fight against this new outbreak is complicated when they discover who's involved with it...

RE5 featured downloadable content, including two extra chapters ("Lost in Nightmare" and "Desperate Escape"), an online versus mode, and additional costumes and characters for the "Mercenaries" minigame. These additional contents were included in a re-release of the game titled Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition. Another re-release, an HD re-release with no subtitle, was released for PS4 and Xbox One, once again with all the DLC attached and minor changes and a new mercenaries mode.


Your future hiiiiinges on these tropes!

  • Aborted Arc: Despite Wesker having a collection of most of the viruses the franchise has introduced (the only one he lacked being the t+G Virus from Dead Aim), building him up as a threat by having so many at his disposal, none of them besides Las Plagas were used, and there's little indication they were used in his own experiments with Uroboros.
  • Actionized Sequel: Though with the same base gameplay as Resident Evil 4, there is a bigger emphasis on melee attacks, and your knife does less damage to make you more likely to use them.
  • Advertised Extra: The boxart for the Gold Edition and the later eighth-gen console ports replaces Sheva with Jill, despite the fact that Jill is only playable in the optional "Lost in Nightmares" and "Desperate Escape" chapters.
  • A.K.A.-47: Averted by and large. The weapons are accurately named (Heckler & Koch MP5, Beretta Px4 Storm, SIG SG 556, etc.). The continued tradition of calling the Desert Eagle the "Lightning Hawk" is carried on here. However, the SVD/Cobray Street Sweeper (a close relative of Resident Evil 4's Armsel Striker shotgun) is inexplicably named the "Jail Breaker", even though the Striker did not get renamed in a game where virtually everything else did.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: It's hard not to feel sorry for Excella when Wesker betrays her by injecting her with Uroboros, though in retrospect she probably should have seen it coming.
  • All There in the Manual: The blonde woman who is captured and implanted with a Plaga in Chapter 1-2 is named "Allyson", which you most likely wouldn't know unless you read the viral marketing website, "Experience Kijuju".
  • Already Undone for You: The entirety of Chapters 4-1 and 4-2.
  • America Saves the Day: Lampshaded — it's pointed out that Chris would be getting a hostile welcome no matter where he went in the country, due to attitudes towards the supposed "gung-ho" nature of American forces.
  • Ammunition Backpack: The Gatling Gun comes with a huge backpack-o-ammo, whether it's being used by an enemy or Chris. It's actually somewhat problematic when you use it, since the huge backpack blocks off so much of your vision that large parts of the screen becomes obstructed while in aim-mode. The backpack itself, however, protects Chris from gunshots to his back. It may, in a few lucky cases, act as an obstacle for a lunging Majini, making it miss when it would have hit.
  • And I Must Scream: Poor Jill follows the classic state of Brainwashed and Crazy self-awareness during her battle with Chris and Sheva.
  • And Then John Was a Zombie: Ricardo Irving transforms into a giant sea monster, Excella into a goliath-sized living abomination of tentacles, and Albert Wesker goes One-Winged Angel.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: A few to compensate for being a co-op experience.
    • For starters, unlike in Resident Evil 4, yellow herbs do not exist. This helps with the limited inventory management, as well as making it so you begin the game with max health.
    • In addition, the game allows you to "farm" items by beating the game multiple times or redoing levels over and over, with the game allowing you to accrue infinite ammo, money, and other important items this way.
    • If you get killed, you are taken to the Item Management menu before restarting. This allows you to change your loadout to something more appropriate, upgrade your weapons, or buy a few healing items.
    • During one section when Chris and Sheva must cross an alligator-infested lake on foot, the alligators will always ignore the A.I.-controlled partner. Out of all frustrating deaths the A.I. might suffer from, the developers mercifully spared us that one.
    • In 2023, fourteen years after its initial release, Capcom finally patched to the game to give players the option of completely removing cutscene QTEs.
  • Apocalypse How: Either species or total extinction, depending on how selective Uroboros is.
  • Arc Words: Partner(s).
  • Armor Is Useless: You can purchase armor that lessens the damage of melee attacks and gunfire. Neither is useless, but both also occupy a precious item slot, forcing you to make a tactical choice of better protection vs. lowered carrying capacity.
  • Artificial Brilliance:
    • The A.I. partner has a finite aim-sensitivity. They won't immediately snap to a target, and they won't try to anticipate a target that's moving too fast for their sensitivity. During one boss fight, the boss will release these bat-like things that fly around in a fast, tight circle before attacking. You can watch the A.I.'s laser sight trace a cone in the perimeter of the enemy's path. It's amusing as hell, if only for the first time.
    • The A.I. partner's finely-tuned aimbot actually misses more often than you'd expect from an A.I., but to prevent some frustration, the A.I. partner has a 100% success rate with QTEs. In one particular boss fight, namely when you fight Jill by herself, you can grab Jill from behind and your partner will always shoot at the mind control device without ever missing, followed by tackling/slamming Jill to the ground to give you a chance to damage the device further. This makes the Jill solo fight go by a lot faster.
  • Artificial Stupidity: The partner A.I. is very controversial, receiving wildly varying statements regarding how good or bad it is.
    Zero Punctuation: One time I was low on health - but not too low - and was about to use a small herb to keep myself going when I saw my partner coming towards me brandishing a valuable large herb, and when you're running away from your support character with more desperate terror than you feel for any of the actual monsters, something has definitely gone wrong somewhere. My advice is to get someone to play co-op with you any way you can. If you live alone, kidnap a hobo or train your dog extremely well, anything.
    • One quirk that is likely to frustrate players until they figure it out: The A.I. will not help you escape from grabs unless you press the Talk button, even if they're standing right next to you.
    • The partner A.I. will avoid interrupting animations whenever possible. The player can immediately revive their buddy when they start bleeding out, but the A.I. just won't. On Professional difficulty, the bleed-out timer runs out almost as fast as the damage animation finishes, and your A.I. partner will watch you die at their feet.
    • What weapon the A.I. will use depends on the game's value of its ammunition, not the current circumstances of the battle. They will use pistols, then machine guns, then shotguns, then sniper rifles, then hand cannons. The actual supply of the ammo doesn't matter; if you hand Sheva a fancy, upgraded magnum with Bottomless Magazines unlocked, she'll still use literally any other weapon until she exhausts her ammo stocks, and if she picks up any more rounds she'll go right back to it. It seems that this was done to A.I. Sheva to save ammo for the player on their first time out, since A.I. Chris will switch weapons more often depending on the situation, but he's only available as part of New Game Plus.
    • The A.I. in Lost in Nightmares is even worse. In the final battle against Wesker in Lost in Nightmares, Jill will never dodge Wesker's attacks.
  • Ascended Meme:
    • Remember the infamous "Jill Sandwich" line that has been the most memorable thing about Barry Burton ever since the first Resident Evil? Well, Barry is a DLC character in Mercenary Reunion now, and one of his melee moves is called "Barry Sandwich"...
    • Chris' infamous line "Barry? Where's Barry?" from the original game is played-with. One of Barry's one-liners is "HERE'S BARRY!". Another is "I HAVE THIS!" when performing a melee attack.
    • Master of Unlocking gets some love as well. When you rip off Jill's mind control device, you get an Trophy/Achievement called "Master of Removing".
    • The DLC level Lost in Nightmares has fun with a lot of the meme fodder from the first game, including Jill's lockpicking abilities, the Moon Logic Puzzle craze and so on.
  • Attack Its Weak Point:
    • All Uroboros monsters have one or many orange bulbs somewhere on their being that is implied to be their brain and only sensory organs. Destroying it/them will almost always immediately put an end to an Uroboros creature.
    • Duvalias can only be harmed by attacking the "tail" made from their host body's shredded upper torso that they drag behind them.
    • You can only kill popokarimus by shooting them in the head or by going for the soft, fleshy underbelly of its insect-like abdomen. Bullets will just bounce off of its armored carapace otherwise.
    • For Reapers, as they brace their One-Hit Kill, a large Uroboros core will expose itself on its gut sac. Shooting them there is the only reliable way to defeat Reapers.
    • The U-8's weak point is its mouth. Granted, due to its height and being smart enough to cover its weak spot, the player has to aim for the defects in its legs to incapacitate it so they can feed it explosives.
  • Awesome, but Impractical:
    • The Gatling Gun one can unlock for Chris is very inaccurate. The ammo reserve also blocks part of the camera view. On the other hand, each bullet fired packs a huge punch for an automatic weapon and the ammo backpack is also completely bullet-proof.
    • The Rocket Launcher, in most situations aside from bosses. Though it's a One-Hit Kill for most of the enemies, you need to be quite distant from your target to use it, else you blow up too. And if someone gets in close range while you shoot...
    • The Stun Rod is perfectly capable of, indeed, stunning almost every enemy you hit with it, up to and including Lickers and Reapers, and you can basically lock them and smack them with it until they die. Unfortunately, it takes quite a bit of skill to use this weapon effectively, since you have to get within melee range to use it, which is dangerous in many situations, especially against said Reapers. Although it gets pushed a bit more into practical territory in that it can defeat a plagas host without releasing the plagas, meaning you can smack a majini you know has a plagas until it dies.
  • Back for the Dead: Jill, it seems, in the game's opening cinematic. Of course, she's just hiding – in plain sight, as it turns out.
  • Beating A Dead Player: Should you or your partner die in Chapter 1-1, you're treated to a less-than-subtle cinematic of this.
  • Big "NO!": When Wesker is about to kill Chris at the Spencer Estate, Jill shouts "No!" before tackling him with herself into an abyssal ravine.
  • Bilingual Bonus: If you know Swahili, that is. For instance, Majini means roughly "wicked" or "supernatural." Some of the things the Loudspeaker Majini says include "Uroboros is a gift" and "no one shall find out what happened here!"
  • Bittersweet Ending: The Lost in Nightmare and Desperate Escape DLC end on a happy note with a steep price. Lost in Nightmares ends with Jill tackling Wesker out of a window to save Chris and she and Wesker are presumed dead. However, most people who already played through the main game once have seen the cut scene leading to it anyway. Desperate Escape has Josh's pilot friend, Doug, buy him and Jill some time to get to his chopper, only for Doug to get blown up by a Majini wielding a rocket launcher. Josh is filled with sorrow over the loss of his friend while Jill consoles him.
  • Black Dude Dies First:
    • Averted with Josh, as he is actually the only BSAA soldier aside from the main characters (one of whom is black) to survive.
    • Though the first Type 2 Plaga victim (the "target practice" mook) was black. Then again, this is Africa; black people being present, let alone dying, in great numbers is completely justified.
  • Car Chase Shoot-Out: After Doug saves them from some Majini, Chris and Sheva board a jeep to go meet up with some of the BSAA forces in another village to chase after Irving. However some of the Majini give chase in their own jeeps and motorcycles, forcing the pair to defend their ride as they make their way across the Savannah.
  • Character Death: After antagonising Chris for the majority of the series, Wesker finally meets his end at the hands of Chris and Sheva after being dropped into a volcano and shot with rocket-propelled grenades.
  • Body Horror: It's Resident Evil with hi-def graphics.
  • Book Ends: "More and more, I find myself wondering if it's all worth fighting for." Additionally, the game begins as Chris muses this question and hoping he finds an answer as he enters Africa. The game ends with him musing upon it again and with a clear decision on it as he's leaving Africa.
  • Boring, but Practical:
    • Flash grenades are very versatile once you know what all they can do. Any normal enemy stunned by them will be open to a melee attack, any parasite monster will instantly die if hit by one, the same goes for Bui Kichwas (the spider-like ones that grapple you), humanoid boss enemies will usually end up open to a finisher melee, and with the grenade launcher, you can keep 12 on hand and buy more as ammo for it.
    • Learning how the melee system works can take some practice, and it's harder than just shooting, but it can save you a lot of ammo that you would otherwise use on lesser enemies, and possible bosses once you learn how. note 
    • Machine guns aren't overly powerful, and you can find yourself burning through ammo quickly if you're not real good at them. Solution? Give them to Sheva and remove her handgun. The AI is often enough significantly more resourceful with the abundant machine gun ammo than a regular player is, as well as fairly accurate. Playing this way allows the player to keep a handgun, shotgun, and possibly a rifle if they so choose without worrying about Sheva hogging and blasting all the same ammo until you're both dry.
  • Boss-Altering Consequence: You can kill the Uroboros monster with your guns if you choose to, and you'll win a valuable gold ring that way, but you are encouraged to lure it into the furnace on your first run as your guns are likely not strong enough at that point.
  • Boss-Arena Idiocy:
    • The flamethrower you use to kill the second Uroboros. Justified, since it's there on purpose as a safety measure, making this more of a planning error on the part of Excella.
    • Later on, you face Excella herself on the roof of the Tricell Oil Tanker, in which there is a satellite laser you can use to shoot her main core. Why is there a satellite based laser synced to the roof of the tanker? That is never explained.
    • To an extent, the second boss battle against Wesker. It's oddly convenient that he can't see you in the dark, and you just so happen to be fighting him in an arena with easily-located light switches! He could easily remove his sunglasses (and does once you inject him), but doesn't. The player can remove his sunglasses if they got grabbed by the shoulder before doing a QTE, but Wesker still behaves like he's wearing his sunglasses.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: Duvalia are bullet sponges with a One-Hit Kill attack which are normally found in confined spaces. Gatling Majini are bullet sponges with big machine guns. Both of them tend to drop necessary keycards, so dodging them is not an option.
  • Bottomless Magazines: A purchasable bonus for every weapon, though you need to beat the game and buy it with a limited type of currency. It replaces the ammo count with an infinity symbol.
  • Bowdlerise: Japanese iterations of 5 don't show the player getting decapitated at all.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Jill. Wesker is able to control her using a device on her chest. Once you manage to remove it, she returns back to her normal self.
  • Bulungi: The game's setting.
  • Call-Back:
    • Compare Sheva's business costume to Hunnigan's outfit in Resident Evil 4.
    • Beating the final boss is done by finishing it off with two rockets to his head, followed by the protagonists escaping by flying into the sunset by helicopter. This is similar to the original Resident Evil which ended in a very similar way.
    • The second DLC campaign, "Desperate Escape", involves Jill and Josh as they try to get out of the TRICELL facility. "Last Escape" is the Japanese subtitle for Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, which detailed Jill's "last escape" from Raccoon City.
    • The Village Youth's Diary, which can be found in the village right after the marshlands and details from a first person perspective the slow process of a villager's mind being overtaken by a Plaga infection is a deliberate reference to the famous Keeper's Diary from Resident Evil, which told a similar story with a T-Virus infection. Furthermore, the actual Keeper's Diary makes a reappearance in the "Lost In Nightmares" DLC.
    • When Chris first reports in about the Majini, he notes that they behave "like those Ganados in the Kennedy report."
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: Chris doesn't seem too bothered while communicating with Captain Stone as he fires a machine gun at mutants on motorcycles.
  • Cigar Chomper: The Gatling Majini have a lit stogie clenched between their teeth, which they manage to hang onto even when killed.
  • Clipped-Wing Angel: Wesker becomes much more slower with Uroboros, when previously, he was able to dodge bullets and other attacks with Matrix-like ease.
  • Co-Op Multiplayer: Another player can join another player's game in the main campaign and the two extra scenarios.
  • Collapsing Lair: The Tricell Oil Tanker is heavily damaged by Uroboros Aheri, though we don't actually get to see it sink.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Drops in general will have a pillar of light highlighting them, except for pickups pre-placed in the map, and the color of the pillar will tell you what it is. Red for ammo and explosive consumables, green for aid and rotten eggs, blue for money. In addition, the ammo boxes themselves will be marked with differing colors depending on what gun they are for. All boxes have a white back, red for handgun ammo, blue for machine gun, green for shotguns, white for sniper rifles, bright colors for the grenade launcher ammos with each ammo type having its own color, and red/grey for magnum ammo.
  • Combat Resuscitation: A player or AI partner who runs out of health enters Dying status: they have a brief period where they can still limp around slowly and beg for help (or revive themselves in solo Mercenaries mode), but any further damage at all in this period is fatal. The brief period of Controllable Helplessness can last anywhere from half a minute (Amateur difficulty) to two seconds (Professional difficulty).
  • Combat Tentacles:
    • Uroboros. Period. If it rejects a person, the person turns into a writhing tentacle monster. If it doesn't, the person still gets tentacles. Wesker suffers from the latter.
    • Irving gets combat tentacles as well, though this is due to an advanced strain of Las Plagas from Resident Evil 4 rather than Uroboros.
    • Also caused by the sole attack of Bui Kichwas, which wrap around a character's torso while slowly draining their health and leaving them vulnerable to other enemies.
  • Computers Are Fast: In particular, AI partners can crank the crocodile raft across the water twice as fast as any human player possibly can. Not that it's a bad thing, of course.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Chris mentions Leon's report about the Ganados from Resident Evil 4.
    • Chris gets Hunk's Neckbreaker from 4. Josh similarly seems to have adopted many moves found in Leon from 4's Mercenaries.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: Most. Guilty. Ever. The final battle takes place in a lava flow. Not on the lip of a volcano or a catwalk several dozen feet above lava or even on top of a levitation barge skimming a dozen feet above lava. On the actual lava flow, just a few feet from the lava itself. Remember, kids, it's safe as long as you don't touch it!
  • Cross-Cultural Kerfluffle:
    • A lot of people felt that the imagery used in the trailers hearkened back to the more openly racist days when depictions of Africans as animalistic and barely human were rather common and accepted. Most importantly, they felt the concept of a white American male shooting shambling, black Africans to be more than a bit distasteful. It didn't help that the trailer never actually explicitly said anything about zombies, making it even more unsettling to those unfamiliar with the series. Controversy ensued.
    • What definitely didn't help was the beginning of Chapter 3, which shifted the setting from modern-day urban Africa to a much more rural enemies, and changed the enemies from a variety of races in casual contemporary clothing to very dark-skinned Africans wearing loincloths and war paint, charging out of their mud huts wielding primitive spears and screaming war cries. Hand Waved (if only just) if you read the diary of a kid from the village, where he points out that in general the adults don't usually wear the tribal stuff, and actually regressed due to becoming infected. Why this didn't happen with any other group infected by Las Plagas is left unanswerednote .
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Chris and Jill taking on Wesker in the flashback, which end with Jill trying to make a Heroic Sacrifice to stop him.
  • Cutscene Incompetence:
    • Inverted. Wesker will beat the crap out of you in the cutscenes, but you can actually knock him on his ass and beat the hell out of him when you fight him.
    • Played straight with far too many confrontations. Chris and Sheva will have various villains at gunpoint... and then not actually shoot them when they start pulling ominous levers, shoot up with a monster virus, or simply leave the room. There are at least eight times this happens.
    • Then there's also the one cutscene where the motorcyle Majini ambush the characters and Sheva's handgun jams - something that is simply impossible during regular gameplay.
  • Cutscene Power to the Max:
    • In cutscenes, Chris's Beretta is amazing. He delivers the (almost) killing blow to the second boss (a gigantic, heavily armored bat), and in Chapter 3-3, he pulls off a headshot on a gunner while on a moving motorboat.
    • Otherwise, the use of Action Commands avert this trope by letting the player pull some great moves... provided you Press X to Not Die.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
    • Even though the controls are technically the same, if you decide to play as Sheva, it will take you some getting used to for orientating the camera with her on the right during aiming.
    • People who played lots of Resident Evil 4 might find some of the changes to the button mapping (particularly with regard to the Run and Fire buttons) to be jarring.
    • In a similar vein, but not quite controls, the club wielding mini-bosses in the sun corridors got changed in the HD re-releases so that the sun rays no longer instantly vaporize them, but deals moderate damage to them instead. Before, the player could get them caught in the sun beams for an instant kill that denied you their treasure drops, but now they will only flinch and take damage, and still drop their treasure even if the beam kills them.
  • Darkest Africa: The middle levels, where you fight off an infected tribe. One log you find indicates that, ordinarily, the tribesmen wouldn't be painting themselves and brandishing spears; the plagas is making them feral.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: Reapers will take a lot of damage, but, if you continually blow off their head and arms, they will eventually die from the strain of growing them back.
  • Designated Bullet: A designated gun in this case; during the battle in the cargo bay of the plane, attentive players will notice Wesker is firing a normal Beretta pistol to keep Sheva pinned down while approaching towards Chris, before pulling out his signature Samurai Edge to execute Chris with.
  • Developer's Foresight: Early into Chapter 6-1, a Majini traps your partner using a crane, forcing you to defeat a wave of enemies until one of them drops a keycard required to access the crane tower. However, if you have the foresight to snipe the Majini standing next to the controls beforehand, the game accounts for this and you're free to continue on without needing to go to the tower.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Sheva's longbow in the original version of the game; it lacked a laser sight (for obvious reasons) or any sort of aiming cursor, requiring players to determine the correct location of the target by themselves. However, it has a high amount of power (rivals magnums without upgrades) and has infinite ammo by default. The Gold edition, however, gave the longbow a targeting reticule, thus removing its greatest disadvantage.
  • Disney Villain Death: Popokarimu, despite being capable of flight. You might say it pulls a Balrog.
  • Do Not Run with a Gun: Much like previous games, you cannot run and shoot at the same time.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The entire fight against Jill, best portrayed here.
  • Double Unlock: Unlocking infinite ammo for a given weapon requires you to upgrade that weapon completely... at which point you are permitted to purchase the unlock with points.
  • Downloadable Content: "Versus" mode, extra costumes, new characters in The Mercenaries Reunion, and a pair of bonus chapters. Later re-releases include them instead of being sold separately.
  • Dump Stat:
    • A weapon's reload speed, as once the player has their muscle memory down, they can instantly reload a weapon even in the heat of battle through the inventory popup, making this moot—this means that in cases like the M29 magnum, it will lose the only disadvantage it has against the Lightning Hawk, the weaker gun of the same class. That being said, the inventory popup is done in real time, meaning the actual gameplay doesn't pause, so there's still some level of risk involved.
    • In the same spirit, certain weapons handle different ways, with their own advantages and disadvantages; this only means that a weapon that may be difficult for a human player to use (like the first two sniper rifles due to aiming problems) become perfect killing tools in the hands of the far less mistake-prone AI partner. You may not feel like handling the S75, but there's no reason to sell it off when Sheva will use it fine with no practice.
  • Easy-Mode Mockery: Downplayed, but if anyone is being mocked, it's people who play on medium. The difficulty settings and associated flavor text are:
    • AMATEUR: A mode for those who enjoy the journey.
    • NORMAL: A mode for those who find reward through slight struggles.
    • VETERAN: A mode for those who believe that challenge breeds excellence.
    • PROFESSIONAL: A mode for those who are close companions with adversity.
  • Elite Tweak: Minor, but with infinite ammo, one of the best guns in the game is the Lightning Hawk. It's the weakest magnum, and its highly rare ammo would be wasted since, if you're using magnum ammo, you most likely want every shot to count for as much as possible against a strong enemy. But with infinite ammo, it can replace both your handgun/machine gun and magnum, as the higher power revolvers have a lot of recovery between shot while the L. Hawk has it low enough that you can string the shots together like a handgun while still having higher damage than every other gun class.
  • Evil Smells Bad:
    • In "Lost in Nightmares", Jill and Chris enter an area where there is a really bad smell. Chris states that he hopes that they don't run into whatever's making it. They do. A monster with a bloated back wielding an ax and a horrible stench.
    • The thick, black slime produced by Uroboros creatures is mentioned to have a horrid odor when you first inspect it.
  • Excuse Me While I Multitask: In the first present-day encounter Wesker has with Chris and Sheva, he picks up his phone in the midst of fighting and leaves after his call.
  • The Executioner: One of the majini is called the Executioner. His biography states that he executes anyone who rejects being implanted with the Las Plagas parasite.
  • Extremely Short Timespan: According to the Viral Marketing website, "Experience Kijuju", the events of the game begin on Friday, March 6, 2009, and appear to end on the morning of Monday, March 9th, going by the number of times the characters experience daytime and nighttime.
  • Fan Disservice:
    • Jill's battle suit during the "Desperate Escape" scenario is unzipped to the point where it shows off a little bit of her cleavage, but she's still got a horrible injury on her chest from where the P99 implant used to be.
    • Wesker takes in Uroboros out of desperation during the last phase of the final battle, turning his shirtless torso into a tentacled monstrosity with an exposed heart and elongated right arm infused with plane debris. After taking enough damage, his left arm turns into a mass of tentacles.
  • Fanservice:
    • Chris's Warrior outfit puts him in leather pants and no shirt with a choke chain.
    • Sheva's alternate costumes become gradually more revealing until she's wearing war paint, a leopard-skin bikini, and a short wrap around her hips.
    • Wesker starts off the last battle naked to the waist.
    • You can tell Jill's turned evil because she's wearing a skintight purple "battle suit".
  • Feed It a Bomb: U-8 can be defeated more quickly by chucking grenades into its open mouth.
  • Final Boss: Wesker serves as the final boss after an appropriately huge buildup, series-wide and level-wise.
  • Fighting Your Friend: Jill ends up being a boss near the end of the game that Chris and Sheva must fight.
  • Final Boss Preview: At the end of Chapter 5, you fight against Wesker and Jill in a 2v2 battle. Unless you're playing on easy, knew what was coming, or you are Crazy-Prepared, it's very unlikely that you'll be able to deal enough damage and you'll have to resort to avoiding them until the seven minutes are up.
  • Flower Mouth: The Majini, due to being infected by the Type 2 or Type 3 Las Plaga parasite, has the parasite coming out from the mouth which splits like a flower, in which they use it for biting the others or taunting. There's also the Duvalia, a type of mutated Majini with the entire upper body replaced by a hard-shelled parasite that shapes like a gigantic flowery mouth.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Despite not being controlled B.O.W.s or Plagas derived (to distinguish its brethren), Reapers will never attack other non-Reaper enemies in their vicinities.
  • Giant Enemy Crab: U-8 is some sort of genetically engineered spider-crab designed to guard the huge storage shaft of the underground lab.
  • Giant Spider:
    • Four legged Plaga variants crop up, as well as normal spiders about the size of Chris' fist.
    • "Lost in Nightmares", for some reason, has harmless ones about five times the size of Jill's hat.
  • Go Back to the Source: Chris eventually discovers that the Kijuju region was where Umbrella found the very first virus they experimented with: the Progenitor Virus, which turned out to be the basis for all the other viruses they developed. The source itself is a kind of flower that only grows in this area, more specifically an underground ruin that used to be an ancient African kingdom. One of the files indicates that ingesting the flower used to be a rite of passage for ancient kings in the area, and those who survived would ascend to the throne.
  • Gory Discretion Shot: Decapitation deaths cut to just below the character's neckline. Careful examination will show that the head wasn't actually removed.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • The BSAA Emblems. Special mention must go to the second-to-last one, which you literally cannot see. You just have to know which box to throw a grenade into. It's visible in a cutscene, which can be skipped if you shoot the enemy before it triggers. In fact, the entire emblem can become impossible to get if you skip the cutscene!
    • The, for lack of a better term, "Synergy" system in Mercenaries in the original release and Gold Edition which would enhance set melee attacks in duo mode if you pair the correct two characters. Chris, Sheva, Josh Stone, Excela, Barry, and Rebecca will have improved melee, but it's only 1-2 moves and the game doesn't tell you which characters it works on or which moves they are.
    • The game doesn't explain melee until chapter 3-1, with a completely random clipboard that doesn't fit in with the level at all. And even then, it only explains the most basic idea of melee attacks, despite how useful the system is as a whole. In addition, this comes after it would be the most useful, the beginning of the game where it could save you a lot of ammo and heavily increase your damage output that your guns cannot provide yet.
  • Gun Fu: Wesker vs. Chris and Sheva.
  • Gunpoint Banter: At one point in their second fight, Wesker has his gun leveled right between Chris' eyes but holds off on shooting to continue his Motive Rant.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: Given the chance, a Duvalia will bite off everything above your waist.
  • Harder Than Hard: Professional mode.
    • Every attack does 10x damage while you do about 15% less damage, the Dying status is extremely short, enemies stagger much less and they recover at an alarming rate, all of the fixed ammo and items placements are gone, enemies no longer drop herbs, and to top things off, screwing up a quick-time event will guarantee you a one-way trip to the Game Over screen.
    • On the plus side, most of the enemies will basically ignore your partner. You can load them up with machine guns, magnums, rocket launchers, and the like and have them go to work. You also get twice the money than on the lower difficulties and money drops become more frequent.
  • Hand Cannon: There are three magnums in 5, each with their own pros and cons:
    • The Smith & Wesson M29 of Dirty Harry fame. It's the Jack of All Stats among the three magnums, being weaker than the M500 but still stronger than the Lightning Hawk.
    • The Desert Eagle .50AE (named Lightning Hawk in-game). It's the weakest in terms of firepower but quickest in terms of firing rate and reload speed.
    • The Smith & Wesson M500, which is the real life name of the Handcannon from 4. It's the most powerful handgun in the game, but it's held back by having the smallest capacity and strongest recoil.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: In "Desperate Escape", Doug the helicopter pilot sacrifices himself to stop a Majini from taking out the chopper Jill and Josh are meant to fly out on.
  • Hijacked by Ganon: In this case, Wesker, although Resident Evil aficionados generally saw it coming a mile away. The official promotional materials didn't even bother keeping Wesker's return a secret.
  • Hilarious Outtakes: Not in the game itself, but online, there's a video of Wesker's voice actor (D.C. Douglas) hamming it up even more than "normal".
    Albert Wesker: "I don't NEED anyone else. I have... BIG BALLS! In less than five minutes, we will reach Vader's Death Star. GEORGE BUSH will be released into the atmosphere, ensuring Complete. Global. Penetration! Masturbation! Castration! FUCK IT, WE'LL DO IT LIVE!"
  • Hold the Line:
    • One boss will declare that he only has seven minutes to deal with you. If you can survive for seven minutes (running away helps), he will insult you and leave. He cannot be beaten, but will drop some treasure if you do enough damage and the fight will end early.
    • The "Desperate Escape" scenario finishes with a five minutes wait for a helicopter to show up, while assorted Majinis swarm you.
  • Hollywood Darkness: Averted in one level where you must navigate a pitch-black cave using a bulky electric lantern.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Chris and Sheva. While Chris isn't overwhelmingly taller than Sheva, he's got over a hundred pounds on her slender athletic frame. And it's all muscle. And guess which one gets to hold the Shotgun?
  • Hybrid Monster: Some sort of twisted, armored caterpillar-bat thing (named Popokarimu; "caring bat") is unleashed upon you about a quarter of the way in.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Rather literally, in the boss battle with Jill. Chris players can even yell encouragement and everything.
  • Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Amateur, Normal, Veteran, and Professional.
  • Impossible Item Drop: Who knows why things like spiders or mutated bat-like creatures drop bullets upon death. Most players won't care since they need every bullet.
  • Insurmountable Waist-High Fence: In one level, Sheva and Chris must turn on a conveyor belt with half-dead test subjects on it in order to move a box. But the only thing preventing them from just walking around the box is a waist-high handrail. Not even a fence. A handrail.
  • Inventory Management Puzzle: Each character has 9 item slots, guns take up 1 slot each, ammo takes up 1 slot per "unit", and even non-key items like grenades, herbs, and eggs take up a slot. Needless to say, each character will likely have to carry a variety of weapons to retain having the ability to shoot. But then again, this is a Resident Evil game.
  • Involuntary Group Split: Chapter 4-1 has a (thankfully) brief example of this.
  • Invulnerable Knuckles: Chris somehow manages to punch a boulder during the final boss fight and move it, all without injuring himself. Humorously enough, an Averted Trope otherwise in the game - Chris doing a straight punch against enemies (initiated against them from their front) has him shake his hand off after and one of the fights with Wesker can involve a sequence which can result in Chris punching Wesker several times in the face and briefly shaking off his hand after knocking him down (it can be seen here). Evidently, Chris' enemies' faces are harder than a boulder.
  • Ironic Echo: In Chapter 5-2, when Chris and Sheva encounter Excella, they meet a person who starts to become consumed by Uroboros. Excella comments that the person wasn't worthy of evolution. A few chapters later, Wesker infects Excella with Uroboros, and when it consumes her, he makes a similar comment to the one Excella made previously.
  • Kaizo Trap: Occasionally, the Chainsaw Majini will rise up after you defeat him and swing his blade around like a maniac, in a state where he can't flinch. Given that he often drops keys that you have to grab...
  • Kill It with Fire:
    • Uroboros, a virus that turns those infected with it into a writhing mass of infinitely-regenerating black oozing tentacles. Fortunately for every Uroboros fight, there is a source of fire nearby. At least one of these is properly justified, too; it's in a test lab, and they had better be packing flamethrowers to take care of any out-of-control experiments.
    • In Mercenaries Reunion, Rebecca gets flame sprays to kill majini with.
  • Kill Sat: Used to kill the Godzilla-sized Uroboros creature formerly known as Excella Gionne. You even get to lock it onto the target!
  • Killed Off for Real: The ending has apparently killed Wesker for good. Regardless of some allusions to the possibility he may still be alive, Wesker has not canonically returned well into the eighth numbered installment.
  • Lampshade Hanging:
    • "I just got an extreme makeover!" After Ricardo Irving goes One-Winged Angel.
    • "Do you get all your ideas from comic book supervillains?" Chris, to Wesker, after the latter explains his Evil Plan.
    • "Why do I always feel like I'm trapped in a monster movie?" Chris, when not player-controlled, is about to fight the biggest boss in all of RE history. The thing is Godzilla-sized.
    • "Great. I feel more crazy talk coming." Chris, getting fed up with Wesker's constant monologues.
    • "A chainsaw? Are you kidding me?" Chris, again when not player-controlled, sees the first Chainsaw Majini.
    • And in the Lost in Nightmares scenario:
      Chris: "What is with this guy and cranks!?"
      Jill: "He's a man of refined tastes."
      Chris: "He's obsessed, that's what he is."
  • Large and in Charge: Downplayed in the case of Wesker, who is 6 ft-3 in (190 cm) to Chris' 6 ft-1 in (185 cm), but unlike Chris is more lean than muscular. However, he does get a lot of low-angle shots or otherwise has the camera at chest height.
  • Large Ham: Albert Wesker. This game supplies some of his most memorable lines, such as the legendary "COMPLETE. GLOBAL. SATURATION." or just about anything he says after he infects himself with Uroboros and transforms.
  • Last Chance Hit Point: See Controllable Helplessness above.
  • Last Villain Stand: At the end, Wesker's lost practically everything. He's killed off and betrayed all of his allies, his resources are gone, and Chris and Sheva have just managed to crash his plane, robbing him of his only chance to unleash Uroboros upon the world. All he has left is a single canister of the virus. Wesker refuses to surrender and exposes himself to Uroboros (which would have eventually consumed him had he won), all for one last chance to finally kill Chris.
  • Late to the Tragedy: The "Lost in Nightmares" scenario starts out this way, with Spencer's bodyguards already slaughtered by the time you got there.
  • Left Stuck After Attack: Inverted. Wesker punches through a metal wall just after Chris opens the hatch of the plane they're in, depressurizing it. While the heroes cling to the scenery, Wesker angrily rips his arm out and is immediately sucked out of the plane by decompression.
  • Low-Tech Spears: The Wetlands Majini wear grass skirts and wield spears, bows, and wooden shields like stereotypical African natives, unlike those in the city or the firearms-wielding soldiers, due to their Plagas infection causing them to revert back to the ways of their ancestors.
  • Lower-Deck Episode: The two DLC campaigns, "Lost in Nightmares" and "Desperate Escape", respectively follow Chris and Jill as they go after Wesker in the Spencer Estate in 2006, and Jill and Josh as they escape from the Tricell facility.
  • Male Gaze: We're introduced to Sheva via a shot of Chris from around her ass. The camera will also focus on Sheva's chest in the cutscene after first getting the pistols.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • "Uroboros" — or "ouroboros" — means "tail-eating" in ancient Greek, and is often depicted as a snake eating its own tail. It represents the ever-continuing cycle of life and death, or, better yet, the cyclic nature of beginning and end.
    • Resident Evil 5 continues a trend started by 4 of naming monsters after a foreign word in the game's foreign setting, this time Swahili.
      • For the Type 2 Plagas: the spider-like unhosted adults are referred to as "Bui Kichwa" ("Big Spider Head"), the head-replacing tentacle-like "Cephalo" ("Head", and short for the Kenyan root vegetable "Cephalopentandra"), the flying bat-leech "Kipepeo" ("Butterfly") and "Duvalia" (after a kind of African carrion-flower). The name "Majini", which refers to the infected hosts, translates to "Evil Spirit".
      • Some of the Uroboros monsters also have meaningful names. The one encountered in the Tricell lab is called Uroboros Mkono, with Mkono meaning "arm" in Swahili (fittingly enough, this one has a very long arm). The one transformed from Excella Gionne is called Uroboros Aheri, Luo for "I love you", signifying that Excella was ended by her love for Wesker.
  • Menu Time Lockout: While having a very typical inventory, the game averts the usual pause while in the inventory and thus averts this trope, to give the player the sense of fearful scrambling to do something quickly in the middle of a fight or to plan ahead well. The actual reason for this is because the game can be played online with someone controlling your partner, so obviously having paused menu screens would be inconvenient to your counterpart, but it definitely goes a long way to upping the panic factor.
  • Mind Screw: The battle music in the underground ruins. It includes effects that sound exactly like the sound effects produced by cephalo (the tentacles that sprout out of Majini heads occasionally). Rarely do cephalo appear in that area, though.
  • Mighty Glacier: The Executioner. He hits hard and moves slow. However, wasting time with the standard Majini will have swinging his axe next to you soon enough.
  • A Molten Date with Death: During the final stage, Chris and Sheva manage to knock the mutated Albert Wesker into the lava pool of the active volcano, but it's not made clear whether the lava was actually doing anything to kill him off. It takes a pair of shoulder-mounted rocket launchers to the face to actually finish him off and let his body burn.
  • Money Is Experience Points: You can once again upgrade weapons with money in addition to buying items and guns.
  • Money Spider: Almost literally, the spider-like Bui Kichwa enemies have a habit of dropping money when killed.
  • Mr. Fanservice:
    • Wesker. He even loses his shirt near the end.
    • Chris if you’re into bodybuilder men with a large amount of muscle.
  • Ms. Fanservice:
  • Murder by Cremation: To kill the first Uroboros, the player needs to lure it into a walk-in furnace and have their partner power it up. The first player runs out before the doors close, leaving the Uroboros to fry. Problematically, it can grab one of the players just as the doors close, leaving them to fry with it.
  • Neck Snap: One of the melee finishers. Can be performed by stunning an enemy onto its knees and going up behind it.
  • Never Smile at a Crocodile: There are huge crocodiles in the swamp level. They can easily kill you in one bite. Even scarier, they aren't even mutated. Nile crocodiles really can grow that large.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: Part of the viral marketing campaign focused on Chris working on a mission post-Kijuju with his sister Claire. This doesn't happen in the final release.
  • New Game Plus: Gives access to infinite ammo and bonus weapons.
  • No Cutscene Inventory Inertia: Alternate costumes will show up, just not in the opening cutscenes/sections, and the characters only use the basic handgun in cutscenes, whether you have it or not.
  • No OSHA Compliance: Very, very much. Especially the lack of railings and necessity to walk on conveyor belts filled with exploding barrels (which also seem to be manufactured, only to be sent on a long conveyor belt into an incinerator). Averted annoyingly in the same facility. See Insurmountable Waist-High Fence.
  • No-Gear Level: Lost in Nightmares does this in its third section.
  • Nostalgia Level: "Lost in Nightmares" harkens back to the first game.
    • The DLC, which happens three years before the main game, is significantly based upon the mansion from Resident Evil. The characters even comment on the striking similarity.
    • Even more, if the player tries to trigger an optional cutscene from the first game three times, the camera will switch to the same fixed camera view from the older games.
    • The Chris from that DLC is noticeably slimmer and is not hulked up like his current self.
  • Not a Zombie: Occurs with the very first enemy, though slightly different. Chris remarks afterward that it doesn't move like any zombie he's ever seen.
  • One-Hit Kill:
    • The rocket launcher will 1-shot just about any monster in the game, up to and including the final boss, provided you hit their weak spots. Can become a Game-Breaker once you unlock the infinite version. However, be careful not to stand too close to the blast.
    • Shooting an enemy in the leg and going behind them while they're stunned will let you do a melee attack that instantly finishes off the victim. While technically a two hit, the first one being the stun, any enemy you do this to will die instantly, and this prevents parasite mutations from popping out of the corpse, even those encounters that are 100% chances upon death.
    • Speaking of parasites, flash grenades one hit kill exposed parasites, and Bui Kichawa.
    • Reapers' primary attack, if they have all four limbs, is to grab the player character and disembowel them.
  • One-Hit Polykill: Magnums (particularly the Desert Eagle Lightning Hawk) are quite proficient at this; the rifles are too, but to a lesser extent.
  • One-Winged Angel: And, honestly, what would a Resident Evil game be without this trope? Ricardo Irving becomes a sea monster, Excella Gionne becomes some big mutant monster (she didn't decide to, it was forced on her), and yes, oh yes, Wesker and his mutated right arm (then left arm).
  • One-Woman Wail: Used in the opener.
  • Overheating: The mounted guns in Chapters 2-3, 3-3, 6-3, and Desperate Escape.
  • Parrying Bullets: There's an achievement for using a knife to cut a crossbow bolt out of the air.
  • Phlebotinum Overload: The duo do this to Wesker at the end of the game. It's downplayed, though, as this isn't what kills him: it just causes him a lot of pain, Tainted Veins and Vader Breath, and gradually weakens him, giving them slightly more of a chance against him in the fight. It eventually severely limits his Super-Speed, so his Uroboros form is a Clipped-Wing Angel, but he's still capable of attacking and nearly killing them, and it takes falling into a volcano and being shot in the head with two rockets to actually kill him.
  • Playing Possum: The chainsaw Majini will do this at higher difficulties. You won't ever see it on Amateur, but if you're doing well on Normal or above, or are on Professional, they will have a high chance of doing this after you have inflicted enough damage to kill them. Once you pick up whatever they dropped, or start to move away, they'll get back up and start swinging their chainsaw like crazy the entire time, which is still a one-hit kill, and move quickly at one of the player characters. You can tell if they're doing this by their chainsaw still running after they fall to the ground, or if you're using a rocket launcher directly on them, they will leave a corpse behind instead of being blown to bloody chunks.
  • Plot-Powered Stamina: Both Chris and Sheva are doing fine by the end of the game despite having gone about 72 hours without sleep, and likely no food and little water, while fighting non-stop.
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
    • During the final fight:
    Chris: Suck on this, Wesker.
    Sheva: Your time's up, you son of a bitch.
    • Sheva's original pre-mortem one-liner for the above: "Take it all, you bastard!"
  • Pressure Plate: The marsh and underground chapters have these.
  • Press X to Not Die: Even worse than Resident Evil 4.
    • If you press the wrong button combination, you can't correct yourself if you have enough time, though there is some leniency on lower difficulties. Thankfully, they're much rarer than in Resident Evil 4, only appearing in a few key cutscenes rather than one every 10 minutes or so.
    • Unfortunately, that can also mean that it can lure you into a false sense of security then spring one on you when you aren't ready for it.
    • With the HD re-releases, they fixed it where pressing the wrong button can be corrected now, which can make some things much, much easier and overall reduce the amount of deaths due to panic.
  • Punch Catch: Wesker catches Chris' fist when he tries to punch him during their showdown in Spencer's last estate, causing him great pain.
  • Punched Across the Room:
    • Chris can punch a guy hard enough to send them flying a couple dozen feet.
    • Wesker takes it further: his fight against Chris and Jill in the Spencer Estate has him put his Super-Strength to work and send Jill into a bookshelf across the room with a casual nudge. This can also happen to Chris in the playable version of the fight in "Lost in Nightmares".
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
    Wesker: Uroboros will be released into the atmosphere. Ensuring complete. Global. Saturation.
  • Random Drop: Nearly every enemy will drop either gold or ammo. Also crosses into Impossible Item Drop for non-human enemies like spiders and reapers.
  • Resources Management Gameplay: De-emphasized compared to previous games. You only have 9 inventory slots and need to scrounge the battlefield for ammo and items, but resource conservation is heavily de-emphasized compared to even Resident Evil 4 since you can just re-play completed levels to grind for more ammo and items.
  • Revenue-Enhancing Devices:
    • Capcom decided to sell the Versus mode as DLC. Also, two bucks for extra costumes. Later versions have those as unlockables instead.
  • Rewarding Vandalism: How much is one ancient African urn worth? Probably more than the 5 handgun rounds you found in it.
  • Rogue Protagonist: Jill, but not by choice.
  • Rule of Sexy: Chris and Sheva's default outfits, and the slinky dress that Excella wears.
  • Sawed-Off Shotgun: This game introduces the Hydra, an unlockable triple-barrelled shotgun with the barrel sawed off as short as possible. It only holds 10 rounds at maximum and has a long reload time, but makes up for it with tremendous up-close firepower. Chris and Wesker can even fire the thing one-handed (though Sheva still needs to steady it with both hands.)
  • Say My Name:
    • "CHRIIISSSSS!!!" "SHEEEVVVAAA!!!" "JIIIIILLLLL!!!" "WESKEERRRRRRR!!!"
    • In Mercenaries Co-op, if one character dies, the other character will scream his/her name as long as they're not both the same character. This means you can hear Wesker scream Chris' name in sorrow or Excella scream Rebecca's name with no emotion at all.
    • After being dropped in the volcano and burning, Wesker screams Chris' name in a frenzied rage.
  • Schmuck Bait: Done twice, in level 3-1:
  • Serial Escalation: After all the other crazy shit the series has done, this involves setting a level in the crater of an active volcano.
  • Series Fauxnale: When you think about it, this seems like it was designed to be the finale of the series. Original protagonists Chris and Jill reunite (under some very unique circumstances) and series Big Bad Wesker finally takes direct action after several games of plotting from behind the scenes. The game also brings the Umbrella Corporation to a final end with the death of founder Oswell E. Spencer, and reveals the true origins and motives of the evil pharmaceutical company. In the end, only a few plot threads were still left hanging, mostly involving Sherry and Ada Wong, but otherwise, it ends on a much more hopeful note. And Subsequent games have either been interquels or had the feel of a post-script game (or a post-script interquel).
  • Shapeshifter Baggage:
    • Played straight most of the time. Uroboros, in addition to all its biological properties, also gleefully flips off the laws of physics and is more than capable of turning your average human being into a hulking monstrosity the size of a truck in a matter of seconds. It's that kind of series, though.
    • Averted/Played with once in 6-2: Excella absorbs a pile of corpses while transforming. While this is the first time Resident Evil has ever tried to explain where the extra mass comes from, Capcom failed to realized 50-ish humans doesn't quite add up to a 100 foot monstrosity half the size of a battleship...
  • Shielded Core Boss: In the final battle, Wesker's exposed heart is constantly shielded by a mass of tentacles. When he takes enough damage, he will plant his arm on the ground and raise a storm of tentacles to defend himself; after he's done, his heart will be exposed briefly.
  • Shirtless Scene: Wesker during one of the last cutscenes in the game.
  • Shut Up, Hannibal!: In the quicktime event fight against Wesker near the end of the game, Wesker goes on about how the world needs to be saved from savage humans that are destroying it. Chris screams out "I've had enough of your bullshit!" and promptly stabs Wesker with the serum.
  • Shout-Out: Shout-out page here.
  • Smashing Survival: The grab attacks of the executioner, adjule (dogs) with split heads, kipepeo (flying things), and Wesker himself if you're not careful.
  • Superboss: The Red Executioner fought in the final Mercenaries map, "Prison". It's larger, tougher, faster, and hits harder than the regular one, and also carries a flaming axe.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
    • The Majini to the Ganado, though the Plagas inside their bodies itself works quite differently than its predecessor for marketing purposes.
    • Ricardo Irving is essentially a taller version of Ramon Salazar, with a cloaked female for a bodyguard rather than the Verdugos.
  • Taking You with Me: Wesker tries to take Chris and Sheva with him after he is finally defeated by them. Dying painfully in volcanic lava and seeing his enemies about to escape in a helicopter, Wesker becomes enraged at the thought of facing his own mortality and the idea that ultimate victory would belong to his hated enemy Chris Redfield. With the last of his strength, Wesker attempts to drag the helicopter into the lava using his Uroboros tentacles. Chris and Sheva free themselves by firing rockets directly at Wesker, obliterating him.
  • Tank Controls: Similarly to Resident Evil 4, the game uses slightly modified tank controls. The camera is always following Chris over the shoulder, and as a result, going "back" doesn't make him run towards the camera as in many three-dimensional games. Instead, he backs up. His movement feels clunky and he has a hard time turning while going any direction. Particularly notable considering this is a current-gen title — and most players expect controls like these to have died way back in the PS1 era. Capcom seems hell-bent on keeping them going.
  • Technically-Living Zombie: The Majini, just like the Ganados before them.
  • Tempting Fate
    Chris: That's the last of them.
    Sheva: Thank goodness. We wouldn't have lasted long against a whole horde of them. (Fortunately, it doesn't take.)
  • Theme Song Reveal: A reprisal of "Shadows of the Past" shows up when the plague doctor shows up to talk to Wesker. "Shadows of the Past" was originally played when Wesker and Jill are in the same room. Guess who's in the outfit.
  • There Is Another: Documents found in the game hinted that Albert isn't the only candidate for Spencer's Project W since he is listed as subject No. 013. Spencer's notes revealed that there is one other candidate still alive at the time of Lost in Nightmares DLC, subject No. 012, aka Alex Wesker (who also wrote a report detailing Project W).
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Sheva and Chris disembowel Wesker's heart with their knives, then tag him with a double rocket launcher headshot while his entire lower half burns in a volcano.
  • This Cannot Be!: When Wesker's low on health at the very last phase of the final battle in 5, he despondently mutters he can't lose to Chris.
  • Title Drop: In the final chapter, but with the Japanese name of Biohazard instead of Resident Evil. "Resident Evil" is a bit hard to fit into a normal conversation, and the Japanese version also uses the English voice track, so it's an unqualified title drop in Japan.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Anyone from the previous games. To whit, in the first game, Rebecca was running from Hunters. Here, Lickers are running from her.
  • Took a Third Option: In the final battle against Wesker, Chris can grab him and Sheva is faced with either letting Wesker kill him or shoot both of them. What does she do? *stab* *stab stab* *stabby stabby stabby* *stabby stabby stabby stabby* *stab stab stab stab stab*
  • 2xFore: Among the possible weapons the Majini could carry are wooden planks studded with nails.
  • Unique Enemy: In the main campaign, the Executioner Majini in the Public Assembly stage is the only one of its kind. He is far more common in the Mercenaries gamemode as well as the Gold Edition's side stories.
  • Universal Ammunition: All guns of the same class (e.g. machine guns) use the same ammo, even when their real-world versions do not. On the one hand, this is not realistic. On the other, it saves a lot of trouble with inventory management.
  • Unusable Enemy Equipment: But then, who'd want to trade their rocket launcher for Wesker's Samurai Edge?
  • Updated Re-release: The Gold Edition, which includes the previously DLC exclusive Lost in Nightmares and Desperate Escape campaigns, a new Mercenaries mode titled "The Mercenaries Reunion", four new costumes for Chris and Sheva, a Versus mode, and a new Figurine Pack.
  • Useless Useful Spell: Averted/Inverted — Flash grenades are actually one of the most useful items, stunning every type of enemy except for Lickers and Wesker, and instantly killing the light-sensitive Elite Mooks.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Tricell oil tanker.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Once his plan starts to fall apart and is losing to Chris and Sheva, Wesker FLIPS OUT BIG TIME and by then all he wants is to kill Chris with his own hands.
  • Violation of Common Sense:
    • Melee attacks are very powerful, some are even instant kills. Yet you can't use them willy-nilly, you've got to shoot enemies first.
    • The secret method of defeating the final boss has Chris run up behind Uroboros-abusing Wesker and hold his betentacled arms while Sheva runs up and start stabbing him in the glowing weak spot. Common sense dictates that you don't fight a monster that assimilates every lifeform it touches by jumping on its back. However, this method quickly drains your health while you're in physical contact with Wesker, such that even on normal you need almost full health to pull it off before dying midway through the cutscene. You can forget about trying it on Professional unless you're really good at button-mashing.
    • On Professional, one hit from most attacks is enough to put you into the Dying state, which lasts a grand total of two seconds. With how long some animations last, certain attacks can kill you outright and your partner won't be able to help. Since it takes time for your partner to pull out their first aid to heal you, where you can quickly die in the process unless they use it immediately, it can actually be beneficial to not pick up health items. This is because resuscitating instantly stops your health from draining and puts you right back into the fight.
    • Trying to exploit the bizarre Weaksauce Weakness Uroboros has to knives means you are Too Dumb to Live. Seriously, it's a giant tentacle monster and your name isn't Heracles. Although, from a design perspective, it makes sense. You're most likely to run out of ammo fighting Wesker on beginner mode, whereas the secret method uses only knives. Thus, players who have run out of options might be in a better position to activate the semi-suicidal attack on beginner, where the backlash of it won't be harsh.
  • We Cannot Go On Without You: Since you will always have a partner with you at all times, it's Game Over if either character bites the dust.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Your partner will berate you if you shoot Jill when trying to save her. Kind of a Player Punch too for Chris, because there would be no reason he would want to do that, you're just making him.
  • Wham Episode: Chapter 5-3, which reveals that Wesker has forced Jill to work for him.
  • Wham Line: In chapter 5-3:
    Wesker: I would expect you to be happier to see us.
    Chris: Us?
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?:
    • Kijuju is supposed to be somewhere in West Africa, but the official language is Swahili, which spoken around the southeastern coast of Africa.
    • Confusingly, the in-game currency is also the Naira, the currency of Nigeria.
  • Why Am I Ticking?: In Mercenaries, Excella's "first aid" move basically does this to enemies. It's a longer instant kill attack, but the enemy killed with it will blow up 3-4 seconds after the attack. They are immobilized for it and the blast range is kind of small, but it still seems to do the damage of a full force hand grenade inside of its range.
  • Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Wesker, after having flashstepped his way past every bullet Chris fires, has his gun pressed up against his nemesis' forehead. He could have shot him dead on the spot and very likely succeeded in his master plan in the process, but what does he do? Spend at least five seconds indulging in Evil Gloating. His mentality justifies it, though.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Wesker. His Uroboros makes him incredibly strong, fast, and more or less a physical god. CLEARLY the best idea is to go all Charles Darwin on the planet Earth!
  • Wrestler in All of Us: For the "Desperate Escape" DLC and in The Mercenaries mode, a wide assortment of Josh's melee attacks are wrestling moves (such as German suplexes, choke slams, and elbow drops).
  • You Don't Look Like You: Most of the returning characters are recognizable... Except for Jill, who now has blonde hair and a ponytail, complete with a skin tight purple bodysuit.


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