Resident Evil 5 has attracted quite a bit of criticism since its first trailer at E3 2007. Even members of the gaming press have voiced their concern over the game's visual imagery, suggesting that there are racist overtones to the original trailer. Now Resi 5's Producer, Masachika Kawata, has defended the title from these accusations.

Speaking to CVG, Kawata defended the game on the grounds that its storyline and setting draw from plot threads within previous Resident Evil games:

"We chose Africa because we're extending the storyline logically," he said. "Following the tradition of the Resident Evil franchise, you'll remember from Code Veronica - the Progenitor virus comes from Africa so we wanted to go back to the root of where the virus originated. For the people who think it's racist... well, we can't please everyone. We're in the entertainment business - we're not here to state our political opinion or anything like that. It's unfortunate that some people felt that way.

"We've gone where the story has taken us," he continued. "There isn't any particular storyline that we have to conclude upon, but in the franchise there are still a few mysteries hanging, and we're going to give you a conclusion to some of them. With Resident Evil 4 we didn't really talk about the storyline before the game's release, and we'll be keeping secrets now too..."

As more of Resident Evil 5 has been revealed, its appearance and characters have become much more diverse than they may have appeared in the E3 2007 trailer. Chris Redfield's AI partner, Sheva, is African while many enemy NPCs look more Middle-Eastern or North African in descent than was apparent in the original trailer.