Umbrella Corps Has No Story Campaign, Takes Place After Resident Evil 6

Producers Masachika Kawata and James Vance have shed some light on the latest Resident Evil title to be announced, Umbrella Corps, in an interview with GameSpot.

"The game is not a hypothetical, "what-if" side scenario," said Kawata. "Umbrella Corps is set in the present day of Resident Evil, which means it's after the events of Resident Evil 6. It's almost in an ironic way that we're using the title Umbrella Corps. If you know your Resident Evil lore, Umbrella no longer exists at this time in the universe; it's been destroyed. There's definitely a kind of a background of the Resident Evil universe that forms the basis of the game's premise."

Despite its position in the Resident Evil timeline the game will not feature a dedicated story campaign. The main focus of the game is instead placed on multiplayer action, although this doesn't mean that there won't be some narrative elements.

"Umbrella Corps is, basically, an ironic title," said Vance. "The premise is that Umbrella Corporation, they were the lead corporation in the world of Resident Evil; they had the most advanced technology and most advanced bio weapons and things like that. After their fall, there are a multitude of other organizations that are trying to get their hands on that research, or that information, to become the next Umbrella."

"The mercenaries are hired by these corporations--often times not in a forward-facing manner, it's all behind the scenes--to go into these areas where some kind of biological terror incident may have occurred to try to extract something with value. In that regard, these areas will tie into the Resident Evil universe quite strongly, and there's many things that you'll see there, that we can't reveal at this time, that have strong Resident Evil hooks."

"One thing that I'd add about the zombies is that they pose a kind of unpredictable element to the game. If you shoot them, they recognize you as a threat. You can do that on purpose if you want to get one as a shield. But more often that will happen without it being your intent because they're in the midst of a firefight. Rather than a standard, straight-up military action game where it's just you versus the other players, there's this unpredictable element of the zombies in there which I think because it's the Resident Evil universe, it's a very a very unique proposal that we can add into the mix."

Umbrella Corps is set to release in 2016 for the PlayStation 4 and PC.