This article is going to be spoiler-laden for Resident Evil: Revelations. In fact, I’m basically going to be discussing the entire story without any care as to what you may or may not know about it.

This is because I’m not one-hundred percent solid on what the story really is. I think I have the gist of it, but there’s a lot of actions that, as a result, just don’t make any damn sense. So with that in mind, if you, for whatever reason, still care about the story in Resident Evil post-REmake, then you should turn around and play Revelations (and if you don’t have a 3DS, you should go buy one so that you can play Revelations). If you’re, oh, anyone else, then feel free to read as I try to make sense out of a nonsensical plot.

The Basic Premise

One year before the events of Revelations there was a city of fun and joviality called Terragrigia, named as such because it is so easy to shout during sporting events while drunk and tripping over your own child. This poor city was the target of a bio-terrorist organization known as Veltro, who somehow got their hand on a bunch of Hunters and other bio-weapons and unleashed them on the city.

Two organizations were involved in trying to restore order. The B.S.A.A., the organization Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine were part of in Resident Evil 5, and the FBC, or Federal Bio-terrorism Commission. The B.S.A.A.is headed by O’Brian, while the FBC is run by a fellow I’ll simply refer to as Senator Bubble due to the uncanny resemblance. It was decided that some super satellite would be used to destroy the city from space and thus ending the bio-terrorist threat.

The game begins a year after, when large fleshy husks with teeth are washing up on shore. Contact is lost with Chris Redfield and his partner Jessica in the middle of the ocean on a boat, and Jill and Parker are sent there to investigate. The ship, the S. S. Queen Zenobia, is infested with monsters, a member of Veltro, and a man from the FBC named Raymond. It turns out Chris and his partner weren’t on the boat at all, and that it was a trap, as Chris and Jessica are actually in “mountains somewhere in Europe” (the game’s words, not mine) looking for a different lead, and discover a Veltro base.

You got the basics? Good. Things are pretty straight forward…at first.

The First Conspiracy

So in order to understand one conspiracy, you must first understand another conspiracy. Yes, there are two conspiracies going on, with one being used to uncover the other one.

The “first” conspiracy is actually the “big one” driving the entire plot, and the one you uncover towards the end. Senator Bubble had orchestrated Terragrigia the whole time, it turns out. He basically gave Veltro the resources to create the bio-organic weapons with which to unleash on the city. Their research had been based on three identical ships. The Queen Zenobia, the…second one…and then Queen Dido, which held the leader of Veltro and had sunk into the sea. Basically, Senator Bubble ensured that all three ships would be taken over by the weapons they were creating, leaving no survivors. Only one of the ships had sunk, however, while the rest, which were supposed to have been destroyed, remained adrift.

Senator Bubble’s reasoning was that the world needed to understand how great of a threat the bio-weapons were. The game never mentions anything like a threat of such organizations as the FBC being disbanded, or a lack of funding. His motivations are simply so that people won’t take it lightly, near as I can tell.

As the player progresses through the story, Senator Bubble keeps trying to kill the main characters. This includes using expensive resources, such as the uber-satellite of mass destruction and a bunch of fighter bombers blowing up a suspected Veltro base. He does this in his best effort to clean up the evidence of his involvement, and even says he is meticulous and must clean away all evidence of his involvement.

Which makes one wonder how he let two sea vessels float out in the ocean for a whole year like that. It isn’t until the events of the game that he has Jessica, Chris Redfield’s new partner, act as a sort of double agent. She is there to make sure the two ships get blown up and no traces of evidence are left behind.

The Second Conspiracy

This is where things get confusing. I mean, no matter how meticulous a villain is, you can’t have a conspiracy to unravel if you don’t have Senator Bubble forgetting to make sure the other two identical ships were destroyed (I’m still not sure why three identical ships were required to begin with). Remember, Senator Bubble is the head of the FBC and arranged for the Terragrigia disaster so that the world may know the dangers of bio-weapons and bio-terrorism (because Raccoon City wasn’t enough).

Now, Senator Bubble takes an entire year to find out that, hey, the Zenobia is still floating around. So he sends in Raymond, who I mentioned earlier as an FBC agent, and Rachel, a woman with too much cleavage that becomes immortal-bitch-zombie with too much cleavage. I assume they were sent to destroy the ship, though that doesn’t explain why Rachel was where she was as she bit the dust. Perhaps they were assigned to gather information first, even though the whole idea is to remove any evidence that would link Senator Bubble to whatever happened.

Rachel dies, leaving Raymond to act alone. Now, Raymond is actually working with O’Brian, the head of the BSAA. Evidently the two of them both smelled a rat and bonded a bit or something. Together, O’Brian and Raymond decide to stage the return of Veltro, and it just so happens to happen when Senator Bubble sends Raymond and Rachel to the Zenobia. It is also conveniently at the same time that the giant bits of flesh start showing up on shore.

See, already things are getting confusing. There are two locations this story takes place in. The boats and the random base located in mountains somewhere in Europe. The base in Europe has a Veltro flag, therefore we shall call it the Veltro base. O’Brian had sent Chris and Jessica to investigate some stuff going on at the Veltro Base, which he had set up. Only was it a set-up? There’s a bunch of bio-weapons there. A plane crashed smothered in Hunters. Exactly who was in charge of this place? What purpose did this base serve? Was it an old Veltro base that O’Brian discovered, and it just so happened to be infested with bio-weapons still?

Now, O’Brian sends Chris and Jessica to investigate this base, but tells Jill and Parker that they’ve lost contact with the two somewhere in the Ocean. So Jill and Parker think they’re looking for Chris and Jessica, only to be captured by Raymond, who is pretending to be a member of Veltro in conjunction with O’Brian’s ruse.

Now, O’Brian already told his own people, whom he wants to get to the bottom of Senator Bubble’s conspiracy, into a location he knows is dangerous. Even so, he has Raymond separate Jill and Parker in this dangerous place, and then he removes their weapons.

This is a boat that is infested with creepy monsters that try to make out with you using teeth and spikes. The place is literally infested, and monsters crawl out from beneath tables and out of ducts all over the place. So not only does Raymond manage to carry two bodies into separate locations completely fine, he also expects these two people to be fine without any weapons. Hell, the bastard even takes any of their healing items away.

This is nonsensical on Raymond’s part, but extremely nonsensical on O’Brian’s part. He is sending his own people into dangerous territory with no information given to them. They don’t know what they’re going up against, what to expect, or that Raymond and Rachel will be there at all. The only reason is to try and sell that Veltro has returned.

Raymond only gives up the ruse after he is shot at by Jessica, at which point Parker removes the mask. Jessica, who works for BSAA but is actually a stooge for FBC head Senator Bubble, shoots Raymond, who works for the FBC but is actually a stooge for BSAA head O’Brian. In other words, if Jessica never pretended to assume the Veltro guy was hostile and thus shot him, then O’Brian would have continued the idea that he was really Veltro. To what end, though?

This is what boggles my mind. O’Brian sent his people into a dangerous situation, gave them zero information, and all so he can stage some Veltro return to…do what? It’s the least efficient way to accomplish his goals as possible. He puts his own people in danger, he pits them against his own inside man, and gives Senator Bubble enough of a heads up that he tries to wipe out the friggin’ boat with Uber Duper Laser Beam from Space.

What the Hell?

I cannot understand why Capcom felt the need to have so much double-crossing going on. Maybe they just needed to come up with an excuse to have more environments than just the boat. Either way, O’Brian’s actions make absolutely no sense. I can understand not wanting to alert Senator Bubble that your inside man is actually a double agent, but there are much better ways to go about it. With large fleshy things showing up on the coast, it’s a perfectly reasonable excuse to have them go out and explore.

However, alert Jill and Parker about Raymond. Let them know what the real mission is and what they’re really looking for. That way, the only person not on your side is Rachel, who dies early on anyway (guess showing off so much boobage attracts more monsters).

Either way, the remaining three are all working together, and any communications to Senator Bubble can either hide the involvement of Jill and Parker, or make it seem as if Raymond is working against them secretly.

Things are anything but low-key as O’Brian plays it out, however, and he puts more and more of his people at risk.

Conclusion

I don’t know who in their right mind decided Resident Evil needed to become more convoluted. The first one (REmake, at least) had a good, self-contained story about a mansion with secrets. Once Resident Evil 2 came around, things started going a bit crazy. All of a sudden Umbrella went from making a dumb yet greedy mistake to putting all their chips into something volatile, one stupid choice after the next. Resident Evil 4 was a welcome breath of fresh air. While the story was still ridiculous, it was once more self-contained and had nothing to do with Umbrella. Then Resident Evil 5 happened, and I thought Capcom had reached their limit. There was no way they could be more convoluted or hint at a world with even dumber people in charge.

Then Revelations happened.

There are plenty of reasons to play this game, but if this is a sign of things to come, then I expect Resident Evil 6 to make The X-Files look like a simple and straight-forward story about a man and his insanity.