The plot involves an investigation of a terrorist threat by Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance agents Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar in Kijuju, a fictional region of West Africa.

In 2009,[d] five years after the events of Resident Evil 4, Chris Redfield, now an agent of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA), is dispatched to Kijuju in West Africa.

He and his new partner Sheva Alomar are tasked with apprehending Ricardo Irving before he can sell a bio-organic weapon (BOW) on the black market.

In Stone's data Chris sees a photograph of Jill Valentine, his old partner, who has been presumed dead after a confrontation with Albert Wesker.

When Chris and Sheva reach the main deck, Wesker announces over the ship's intercom that he has betrayed Gionne and infected her with Uroboros.

Chris and Sheva follow Wesker to a bomber loaded with missiles containing the Uroboros virus, injecting him with the syringes Gionne dropped.

[10] As in its predecessor Resident Evil 4, players can upgrade weapons with money and treasure collected in-game and heal themselves with herbs, but cannot run and shoot at the same time.

[21] The game's scenario was written by Haruo Murata and Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, based on a story idea by concept director Kenichi Ueda.

The decision for this was a combination of the game being set in Africa and advances in hardware improvements which allowed increasingly detailed graphics.

[28] Resident Evil 5 runs on version 1.4 of Capcom's MT Framework engine[29] and scenes were recorded by motion capture.

It was the first video game to use a virtual camera system,[30] which allowed the developers to see character movements in real time as the motion-capture actors recorded.

[31] Actors Reuben Langdon, Karen Dyer and Ken Lally portrayed Chris Redfield, Sheva Alomar and Albert Wesker respectively.

[37] Kota Suzuki was the game's principal composer and additional music was contributed by Hideki Okugawa, Akihiko Narita and Seiko Kobuchi.

[38] Capcom recorded in Los Angeles because they wanted a Hollywood-style soundtrack to increase the game's cinematic value and global interest.

Resident Evil 5's soundtrack features an original theme song, titled "Pray",[39] which was composed by Suzuki and sung by Oulimata Niang.

[52][53] Resident Evil 5 was re-released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June 2016, with a physical disc copy following in America that July.

[55] Shortly before the release of Resident Evil 5, Capcom announced that a competitive multiplayer mode called Versus would be available for download in several weeks.

[59] This edition supports the PlayStation Move accessory and includes a new scenario, "Lost in Nightmares", where Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine infiltrate one of Umbrella Corporation co-founder Oswell E. Spencer's estates in 2006.

Gold Edition includes "Lost in Nightmares" and another campaign-expansion episode, "Desperate Escape", where players control Josh Stone and Jill Valentine as they assist Chris and Sheva.

[64] The Steamworks version did not allow the use of Nvidia's 3D Vision technology or fan modifications, though Capcom later confirmed a way to work around these issues.

Corey Cohen of Official Xbox Magazine complimented the game's fast pace, and called the graphics gorgeous.

Mielke also criticized its controls, saying that aiming was too slow and noting the inability to strafe away from (or quickly jump back from) enemies.

[75] Joe Juba said that the inability to move and shoot at the same time seemed more "like a cheap and artificial way to increase difficulty than a technique to enhance tension.

"[76] While praising some aspects of the AI control of Sheva, Ryan Geddes thought that it also had its annoyances, such as its tendency to recklessly expend ammunition and health supplies.

Steven Hopper of GameZone rated the "Lost in Nightmares" DLC eight out of ten, saying that despite the episode's brevity it had high replay value and the addition of new multiplayer elements made it a "worthy investment for fans of the original game.

"[82] Resident Evil 5's 2007 E3 trailer was criticized for depicting a white protagonist killing black enemies in a small African village.

[85] The second trailer for the game, released on May 31, 2008, revealed a more racially diverse group of enemies and the African BSAA agent Sheva,[86] who assists the protagonist.

He asked Glenn Bowman, senior lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Kent, whether he thought the game was racist.

"[94][4] Writing for The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference in 2015, Harrer and Pichlmair considered Resident Evil 5 to be "yet another moment in the history of commodity racism, which from the late 19th century onwards allowed popular depictions of racial stereotypes to enter the most intimate spaces of European homes".

[96] The PlayStation 3 version of Resident Evil 5 was the top-selling game in Japan in the two weeks following its release, with 319,590 units sold.