Resident Evil Outbreak[a] is a survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom for the PlayStation 2.

The game has five scenarios, each of which has an event checklist consisting of special actions that the player must perform to reach 100% completion.

Free Mode took place in a lobby, allowing players to create their own games, scenarios, and difficulty level.

The game ends in the final moments of the same incident, with the player attempting to escape Raccoon City before the U.S. government launches a missile strike to eliminate the threat posed by the G-virus.

The player controls one of eight characters with gameplay events transpiring across various regions of Raccoon City and span over a period of several days.

"The Hive" involves the survivors taking refuge in the Raccoon General Hospital, which is also featured in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, while it is under assault from a colony of infected leeches.

"Hellfire", set the same day as "Outbreak", involves a group of survivors fleeing into the Apple Inn hotel that turns out to be on fire and swarming with lickers.

According to an interview with producer Noritaka Funamizu, the first concept of Biohazard Outbreak, as it was known originally, was known before the release of Resident Evil 2 in 1998.

With growing interest in the concept of network gaming over consoles, Shinji Mikami, the director of the first Resident Evil, suggested to Funamizu that he should have a try.

In February 2002, a Sony press conference regarding the PlayStation 2 revealed the game—previously unheard-of by the public, it had a working title of Biohazard Online.

[10] Resident Evil Outbreak was a part of an initiative from Capcom's Production Studio 1 to develop three network focused games on the PlayStation 2.

[13] The "ad-lib system" was chosen over conventional microphone chat because the development team argued that it would ruin the atmosphere.

Another five scenarios did not make the initial cut, although they were complete enough to be featured in the E3 2002 trailer, and were developed into the sequel Resident Evil Outbreak File #2.

In September, doubts were raised as to Outbreak's online game-play in Europe, but Capcom was adamant that it would at least try to find a way to solve the problem in time for release.

However, they cited numerous problems with the game, notably Capcom's choice to not include voice chat in favor of the ad-lib system.

They also found the game's five scenarios to be short, and AI partners to be "chock-full of repetitive and annoying sound bytes".

[23] Eurogamer was disappointed with Capcom's failure to establish online support for the European market at a time when the PlayStation 2's online community was threatened with the expected rise in the Xbox's popularity with the upcoming release of Halo 2, stating that Resident Evil Outbreak was "designed from the ground up to be a co-operative multiplayer game for four players" and questioning if a network-less game would be of interest to players.