Resident Evil – Code: Veronica

firing at zombies. The environments are rendered in real time, unlike previous games which used pre-rendered backgrounds.|left Resident Evil – Code: Veronica features survival horror gameplay, similar to previous Resident Evil games. This includes the series signature controls, interface, puzzles, as well as zombies and monsters to battle. Items the player collects can be viewed on the status screen. From here, they can be examined to find clues to solve puzzles, and some can also be equipped. Also available in the status screen is a map and file menu. All notes found in the game are saved in game's files and may be essential to solve puzzles. The player can only hold a limited number of items at a given time; other items must be stored in storage boxes located throughout the game. ==Plot==

In December 1998, three months after escaping from Raccoon City (seen in Resident Evil 2) prior to its eventual destruction (seen in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis), Claire Redfield raids an Umbrella Corporation facility in Paris in search of her brother, Chris Redfield. Discovered by Umbrella's security forces and eventually captured, Claire is imprisoned on Rockfort Island, a prison complex owned by the corporation, situated in the Southern Ocean. She is knocked unconscious after arriving. Sometime after her imprisonment, Claire wakes up and finds herself released by the man who captured her, and discovers that an outbreak of the T-virus has occurred. In the resulting chaos, she finds herself teaming up with Steve Burnside, another inmate seeking to escape. In their repeated efforts to explore the island and find the means to leave, the pair finds themselves confronting the island's commander, Alfred Ashford. Both Claire and Steve find him to be mentally unstable as a result of him switching between two personalities—his own, and that of his twin sister Alexia. Eventually, the pair manages to find a seaplane and use it to escape, only for Alfred to pursue them and switch their plane to autopilot, directing it towards another Umbrella facility in Antarctica. Upon their arrival, the pair finds that this facility had also suffered an outbreak, and fight their way through the zombies and monsters within to seek a means of escape, battling with Alfred and fatally wounding him. Before he dies, Alfred frees his sister, Alexia, who had been in cryogenic sleep within the facility after injecting herself with the T-Veronica virus, an experimental virus that the Ashford family had developed 15 years ago. Awakened, Alexia manages to recapture Claire and Steve as they attempt to escape. Meanwhile, Chris Redfield arrives on Rockfort Island in search of Claire, after receiving a message from her via Leon S. Kennedy. Upon learning that she had left, Chris focuses on determining where and begins searching the island. In the process of doing so, he comes across Albert Wesker, an independent agent since the Spencer mansion incident (the events of Resident Evil), who is seeking to retrieve a sample of the T-Veronica virus. After Chris learns of his sister's whereabouts, and Wesker discovers that Alexia is alive and carries what he needs, the two separately find their way to Antarctica. Once there, Chris frees his sister and helps her to search for Steve, only for them to find that he had been experimented with and injected with the T-Veronica virus. After mutating, Steve attempts to kill Claire, but fails, regaining control of himself to turn on Alexia, who then inflicts a mortal wound on him. Before Steve dies, he confesses his love for Claire. Meanwhile, Chris and Wesker confront Alexia. In the resulting conflict, Wesker escapes and manages to retrieve Steve's corpse for further experimentation, while Chris manages to defeat Alexia and escape with his sister, before the Antarctic facility self-destructs. ==Development==

-inspired opening cinematic. With the success of Resident Evil 2 in 1998, Capcom began more Resident Evil projects across multiple consoles. Code: Veronica originated from an unsuccessful attempt to port Resident Evil 2 to the Sega Saturn. After producer Shinji Mikami and his team learned they would be unable to port the game without making a large sacrifice to quality, Mikami was asked by his leadership to create something else for Sega fans, and so development began on an original Saturn game. When Mikami asked for more time to develop the game, he was told it would need to have a better technical quality, making Sega's upcoming Dreamcast more appealing. Around the same time development on the Dreamcast game was starting, a side-story game for the PlayStation starring Jill Valentine in the events leading up to Resident Evil 2 was being developed. It was intended to be a spin-off with the more ambitious Dreamcast game as the true sequel, however, the PlayStation game was made a numbered release (Resident Evil 3), and the Dreamcast game was titled Code: Veronica. According to a 2009 article by IGN, Sony bartered for limited exclusivity on the "Resident Evil 3" title. In a 2020 interview, Mikami stated that Code: Veronica deserved to be numbered more than Resident Evil 3, but was not because of "political reasons between Capcom and the console manufacturing company." Code: Veronicas story, setting, and artistic design strayed away from the series standard. While previous games are set in the United States and have a corresponding American feel to them, Code: Veronica is set in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica and carries a European gothic horror inspired design. This is made clear in the environments which feature gothic architecture and art in addition to central European carvings and German-style weaponry. In addition, the gothic feel is emphasized through the story. The horror in Code: Veronica is driven by this story which follows a crazed man and the fate of his noble bloodline. The story is told partly through a lullaby, and this method of storytelling is intended to bring out European operatic undertones. This contrasts to previous games in the series which were driven by the panic elements from American horror films, such as monsters and zombies. With regards to managing the art staff, Mikami split them up depending on their interests. Those interested in guns worked solely on gun designs while those interested in environments researched photographs of houses and castles. During in-game cutscenes, the polygon count is increased to nearly 2,500 polygons, especially on character faces. Capcom added detail to the zombie enemies unprecedented in the series, such as making their jaws move and eyes twitch. By September 1999, Sega was sending some of its own developers to help add final touches to the game. Sega assisted Capcom with the game's programming to help keep a good framerate. ==Release==

Code: Veronica was confirmed to be in development as early as August 1998 and was promoted as the true sequel to Resident Evil 2. In July 1999, Capcom of Japan announced their shipment expectations for the Japanese Dreamcast version were at 400,000 copies. Journalists were skeptical if this was only the initial shipment, or evidence that Capcom overestimated sales of the Dreamcast, given their initial sales estimate was one million. This release, called Biohazard 2: Value Plus, included a demo for Code: Veronica. Code: Veronica was released in February 2000. Limited Dreamcast system bundles were also released to commemorate the game's release. The "Claire Version", limited to 1,800 copies, consisted of the Code: Veronica game, a transparent red system, transparent red controller, and a VMU. The other bundle, known as the "S.T.A.R.S. Version", has the items except the system is a dark transparent blue and features a "S.T.A.R.S." logo. This bundle was limited to 200 copies. Expecting high demand, Capcom set up a contest for fans to enter to win an opportunity to purchase the systems. A soundtrack was released in February 2000 as well. Code: Veronica X Because the Dreamcast had a small user base, Capcom knew the series would need to continue elsewhere. This led to an expanded version, titled Code: Veronica X in the West and Code: Veronica Kanzenban in Japan, on the PlayStation 2 in 2001. The expanded version was announced in November 2000. It has approximately 10 minutes of new cinematic sequences that reveal more about Wesker's involvement with Umbrella. While the core game remained unchanged, several graphical alterations were also made, most notably in the character model for Steve Burnside (who was given a different hairstyle). Capcom printed a video DVD of an in-universe documentary, ''Wesker's Report, as a pre-order incentive. In North America, the Wesker's Report'' DVD was also sold on Capcom's website and given to customers who purchased the game at specialty retailers such as Electronics Boutique and GameStop. Code: Veronica X was later released on the GameCube along with several other Resident Evil games. It was included with the Biohazard Collector Box for the GameCube in Japan, a bundle of Resident Evil games which also included a copy of Wesker's Report. A high-definition remastered version of Code: Veronica X was released in September 2011 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. An emulated version for the PlayStation 3 was released as a PS2 Classic in July 2012 in Japan and in May 2014 in Europe. Another emulated PS2 version was released for the PlayStation 4 in May 2017. The Xbox 360 version was added to the Xbox One backwards-compatible library in February 2019. ==Reception==

Code: Veronica received universal acclaim; many critics felt it was the best Resident Evil game at the time, and a "must-own" for the Dreamcast. Derek Williams of AllGame called it the best game for the system along with Soulcalibur (1999). Critics at Edge called it "the closest the series has got to emulating a Hollywood action feature". Most reviewers found the graphics as being some of the very best on the Dreamcast and being a testament to the power of its hardware. GameSpots Joe Fielder pointed out that Sony's Extermination (2001) and Capcom's own Onimusha: Warlords (2001) had been released during this gap with better controls. The high definition remaster was released over a decade after the original and was welcomed with mediocre reviews. Critics commonly cited the game's archaic design and controls as making it less appealing compared with contemporary offerings. The remaster did find some positive reception from Game Informers Tim Turi who found enjoyment from playing what he called a "challenging classic survival horror game" and "a harrowing but memorable trek through the series' heyday." Code: Veronica won GameSpots annual "Best Adventure Game" award among console games, and was a runner-up for the publication's "Best Dreamcast Game", "Best Sound", "Best Graphics, Technical" and overall "Game of the Year" prizes. The editors argued that "Code Veronica is the culmination of everything the developers of the Resident Evil series seemed to be trying to accomplish." The following year, Veronica X was nominated for GameSpots annual "Best Action/Adventure Game" prize among console games, which went to Grand Theft Auto III. Sales Code: Veronica outsold Shenmue (1999) within its first week on shelves in February 2000. The sales were weak compared to series predecessors, but strong compared to other Dreamcast games. The PlayStation 2 version of Code: Veronica X had sold 900,000 copies and earned $27 million in the United States by July 2006, outselling Resident Evil 4. ==Legacy==

Aaron Boehm of Bloody Disgusting described the game as one of its era's most memorable survival horror games. Game Informer ranked Code: Veronica as 69th in their "Top 100 Games of All Time" in 2001, while GamesRadar+ named it the 14th-best Dreamcast game of all time. The story in Code: Veronica has been adapted into other works. Resident Evil Survivor 2 – Code: Veronica (2001) for Naomi-based arcades and PlayStation 2 follows the story of Code: Veronica from a first-person view with light gun shooter-style gameplay. Similarly, another light gun game, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (2009) was released for the Wii and features sequences set in Code: Veronica along with Resident Evil 2. As with previous Resident Evil games, the story was adapted into a novel written by S. D. Perry. Also, a miniseries comic was published by DC Comics. A demo version of a fan remake of the game was released in 2021. The project was shut down by Capcom in 2022. Code: Veronica has been identified as a suitable candidate for a remake in fan polls and by IGN. ==Notes==