UPDATE: It’s come to light that the research lab is in fact situated in Shanghai, not Wuhan. We’d like to apologize for any confusion.
While the world watches anxiously as the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread, some eagle-eyed gamers have noticed a couple of seriously bizarre connections between the deadly virus and the Resident Evil franchise.
Firstly, we’ll get the obvious connection out of the way. As you probably know, Capcom’s survival horror series revolves around contagious viral outbreaks, which clearly echoes the very real outbreak that originated in China recently. However, here’s the weird part: it turns out that there’s a biological research lab in Wuhan, China with an official logo that looks exactly like a colour-swapped Umbrella Corporation logo. Seriously, we kid you not.
As you may or may not know, Wuhan is one of the real-life cities that has been quarantined by the Chinese government in an effort to keep the coronavirus outbreak from becoming an all-out epidemic. The Umbrella Corporation, on the other hand, is ostensibly a harmless pharmaceutical company, that doubles as a secret biological weapons division that develops deadly pathogens that turn folk into vicious zombies with a penchant for human flesh. Of course, we’re not saying that the research lab in Wuhan is secretly developing killer viruses. We’re simply pointing out what a creepy coincidence this all is.
Finally, we have one more strange connection that Twitter user Undoomed has pointed out. Most Resident Evil games take place in a fictional location called Raccoon City. Well, “corona” is actually an anagram of “Racoon.” Ok, sure, the spelling isn’t quite spot on (it’s missing a “c”), but it’s still an eerie coincidence nonetheless, eh?
Even though these coincidences are merely flukes, it’s crazy to think that a real-life research lab has adopted the exact same emblem as Resident Evil‘s Umbrella Corporation. I mean, that’s just asking for trouble, right? But tell us, do you think these connections are mere coincidence? Or is there something sinister afoot? Feel free to put your tin-foil hats on in the comments section below.
