One of the most persistent sources of confusion among Resident Evil 9 Requiem fans involves the game’s setting. Marketing materials prominently feature the devastated remains of Raccoon City, leading many to assume the entire game takes place within the bombed-out metropolis. However, careful examination of trailers, developer statements, and gameplay footage reveals a more complex geographic picture involving multiple distinct locations across the Arklay Mountains region.
Understanding this geographic complexity is crucial for grasping RE9’s plot structure, Grace Ashcroft’s investigation, and how various story elements connect across different environments.
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The Geographic Foundation: Arklay Mountains Region
The Arklay Mountains region serves as the broader setting for RE9’s events, encompassing multiple communities and facilities that have appeared throughout Resident Evil lore. This mountainous area in the American Midwest contains interconnected locations that share contaminated history and ongoing consequences from bioweapons research.
Raccoon City remains the region’s most significant location—the former metropolis now exists as a devastated wasteland following the 1998 thermobaric missile strike. The city’s ruins contain crucial evidence about the original outbreak and subsequent cover-up.
Rhodes Hill exists as a distinct area within the same geographic region that was previously featured in Resident Evil Outbreak: File #2. This location has established history within the franchise and appears to play a significant role in RE9’s current events.
Various smaller communities and facilities dot the mountainous landscape, creating a network of locations where bioweapons research, government monitoring, and cover-up operations have occurred over decades.
This geographic distribution explains why RE9’s narrative can span multiple locations while maintaining coherence – they’re all part of the same contaminated region where Umbrella’s experiments began and their consequences continue to unfold.
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Rhodes Hill
Rhodes Hill’s significance in RE9 extends beyond simple geographic diversity. This area has established connections to the Resident Evil universe through its previous appearance in Outbreak: File #2, making it a location with existing lore and narrative weight.
Established History: Rhodes Hill was previously mentioned in the “Underbelly” scenario of Resident Evil Outbreak: File #2, though it was not a playable location in that game. The area was identified as one of the destinations of the Kite Bros. Railway system in Raccoon City, served by train line 1. Rhodes Hill was presumed destroyed during the 1998 Sterilization Strategy along with the rest of Raccoon City, making its current appearance in RE9 particularly significant.
Current Role in RE9: Rhodes Hill contains the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center where Grace awakens in the gameplay demo. This medical facility suggests the area now houses active treatment or research operations, indicating either continued medical activity or specialized facilities established after the 1998 Raccoon City incident.
Why Rhodes Hill Matters: The location serves multiple crucial functions in RE9’s story structure:
Active Operations: Unlike Raccoon City’s ruins, Rhodes Hill represents ongoing activity – medical facilities, research operations, or monitoring stations that continue functioning in the present day.
Medical Infrastructure: The chronic care center indicates specialized healthcare capabilities, explaining why Grace was brought there and what kind of procedures were performed on her during her captivity.
Franchise Continuity: By utilizing a location from Outbreak: File #2, RE9 connects to the broader Resident Evil universe while honoring the franchise’s lesser-known entries.
Strategic Position: Rhodes Hill’s location within the Arklay Mountains region positions it as an ideal site for operations related to the ongoing consequences of bioweapons research.
Raccoon City: The Devastated Historical Site
While Rhodes Hill represents current activity, Raccoon City serves as the historical heart of RE9’s conspiracy. The bombed-out metropolis provides crucial context for understanding how past events connect to Grace’s present investigation.
Historical Significance: As the site of the original outbreak, Raccoon City represents ground zero for the conspiracy Grace is investigating. The ruins contain evidence and documentation that can’t be found anywhere else.
Visual Impact: The city’s devastated landscape provides powerful visual representation of the conspiracy’s ultimate consequences – over 100,000 lives lost to cover up bioweapons research.
Nostalgic Connection: For longtime fans, exploring ruined versions of iconic locations like the RPD building creates emotional resonance and franchise continuity.
Evidence Repository: Thirty years of abandonment means Raccoon City’s ruins likely contain preserved evidence from the original outbreak that could be crucial to understanding the broader conspiracy.
The Wrenwood Hotel: Geographic Ambiguity
The Wrenwood Hotel, where Alyssa Ashcroft was murdered eight years before RE9’s events, represents a crucial location whose exact geographic placement remains deliberately ambiguous. The hotel is located in an “unspecified city,” which creates several possible geographic scenarios.
Possible Locations: The hotel’s placement could fall into several categories:
Within Rhodes Hill: The Wrenwood Hotel might exist as part of Rhodes Hill’s community infrastructure, making it a local facility where Alyssa conducted her final investigation before being killed.
In a Separate Community: The hotel could be located in another Arklay Mountains community, requiring travel between locations and expanding the geographic scope of the conspiracy.
Near Raccoon City Ruins: The hotel might be positioned close to Raccoon City’s borders, allowing access to both the ruins and active facilities in neighboring areas.
Strategic Ambiguity: Capcom may be intentionally keeping the hotel’s location vague to maintain narrative flexibility and avoid limiting story possibilities.
Why Location Matters: The hotel’s geographic placement affects several story elements:
Investigation Scope: If the hotel is in Rhodes Hill, Alyssa’s investigation was locally focused. If elsewhere, it suggests broader geographic reach for the conspiracy.
Logistics: The hotel’s location determines how Grace’s investigation will unfold and what travel between locations might be necessary.
Conspiracy Scale: The geographic distribution of key events (hotel murder, care center awakening, Raccoon City ruins) indicates how widespread the cover-up operations have become.
The Connection Between Locations
The relationship between Rhodes Hill, Raccoon City, and the Wrenwood Hotel isn’t coincidental – it appears strategic to the conspiracy Grace is investigating. Each location serves different aspects of the same overarching plot:
Timeline Distribution: Rhodes Hill represents current operations (Grace’s captivity and experimentation), while Raccoon City represents historical events (the original outbreak and cover-up). The Wrenwood Hotel bridges these timelines as the site of Alyssa’s recent murder.
Evidence Separation: Clues about the conspiracy are likely scattered across multiple locations to prevent any single site from revealing the complete picture. This distribution requires investigation across different areas to piece together the full truth.
Operational Security: Using multiple locations provides operational security for conspiracy participants, separating active operations from historical crime scenes and reducing the risk of discovery.
Threat Diversity: Different locations can feature different types of challenges – Rhodes Hill might harbor human antagonists and active research, Raccoon City could contain environmental hazards and evolved creatures, while the hotel area might feature investigation and stealth elements.
Clarifying the Geographic Confusion
Much of the confusion about RE9’s settings stems from marketing materials and fan assumptions that don’t reflect the game’s actual geographic complexity:
Marketing Focus: Raccoon City’s iconic status makes it the primary marketing focus, but this emphasis has led fans to assume it’s the only significant location.
Demo Context: The playable demo takes place in Rhodes Hill’s chronic care center, but many players assume they’re seeing facilities within or near Raccoon City.
Trailer Editing: Promotional materials cut between different locations without clearly identifying geographic transitions, creating confusion about what’s where.
Fan Assumptions: The Resident Evil community’s focus on Raccoon City has led to assumptions that all RE9 events must occur there or in its immediate vicinity.
Gameplay and Narrative Implications
Understanding RE9’s multiple locations has significant implications for both gameplay expectations and story comprehension:
Environmental Variety: Players should expect dramatically different environments – Rhodes Hill’s functioning medical facilities, Raccoon City’s devastated ruins, and potentially other locations like the Wrenwood Hotel area.
Investigation Structure: Grace’s investigation likely requires travel between locations, with different areas providing different types of evidence and story elements.
Resource Distribution: Items, weapons, and crucial plot information will probably be distributed across multiple locations, requiring thorough exploration of each distinct area.
Narrative Pacing: The geographic separation allows for varied pacing – intense medical horror in Rhodes Hill, exploration and discovery in Raccoon City ruins, and potentially stealth or investigation elements at the hotel location.
The Bigger Geographic Picture
RE9’s use of multiple locations reflects the sophisticated scope of the conspiracy Grace is investigating. This isn’t simply about one incident in one place – it’s about a network of facilities, operations, and cover-up activities that spans the entire Arklay Mountains region and potentially beyond.
Rhodes Hill represents ongoing conspiracy operations – active medical research, survivor monitoring, and contemporary cover-up activities that continue in the present day.
Raccoon City provides historical context and evidence – the origins of the conspiracy, buried documentation, and long-term consequences of bioweapons research.
The Wrenwood Hotel serves as a bridge between past and present – the site where Alyssa’s investigation into historical events led to her murder, connecting decades-old conspiracies to current threats.
By utilizing multiple distinct locations, RE9 can provide a more comprehensive exploration of the bioweapons conspiracy than any single setting could offer. Grace’s investigation necessarily spans these different areas because the complete truth has been deliberately distributed across multiple sites to prevent discovery.
Understanding this geographic complexity isn’t just about knowing where events occur – it’s about appreciating how the conspiracy’s architects have used geographic separation as both operational security and evidence concealment. Grace’s journey between these locations represents more than travel; it represents the systematic uncovering of a conspiracy that has used geographic distribution to hide its true scope and nature.
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