'Resident Evil 5' trailer branded 'racist'

Respected Newsweek writer N'gai Croal has criticised Capcom's Resident Evil 5 trailer, claiming it features 'racist' imagery.

Speaking to MTV Multiplayer, Croal said his first reaction to the trailer was: "Wow, clearly no one black worked on this game."

The Resident Evil 5 three-minute trailer stars protagonist Chris Redfield. The footage, which shows Redfield as the only white character among all black zombies, takes place in a small village reminiscent of a Third World country.

"The point isn't that you can't have black zombies. There was a lot of imagery in that trailer that dovetailed with classic racist imagery," Croal said.

"That's the whole thing where only Chris Redfield appears to be human before they turn into zombies; the humanity of other people is in question. It's like you barely see their faces, he doesn't really interact with them, he sort of walks through this thing and it's sort of, 'Is he there? Is he not?'

"It's a very strange thing, and it taps into sort of this very racist iconography. I think that's the only way I'm describing it. I'm not saying that was their intent. But it seems that a lot of people who were up in arms about the trailer couldn't see that and didn't want to engage it.

"I think, again, the point is not that Capcom can't or shouldn't make a zombie game set in what appears to be an impoverished country where the majority of residents are black.

"I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is that if I was Capcom, I wouldn't have suggested to put out that trailer. I would have said, 'You know what, this has tremendous capacity for being misunderstood, and we want to signal that this is not what you might think it is' - and they didn't do that."

Resident Evil 5 is scheduled for release on PS3 and Xbox 360 later this year.