Resident Evil 5 is a video game developed and published by . It is the seventh major installment in the series, and was announced in 2005—the same year its predecessor was released. Resident Evil 5 was released for the and consoles in March 2009 and for in September that year. The plot involves an investigation of a terrorist threat by Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance agents and in Kijuju, a fictional region of Africa. Chris learns that he must confront his past in the form of an old enemy, , and his former partner, .
The gameplay of Resident Evil 5 is similar to that of the previous installment, though it is the first in the series designed for two-player . It has also been considered the first game in the main series to depart from the genre, with critics saying it bore more resemblance to an . was used for the , and it was the first video game to use a . Several staff members from the original worked on Resident Evil 5. The PC version was developed by .
Resident Evil 5 received a positive reception, despite some criticism for its control scheme. The game received some complaints of , though an investigation by the found the complaints were unsubstantiated. Resident Evil 5 was re-released for and in June 2016. As of December 2020, the original release has sold over 7.8 million units. A special edition of the game and releases on other platforms sold an additional 4.3 million units, bringing the total sales to 12.1 million. It is the best-selling game of the Resident Evil franchise, and the original version remained the best-selling individual Capcom release until March 2018, when it was outsold by . A sequel, , was released in 2012
