Trama

Two months after the mansion events, the deadly T-virus escapes into the streets of Raccoon City. Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield find the police office left abandoned. In an underground facility the story of Umbrella Corp. gets unfolded.

In Resident Evil 2, Raccoon City becomes the battleground for Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield. In a race against time and the Umbrella Corporation, Leon and Claire have to make it out of the city alive or the rest of the world will suffer Raccoon City's fate. Using their wits and limited resources, Leon and Claire will fight tooth-and-nail to get out of this infernal nightmare.—Johnny-the-Film-Sentinel-2187

In this sequel to Resident Evil (1996), the genetically made zombies are back and it's up to two new heroes to stop them. Leon S. Kennedy picked a bad day to join the Raccoon Police Department. He finds the town of Raccoon City crawling with zombies. Along the way, he meets Claire Redfield (the sister of Chris Redfield from the first game). Claire has come to the town to find Chris. On their way to the police station Leon and Claire decide to separate and search for survivors . Along the way, they meet some interesting characters. Leon meets Ada Wong, a mysterious woman who doesn't like talking about what she is up to; Claire meets Sherry Birkin, a troubled little girl searching for her parents.—Pat McCurry <ccgrad97@aol.com>

The game begins with a prologue that goes over the events of the prior game, "Resident Evil." It is explained that Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield destroyed Umbrella's corrupt work at a secret laboratory in an abandoned mansion. However, Umbrella's experiments were far from finished, as they began working on their strain of the T-Virus.

Two months later in September, 29th, 1998, rookie police officer Leon S Kennedy is doing his nightly rounds on his first day of work. He investigates a fallen pedestrian, originally suspecting a hit-and-run incident meets a nasty surprise when he notices many inhabitants of Raccoon city approaching him. The fallen pedestrian comes alive and attacks him. He manages to escape them, shooting many of them in self-defense. Meanwhile, redheaded college student Claire Redfield arrives at a cafe, looking for her missing brother Chris Redfield (from the first game). However, she is attacked by a zombie cook but rescued by Leon. The two flee in his squad car heading for the police station and quickly befriend each other, until they are nearly totaled by a zombie semi driver. After the vehicles explode and the two barely escape, they are separated. Leon tells Claire to head for the police station, telling her that she will be safe there to which she agrees. The title for "Resident Evil 2" appears.

Leon enters a gun shop and is held up by the gun clerk who is revealed to be human. The gun clerk tells Leon that the entire city is infested with zombies, but that they should both be safe in the gun shop. Two seconds later, a horde of zombies break in through the windows. The gun clerk fights back but is messily devoured by them. Leon flees. Meanwhile, Claire has arrived at the police station where she sees a helicopter arrive to pick up the police chief who is injured. The police chief orders to be airlifted and the helicopter throws him a ladder, only moments before zombies attack the police chief from behind. They wound and tackle him and he fires his gun off wildly, inadvertently shooting the helicopter pilot which cause the helicopter to fall down on him and the zombies, exploding them all in the process. An Umbrella helicopter arrives and drops off a capsule containing a Tyrant mutation which attacks both Claire and Leon many times throughout the rest of the game.

Leon arrives at the RPD and meets a mauled and dying officer who explains to Leon of Jill and Chris's attempts to expose Umbrella, which prompted the desperate outbreak in Raccoon city. The officer gives Leon his key card to unlock the doors in the halls to save more people. Leon promises to come back for him. Leon is then attacked by a licker, but makes short work of it with his shotgun. He reunites with Claire and discover that Chris has left Raccoon city to investigate Umbrella's headquarters in Europe. Leon proposes that they rescue as many survivors as they can before leaving the city. The two split up and Claire finds Police Chief Brian Irons hiding in his office. Irons tells Claire that he was told to protect the mayor's daughter but failed as she was killed by the zombies. He explains that zombies cannot be cured and can only be killed by destruction of their heads. Claire leaves him and rescues and befriends a little girl named Sherry who explains that her parents are scientists at the Umbrella chemical plant. Leon returns for the fallen officer only to discover that he has died and reanimated into a zombie. He reluctantly blows the fellow officer's head off.

Claire is attacked by the Tyrant but incapacitates him for the time being. Leon is ambushed by an Asian woman named Ada Wong. She explains to Leon that she is looking for her boyfriend John who is an umbrella researcher. Ada then leads Leon to a reporter who knows about Umbrella's doings and may know more about John. Ben has locked himself up in a jail cell to avoid being attacked by any zombies. He then supplies them with the information they need to leave the city. After they leave, Ben is attacked and killed by a mutation with a large eye protruding from its shoulder. Claire meets up with Chief Irons who has gone insane with despair and rambles about his dealings with Umbrella and talks about the new strain of virus, the G virus which will make the ultimate killing machine. He also explains that the monster is after Sherry. He then attempts to kill Claire, telling her that he is going to take her with him. Just then, he is dragged down a trap door by the monster with the G virus and then cast up again, dead with his entire lower body ripped off.

Claire and Sherry escape into the sewers but are separated from each other. Ada splits up with Leon but he catches up to her, telling her that her actions were "reckless and stupid." He says it is his duty to protect her and she reluctantly agrees to remain with him. However, they are attacked by a middle-aged woman named Annette Birkin who shoots and wounds Leon and holds Ada at gunpoint. She reveals to Ada that she is Sherry's mother and the wife of Dr. William Birkin, who created the G-virus. In a flashback, it is explained that Dr. William Birkin was attacked and shot by Umbrella's soldiers and his research was stolen by them. However, before he could die, he injected himself with the virus and killed them all, thus becoming the G virus mutant. Annette Birkin also tells Ada that she discovered that Ada and John were Umbrella spies and that John is now an undead zombie. A brief scuffle ensues between them and Ada gains the upper hand by throwing Annette off a balcony. Leon later meets up with Ada in the sewers and she bandages his wound, telling him that John is dead.

Elsewhere, Claire meets with Annette who has gone mad with grief and anger over her husband's betrayal and death. Claire tells Annette of Sherry being somewhere in the sewers. Annette tells Claire that Sherri has "the keys on her." Leon, Ada, Sherry, and Claire run through the abandoned factory, being haunted by both the Tyrant and Birkin's G-Virus mutation nearly the entire time. Annette and Claire see on the security camera screens that the Tyrant has caught up to Sherry and is bearing down upon her. Annette explains that the serum that the Tyrant is here for is in the locket that Sherry is wearing. As Claire runs off to rescue Sherry, Annette confronts Leon in the halls, believing him to be a spy. Annette tells Leon of Ada's treachery but he refuses to believe her. She then attempts to shoot him but is knocked unconscious and injured fatally by falling debris from the ceiling.

Claire meets up with Sherry who is being attacked by the Tyrant. She tells Sherry to throw her locket to Claire, which Sherry does. The Tyrant then chases Claire to which she tosses the locket into a basin of molten iron. The Tyrant dives after it and is presumably killed. Ada confronts Leon and reveals that she is a spy for an unnamed organization, and demands that he hand over the sample of the G virus which he had taken from Annette. She holds him at gunpoint and orders him to hand it over, to which he refuses. Ada then lowers her gun, realizing that she cannot hurt him. Just then, Annette appears behind Ada and shoots her through the shoulder. Ada falls off of the side of the catwalk and Leon grabs her arm, trying to save her. However, she falls from his grip and down into a ventilation shaft. Leon grieves Ada's apparent death and in a fit of rage, throws his sample of the G-virus over the side, seeing all the damage it has caused.

Sherry and Claire arrive soon after. Annette makes peace with her daughter Sherry, encouraging her to escape the city, shortly before succumbing to her injuries and dying. Leon and Claire create a cure to the vaccine to which they apply to Sherry (who had earlier been implanted with virus embryos by her father). Claire is attacked by the Tyrant who had survived the plunge into steel, but fends it off with some help from a woman in the shadows (presumably Ada). After blowing apart the Tyrant, Claire, Leon, and Sherry board the underground train but are attacked by Birkin's G-virus mutation, who transforms more and more, losing his humanity and becoming more monstrous. Birkin transforms into an agglomeration of raw flesh and teeth and oozes onto the train. The train is set to self-destruct and Leon, Claire, and Sherry face certain death between the blob that is Birkin and the speeding train that is set to detonate. However, Sherry sneaks through an open hatchway within the door and switches the train off when it is in a tunnel.

Leon, Claire, and Sherry escape the train just as Birkin's tentacles begin pursuing them. Fortunately for them, the bomb goes off, trapping the ooze that is Birkin and blowing him away for good. Leon. Sherry, and Claire stand outside as the morning sun shines down upon them and complement each other for their combined work in defeating the monster. The three begin walking down the nearest highway and Claire states that she will continue her journey to find Chris. She states, "Chris, I have to find you" right before the ending credits roll, showing clips of events that had happened previously within the story.