The original game and many franchise entries are set in and around Raccoon City, a fictional midwestern American city. The city and its outlying areas house several bioengineering laboratories belonging to the Umbrella Corporation, which develop viruses intended for use in biological warfare. One of the laboratories, unnamed throughout the video game series and referred to as "The Hive" in the film adaptations, is located underneath Raccoon City and is where the T-virus is developed. As Umbrella's mutagen testing grows in scale and the virus has leaked into Raccoon City, STARS officers and other characters fight through the monsters ravaging the city to investigate Umbrella's involvement in the disaster. Raccoon City is ultimately destroyed by a nuclear missile strike initiated by the United States government to contain the viral outbreak. An ensuing government investigation leads to Umbrella's downfall. However, the proliferation of Umbrella's biological weapons and viruses leads to the other outbreaks across the world. The protagonists of each subsequent entry continue to fight new factions that engage in bio-terrorism, and also face new types of creatures.
