If the games, comics, films and TV shows have taught us anything, it is that corporations are bad! You can look at any film that features one and they are usually either the main antagonists or the reason why everything has gone wrong. The Weyland-Yutani corporation from the Alien series are a great example of this, as well as Cyberdyne Systems from Terminator (who brought the world to the point of destruction), and not forgetting the Tyrell Corporation from the movie; Blade Runner and their sinister replicant actions that cause the events of the films.
Comic books have companies like LexCorp, run by no other than Superman’s arch nemesis; Lex Luthor, and Oscorp from the Marvel universe and their shadiness.
TV shows have companies like DHARMA Initiative from Lost, and Primatech from Heroes, and even cartoon TV shows like Futurama have fictional evil corporations; MomCorp.

When it comes to computer games, there are a few that spring to mind, such as Black Masa from Half-Life, Hyperion from Borderlands, Abstergo from the Assassin’s Creed series, and not forgetting the Shin-Ra Electric Power Company from Final Fantasy VII, but there is always one that tops the lists as the most evil company ever created; the Umbrella Corporation.

I have been in a very Resident Evil mind frame recently, what with the Resident Evil 2 Board game I am backing on Kickstarter, and going to be starting RE:7 with my fellow Bearded Robot, so I thought I would discuss these diabolical evildoers, who hold no content for human life and have no morals of any kind.

Now, previous to the Raccoon City incident of September 1998, the Umbrella Corporation was a household brand name pharmaceutical company. Their biggest leading product was Safsprin, which was apparently a sure for the common cold. Aqua Cure was another crowning public achievement, which is an ointment used as a spray which you can apply to the skin to get rid of most types of gouges, scrapes, cuts, and bullet holes, more commonly known as a Fire Aid Spray.


The truth is that this is only the thin layer of skin on the surface. Beneath what the public knows, the Umbrella Corporation are far darker than any one could have possibly imagined.
It was founded back in 1968 by Oswell E Spencer, Sir Edward Ashford and James Marcus, following the discovery of the Stairway of the Sun flower deep in a cave in Africa. The plant was worshipped by a nearby tribe who would eat it to inherit its strength, but really the plant contain the Progenitor Virus, which would serve as the foundations to the T-Virus, G-Virus, T-Veronica Virus, and every other virus Umbrella had produced.

Ashford died from exposure to the Virus, but his son continued on his father’s work. The three men went off and build various labs and research centres as Umbrella’s stock began to grow.
Ashford built the Antarctic Base (as seen in Code Veronica) and began experiments on genre control; known as the Veronica Project, and it was through this that Code Veronica’s main antagonists Alfred and Alexia Ashford were created/born.

At this point Umbrella have facilities all over the world, from France to Africa, Japan and an offshore oil rig in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Sheena Island (Gun Survivor) houses one, as well as the prison and training facility at Rockfort Island (Code Veronica), each of which conducting their own experiments.

Before this, however, Dr. Marcus built the Umbrella Executive Training Center in the Arklay Mountains under the façades of a Mansion (no… not the mansion from RE:1, but instead the setting for RE:Zero), and began experiments into Leeches and how they are affected with the Progenitor. It was through this that the T-Virus was born (which serves as the cause of the outbreak in RE:1). His most prized students: Albert Wesker (who we all know too well) and William Birkin (the main antagonist and reason behind the events of RE:2) worked alongside him in the nearby Arklay Laboratory hidden beneath the Spencer Mansion (This is the setting of RE:1).

The mansion of which itself has a dark history. Oswell E. Spencer hired architech George Trevor to build the mansion for him, planning as a rival laboratory to Marcus’ just further down the road, in which he could manufacture B.O.W.s (Bio Organic Weapons, such as the Tyrant and Plant 42) in the hidden laboratory in the sub-level basement. Once it had been built, Oswell kidnapped George and his family (Jessica and Lisa Trevor) and experimented on them so that the mansions secrets would be kept safe (mainly the traps, secret passageways and all the elaborate puzzles hidden within).
While George and Jessica died, Lisa; George’s Daughter, at age fourteen was forced to undergo many illegal biological experiments as a guinea pig, leading to monstrous mutant side-effects, the likes of which can be seen in the Remake of Resident Evil 1.


Marcus suspected his fellow Umbrella founders, especially Oswell Spencer, who wanted to create a utopia for mankind (with himself the ruler) and the B.O.W.s would lead Umbrella to it, and the two men became enemies. Spencer would try and steal Marcus’ research, and Marcus was plotting to overthrow Spencer as the CEO of Umbrella. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back and Spencer ordered a special forces team to assassinate him in the late 1980’s.
Marcus had been experimenting with his Queen Leach and managed to keep him alive as his body was dumped in a nearby sewage plant.
Ten years later (1998), the Marcus/Queen Leech hybrid emerged and, due to Marcus’ memories, exacted vengeance against those who wronged him. It is here that the events of the games begin to unfold.
Marcus infected the Arklay Lab’s water supplies, which infected the scientists, security teams, and workers with the T-Virus. Eventually this lead to an outbreak at both locations and extremely dangerous research specimens to escape into the surrounding area.

Wesker, having formed Raccoon City’s elite S.T.A.R.S. unit two years prior, would develop a plan to lure the team to the Mansion and obtain battle data from the conflict that would surely follow. This lead to both the events of Resident Evil: Zero, and the original Resident Evil.

The Marcus/Queen Leech was destroyed, along with a number of Umbrella B.O.W.s; including the Tyrant-001 (which was regarded as the “Ultimate Bio Weapon”, but really it was just a tall guy with a big claw for a hand with his heart on the outside, easily dispatched with a single rocket), Wesker himself (although he himself was an Umbrella experiment and had the Progenitor Virus inside of him already).
Birkin had already moved to his own personal secret laboratory beneath Raccoon City and was conducting research on the G-Virus (discovered inside Lisa Trevor). Umbrella, having lost valuable assets during the Mansion incident, sent a para-military black operations unit, lead by HUNK, to retrieve Birkin’s research. Birkin was shot during the incident and injected himself with the G-Virus in order to survive, causing a serious mutation. He chased down the unit and killed them, causing the G-Virus to be unleashed upon Raccoon City.

The entire city errupted in chaos as many citizens were infected, turning them into zombies, and variois B.O.W.s were released. Further mutations were caused as the virus continue to spread and soon the city was overrun. Due to Umbrella having both the Mayor of Raccoon City, and the Chief of Police; Brian Irons, in their pocket, the city was not evacuated and the majority of its citizens perished… or worse.
Umbrella’s own Countermeasure services (a group of mercenaries), was sent into help deal with the situation, but the truth is that they were sent in to gather combat data.
The events of Resident Evil 2, 3: Nemesis, and Outbreak Files 1 & 2 took place during this incident.

While HUNK did manage to secure a sample of the G-Virus, (as well as Wesker’s own operative; Ada Wong), the entire city was destroyed in a nuclear blast, which lead to Umbrella’s exposure.
There stock prices dropped dramatically and their shady experiments and secrets began to come out in the news. More and more of Umbrella’s facilities began overrun with outbreaks, such as Sheena Island (Gun Survivor) and Rockford Island (Code Veronica, which lead to the deaths of Ashford twins, ending their bloodline and removing another Umbrella founder from the scene). These could not be covered up and soon the company collapsed financially.
Albert Wesker had already stolen all the data he needed from his former employers and worked together with TRICELL Inc; a rival pharmaceutical company that picked up the pieces and secretly carried on Umbrella’s secret B.O.W. work following the company’s demise. TRICELL caused the events of Resident Evil 5, but were eventually destroyed. Another of Wesker’s siblings (clones/experiments) attempted to use the same virus (the Uroboros virus) following TRICELL’s downfall in Resident Evil: Revelations 2, but was foiled by former members of S.T.A.R.S.

The death of Umbrella lead to the rise in Bio-Terrorism, and many former members of the company attempted to revive it, or at least make their own research known. One such incident was when the ship; the Spencer Rain was attacked and an outbeak occured during Resident Evil: Dead Aim. Anti Bio-Terrorism forces were created to help fight against them. Spencer was eventually killed by Wesker, and the Umbrella legacy ended.


It seemed that Umbrella’s main focus was to build B.O.W.s to help them takeover the world in classic evil corporation fashion. Their main ones that were created were the production of various different Tyrants, but other key B.O.W.s were the Hunters seen throughout various RE games, and their experiments into the Leeches. Of course, being scientists, they tried their luck at sticking various Virus’ into whatever human, animal, or insect that they could, just to see what would happen.
They have no regard for human life and would often conduct experiments on unwilling test subjects. Their research into the Progenitor Virus (as well as all the subsequent viruses that were born from it) lead to thousands of deaths, and if they had not been brought out into the public eye, they would still be conducting further experiments to this day.


Just given the history of the company is clear enough to see just how dangerous they were in their prime. While we might find their methods confusing, illogical, and downright absurd, their own identity serves greatly as a primary antagonistic force that any person can get behind to fight against, similar to the Nazis of World War 2.
The events that they have caused over the last five decades is enough to leave ripples that are still occurring to this day.

In the words of poor old RPD veteran; Marvin Branagh, it is clear to see that… Umbrella was behind everything!

Poor Marvin… we all remember what happened to him…

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