Umbrella's experiments with the T-virus continued unhindered after Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine destroyed the undead monsters in the original Resident Evil. Claire Redfield, the younger sister of Chris, and Leon Kennedy, a rookie cop on his first day of the job, arrive in Raccoon City only to find the city in flaming ruins due to its inhabitants having been transformed into mindless flesh-eating freaks. Claire and Leon team up, but are soon separated and trapped inside the city by a car crash. Seeking refuge within the Raccoon City police station, each character must find a way to escape from the nightmare while solving the mystery of what happened to Raccoon City. They will have to deal with a variety of freakish mutants, including zombie populations, giant poisonous spiders, walking venus-fly-traps, and speedy wall-crawling Lickers.
Each character will also be pursued by one seemingly unstoppable foe: a horrific and constantly evolving man-monster known as the "G-Type" (Leon's Scenario), or a taciturn but inhumanly powerful Umbrella agent who is nonetheless saddled with the rather quaint name of Mr. X (Claire's Scenario).
Like Resident Evil , Resident Evil 2 is a 3D action-adventure using three-dimensional polygon characters over two-dimensional pre-rendered backgrounds, with the action viewed through a variety of cinematic fixed camera angles in each room.
Players can choose to play as one of two possible characters. Each character goes through the same initial scenario, but with differences in the type of weaponry they find and the people they meet along the way. Leon will team up with a mysterious woman calling herself Ada Wong, while Claire will find herself charged with protecting a little girl named Sherry Birkin.
Beating the game for the first time unlocks a second scenario to be played with the character you didn't choose, with new locations, maps, enemies, and a longer and more climactic ending. Your actions in the first scenario can also affect the outcome of certain events in the second scenario. Additionally, ammo and healing items are more plentiful than in the original game.
Resident Evil 2 was released on July 10th, 1998 for the Playstation.