Speaking with Famitsu magazine, Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi detailed the game's new-to-the-series co-op gameplay.
"We're developing this game with the online co-op mode as its base," he said. "RE5 is a 'next generation' console game, and online is important both in Japan and overseas. We felt it was time to bring the RE series online in a serious way. We had done that with the Resident Evil Outbreak games, of course, but that wasn't the main series; we wanted to bring online to the main game this time. That was the attitude we brought into the early stages of development."
In Resident Evil 5, you'll have the option to play alone, co-op with friends only or allow any random to join you any time during the game. Chris Redfield is the game's hero while Sheva Alomar's role will be purely supportive. "We had long discussions about this during development," Takeuchi explained, "but if we put both Sheva and Chris's full story into a single game, the plot would've lost its focus."
The two characters don't share the same inventory, but they can hand items to each other when they are close enough. When either of the 2 players is in danger, his partner will be alerted and when a player takes heavy beating he'll enter a "dying" state where he can do nothing but wait for death or his friend's helping hand. The game is over when either of the 2 players die, so teamwork is crucial.