Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City raised a lot of questions upon its reveal. For a time, the game was controversial, though it was eventually nearly forgotten. A decade later however, Capcom has revitalized the franchise and its early setting, thanks in large part to remakes of Resident Evil 2 and RE3, which brought players back to the iconic Raccoon City. This era was revitalized, though Operation Raccoon City attempted many of the same things in 2012. With this in mind, perhaps that game's biggest flaw was releasing far too early.

Resident Evil 4 made it evident that the series was attempting to find a new identity, and Operation Raccoon City makes this apparent. Here, players got to peer through the eyes of the Umbrella Corporation in a game that brought back a fan-favorite location that hadn't been seen since 1999's Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Featuring interesting new characters, rich narrative potential, and a return to an iconic city, Operation Raccoon City should have been great. However, it ultimately suffered from a story that meant nothing to the overall series, clunky mechanics, and bland environments, squandering its great potential.

RELATED: Resident Evil 4 Remake Has to Keep This Aspect of the Original

The Umbrella Corpse struggle against the undead horde.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City's story was one of its more intriguing aspects, and (ultimately) its most disappointing. The main characters this time around serve as Umbrella's Security Service, known as the "Wolfpack." Their mission is to eliminate all ties connecting Umbrella to the Raccoon City incident. Umbrella's perspective could have produced a rich narrative, but the game had a hard time achieving this. Certain missions make this more apparent, as the best parts of the game were the ones that directly connected these characters to the larger Resident Evil universe. Moments like chasing down Leon, barely missing Jill, or being attacked by Nikolai reveal the game's true potential, but they aren't enough to carry the entire thing.

If Operation Raccoon City were to release today, though, things could be different. The remakes set up the opportunity for the Wolfpack to appear with the presence of HUNK. Resident Evil 2 gives small glimpses of HUNK's alpha team on their mission to extract the G-Virus. This exact narrative is used in the original game where the USS assist HUNK during the entire mission. If properly applied to the remakes, this would both make the Wolfpack incredibly relevant and give them a much greater impact on the overall story.

RELATED: Where Is Resident Evil Village's DLC?

However, in the original game, Wolfpack really didn't have an impact on the story. Instead of feeling like a part of iconic events, players felt like passive witnesses to them. Given the many untold stories in Raccoon City, there are plenty of opportunities to tell some of these through the Wolfpack's perspective and let them be responsible for key events. It would also open the door to more rich character moments between them and members of Umbrella, such as William and Annette Birkin, who serve major roles in the events of Raccoon City.

Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City Vector with Nikolai

Another fault of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City was its environments and mechanics. Despite being set in Raccoon City, the location was only noticeable during portions of exterior missions. Interior level design fell short, and the game was sometimes difficult to control. Both of these issues could be immediately solved with the use of Capcom's RE Engine, which has been used for every Resident Evil game since Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. The engine looks beautiful whether the environments take place in or outdoors, and it has shown itself to be capable of handling action sequences smoothly, such as Resident Evil 7's "Not a Hero" DLC

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City suffers from being released at the wrong time. Debuting during a time when the series as a whole had moved past the G-Virus outbreak, the game is riddled with story and gameplay issues that, less than a decade later, wouldn't have been problems. While it's easy to see the foundations of a fantastic game, Operation Raccoon City was disappointing -- and it didn't have to be.