Ada Wong[a] is a character in Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan), a survival horror video game series created by the Japanese company Capcom. She was introduced in Resident Evil 2 (1998) as a spy and mercenary who attempts to steal a biological weapon during a zombie outbreak in Raccoon City. Although Ada is often hired by antagonists such as Albert Wesker, she has betrayed her employers for her own agendas and saved protagonist Leon S. Kennedy from dire situations.
Video game publications have described Ada as one of the best Asian female video game characters. She has received both praise and criticism with regard to gender representation in video games. Several publications commended her portrayal as a morally ambiguous femme fatale, but others argued that she was designed to appeal to the male gaze.
Concept and design
Ada Wong is the pseudonym of an American woman of Chinese descent.[14][13] She was conceived for Resident Evil 2 as a white-coat-clad researcher named Linda who helps the player throughout the game,[15] but this changed after game director Hideki Kamiya and other staff members expressed interest in developing her into a full character.[16] When the character's nature arose during a staff meeting, developer Kazunori Kadoi randomly wrote "Ada" without much thought and the name remained unchanged. Writer Noboru Sugimura expanded Ada's backstory and made her an enigmatic corporate spy.[16] Ada's cutscene model was not completed in time for the game's release, and she was the only main character omitted from its cinematics.[17] She was designed by Capcom artist Isao Ohishi.[18]
Ada and protagonist Leon S. Kennedy meet for the first time in Resident Evil 2, and gradually develop a relationship as they save each other's lives throughout the game. Their relationship in the 2019 remake of Resident Evil 2 is more intimate, and they kiss earlier in the game. In a 2019 interview with Siliconera, Kamiya said he believed that expediting the kiss "works out because it makes Ada feel more manipulative of Leon".[19] Ada's revealing red dress is initially covered by a beige trench coat in the remake. Co-director Kazunori Kadoi said that "wandering around in that dress just getting on with your job as a spy probably doesn't look as realistic and believable as we want in this new game".[20] Ada and Leon's relationship is further explored in Resident Evil 4 and its "Separate Ways" downloadable content (DLC).[13] For the 2023 remake of Resident Evil 4, Ada's red qipao was redesigned as a red, woolly jumper with a leather holster[21] to change her "shady", sexualized persona.[10] In "Separate Ways", she uses a grappling gun for combat and traversing.[22]
In Resident Evil 6, players can unlock Ada after completing three individual character scenarios. According to executive producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi, this makes her storyline "more enjoyable" and enhances her ambiguity because "one of the themes of Ada's story is a lone spy working in secret".[23] Ada was intended to appear in Resident Evil Village as a "mysterious masked person" who saves Ethan Winters, but was cut from the game due to "conflicting scenarios".[24]
Michelle Lee provided the motion capture performance for Ada in Resident Evil 6.[8] Jolene Andersen voiced and motion captured Ada in the 2019 remake of Resident Evil 2,[2] having previously done the character's motion capture in Resident Evil: Damnation.[9]Lily Gao, who played Ada in the live-action film Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City,[12] provided the character's voice and motion capture in the 2023 remake of Resident Evil 4,[26] and was the first actress in the series to both voice and play Ada on-screen.[10]Junko Minagawa voiced Ada in the Japanese versions of the games.[1]
Ada Wong made her first appearance in Resident Evil 2 (1998). She is hired by an unnamed organization to steal a deadly virus from the Umbrella Corporation, a pharmaceutical company responsible for a zombie outbreak in the fictional American metropolitan area of Raccoon City.[29][30] Ada meets rookie police officer Leon S. Kennedy and helps him destroy the T-103 Tyrant before escaping with a sample of the G-virus.[31][32]
Ada returned in Resident Evil 4 (2005). She and Jack Krauser are hired by Albert Wesker to retrieve the mind-controlling Las Plagas parasite developed by Los Iluminados, a cult based in rural Spain. Ada encounters Leon during his mission to rescue the U.S. president's daughter Ashley Graham, who has been abducted by the cult. Although Ada saves Leon from Krauser and enlists the help of researcher Luis Sera to steal a sample of the parasite, cult leader Osmund Saddler kills Luis and takes Ada hostage.[33] After being freed by Leon, Ada helps him kill Saddler before escaping in a helicopter with the sample.[34] Later ports of Resident Evil 4 include a new scenario featuring Ada as the playable protagonist. Entitled "Separate Ways", it depicts the events of the main game from her perspective;[35] the fictional documentary "Ada's Report" describes her involvement with other characters in the story.[36]
Ada next appeared as a playable character in Resident Evil 6 (2012). The game allows players to select between four scenarios with interwoven storylines, and Ada's campaign becomes available upon completion of Leon, Chris Redfield, and Jake Muller's scenarios.[37] Initially operating as a lone spy, Ada is forced to help Leon and the other protagonists fight rogue National Security AdvisorDerek C. Simmons, a former associate of Ada's who is obsessed with her, and Carla Radames, who is forcibly transformed by Simmons into Ada's doppelgänger.[38][39]
Ada Wong appears in the adult animated film Resident Evil: Damnation (2012), set before the events of Resident Evil 6.[40] She was chosen as the returning female character from the game series to contrast Claire Redfield's role in the previous installment, Resident Evil: Degeneration (2008).[41] Ada poses as a BSAA agent to infiltrate the Eastern Slav Republic and obtain a sample of the Las Plagas parasite used in the country's civil war.[42] Director Makoto Kamiya initially wanted to explore the dysfunctional romance between Leon and Ada, but his idea was scrapped.[43]
In Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), the fifth installment of the non-canonical live-action Resident Evil film series, Ada is a former agent of Umbrella who teams up with Alice to escape from an underwater Umbrella facility in the Far North.[44] She did not return in the final film, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016), apparently dying offscreen.[45] Ada appears in the mid-credits scene of the reboot film, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021). She was originally intended to have a larger role, but director Johannes Roberts found it difficult including too many characters in the film.[46]
Ada also appears in several non-canonical Resident Evil games.[b] She appears as a non-playable character in the tactical role-playing game Project X Zone 2,[50] and is a playable character in the asymmetrical survival horror gameDead by Daylight (2016).[51] She made her first guest appearance in the browser-based social gameOnimusha Soul (2013), where she was redesigned for its feudal-Japan theme.[52] She also made a cameo appearance in Street Fighter V (2016) for Kolin as an alternate skin,[53]Knives Out (2017),[54] the digital collectible card gameTeppen (2019),[55]Puzzles & Survival (2023),[56] and State of Survival (2023).[57]
Ada appears in novelizations of the films and games.[58][59] She appears in the 1998–1999 manhuaShēnghuà Wēijī 2 ("Biohazard 2").[58]Chingwin Publishing released a romantic-comedy retelling of the Resident Evil 2 story centering on Leon, Claire, and Ada in the Taiwanese two-issue comic Èlíng Gǔbǎo II (1999).[60] Capcom screenwriters created two Resident Evil 2 radio dramas that were broadcast on Radio Osaka in early 1999 and later released by Suleputer as two CDs entitled Biohazard 2 Drama Album.[61][5] Set a few days after the events of the game, they follow Ada's mission to retrieve Sherry Birkin's pendant with the G-virus sample from Umbrella enforcer HUNK. Ada intercepts the delivery of the locket in Loire, France, eliminating HUNK and his men. She escapes an accidental T-virus leak and realizes her feelings for Leon, deciding to quit the espionage business to return to him.[61] Canonically, the characters' story arcs continue differently; Ada keeps the pendant with the G-virus and resumes her espionage.[62][63] On printed trading cards, she appears as a card in the Bandai-produced game Resident Evil: The Deck Building Game.[64] Merchandise featuring Ada includes action figures, figurines, statues, plushies and t-shirts.[c]
Reception
Ada's original design was changed in the remake of Resident Evil 4 to avoid sexualizing her.[10] The remake's portrayal was criticized, especially her voice, which led to review bombing of the game.[71]
Game publications described Ada Wong as among the best Asian female video game characters.[d] Critics said that she was not oversexualized in her initial appearances, and cited her as an example of the series' female characters who were not judged solely by gender.[10][78][79] Ada's relationship with Leon has been noted as a memorable video-game romance, and described as a hallmark of a sexpionage trope.[10] Lara Crigger of The Escapist called Ada a "femme fatale" and "feminist role model" who is "beautiful and sexual" in the mold of Simone de Beauvoir's existentialist philosophys.[79] Harri Chan of Polygon said Ada's ethnicity and portrayal in Resident Evil 4 relegate her to the "Dragon Lady" stereotype, citing her dress and her "sexualized and shady persona".[10]The Guardian staffers praised Ada's intelligence and her tendency to be "numerous steps ahead of everyone else".[74] Mike Wehner of The Escapist said, "Capcom’s manipulation of the Resident Evil timeline hasn’t exactly been kind to this particular theory surrounding Ada Wong’s fate" when Ada returned in Resident Evil 4 after her supposed death in Resident Evil 2. According to Wehner, Capcom buried Ada’s death in series lore to the extent that "you’re not supposed to acknowledge that it even exists".[30]
Jenny Platz (author of Unraveling Resident Evil: Essays on the Complex Universe of the Games and Films) opined that Ada is genderfluid, and contrasted her with "sexless object" characters such as Resident Evil's Claire Redfield and Rebecca Chambers. Platz wrote that Ada possesses attributes "typically associated with males" including strength and intelligence, and a "beauty and poise ... typically associated with females".[78] Andrei Nae, author of Immersion, Narrative, and Gender Crisis in Survival Horror Video Games, said that Ada and fellow character Ashley Graham in Resident Evil 4 "correspond to the submissive woman-femme fatale character couple" while the game attempted to "reinscribe Ada Wong within patriarchy" to "compensate for the male protagonist's incomplete hypermasculinity".[80] According to the article "Female Representation in Video Games", women have long been included in video games and Ada's outfit and conduct were visually stereotypical.[81]
The male gaze in video games has been explored in critiques of Ada.[e]Université de Montréal professor of cinema Bernard Perron said that Ada's introduction in Resident Evil 4 includes the "traditional male gaze montage"; in-game cinematics focus on her body and slit dress, but her identity is not revealed.[83] Matt Cundy of GamesRadar+ called Ada's outfit unrealistic in the game's context, and anyone dressed for a zombie apocalypse "in an elegant side-split evening gown, choker and high heels would have to be certifiably mental".[86] In Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian criticized Ada's outfit as too revealing.[82]
Li Bingbing's performance as Ada in Resident Evil: Retribution was criticized by Chinese audiences.[87] Xiao Mei wrote for the People's Daily that Li was not given the opportunity to act, and was relegated to "being pretty on screen, just filling in space".[87] Lily Gao's vocal performance as Ada in the 2023 remake of Resident Evil 4 was criticized by fans, and the game was review bombed.[21][88][71] Gao deleted her Instagram posts after she was harassed online,[89] later saying: "It is time we stop only capitalizing on the sexualized, eroticized, and mysterious Asian woman and make space to honor every kind of Asian woman ... Ada is a survivor. She is unpredictable, resilient, and absolutely not a stereotype."[90] Jade King of TheGamer considered Gao's portrayal of Ada to be the worst part of the game.[21]
^"神谷英樹絵コンテ&インタビュー". Research on Biohazard 2 final edition (in Japanese). Micro Design Publishing Inc. September 1, 1998. pp. 131–146. ISBN978-4-944000-77-7.
^Miller, Zachary (January 29, 2012). "Resident Evil: The Story So Far". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on February 27, 2017. Retrieved April 18, 2018.
^ abPlatz, Jenny (2014). "The Woman in the Red Dress: Sexuality, Femmes Fatales, The Gaze and Ada Wong". In Farghaly, Nadine (ed.). Unraveling Resident Evil: Essays on the Complex Universe of the Games and Films. McFarland & Company. p. 128. ISBN978-0786472918.
^Kishonna L. Gray; et al. (2018). Feminism in Play. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 235–250. ISBN978-3319905389. (Segment by Stephanie Jennings: "Women Agents and Double Agents: Theorizing Feminine Gaze in Video Games")