Some of my best developers are black, says Resi Evil 5 producer

Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi has defended the game against allegations of racism, saying he was "surprised" by the reaction it received.

He was responding to criticisms from journalists including Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, who said his first reaction to seeing a trailer for the game was, "Wow, clearly no one black worked on this game."

But speaking to MTV Takeuchi said, "There are black members in the development team. We do have staff working on the game, who are aware of the historical background and we are constantly checking these kinds of things with them.

According to Takeuchi, the criticisms weren't what the team expected. "We certainly didn’t anticipate the reaction. We were quite surprised," he stated. "I think everyone understands that we never set out to with the intention to make anything that was racist - that was never our intention.

"We think it was a bit of a misunderstanding when we published the first images of the game back in the day. And we think that as we move along and allow people to see more the game and more of what’s going on and more of the story, people will get a better idea of the game."

Resident Evil 5 will hit PS3 and Xbox 360 on 13th March 2009. See whether you think it's racist by watching the latest trailer, or have a read of our hands-on preview.