I'd hate to sully an otherwise incredible demonstration by simply spelling out the features, however-rather, let me set the scene for you. In the first of the two scenarios available in the demonstration, I was settled squarely inside a small building in a shantytown village somewhere in Africa, with a slew of infected humans bearing down upon me. My companion Sheva-protagonist Chris Redfield's previously revealed and cooperatively-playable cohort-was already in tow, and set to work taking pot shots at the foes just outside the window. Was this familiar? I recalled in an instant the first bunker-down in Resident Evil 4, in which Leon Kennedy shoved bookshelves in front of windows to keep the enraged villagers at bay inside a similarly tiny, similarly decrepit house. As Chris Redfield, a similar course of action seemed appropriate-I blocked the entryways, steadied myself before the one unguarded window, and readied my shotgun.

This is where the first of Resident Evil 5's improvements became quickly apparent: the inventory system, already drastically reworked in RE4, has seen a major overhaul in this latest installment in the series. Gone are the briefcase item management screens, replaced with a nine-slot inventory system in which knives, rocket launchers, everything occupies just a single slot a piece. Arranged in a 3-by-3 grid, those items are mapped to the directional pad on the controller, allowing for quick swaps between pistols, frag grenades, machine guns, whatever.

With my boomstick prepped and ready, the first onslaught poured through the window-or tried, had I not filled them from feet to neck with buckshot. I hurled myself through the window and popped off a few more rounds before Sheva followed closely behind. Even controlled by the AI, your companion is no pushover. Armed to the teeth and equippable with up to nine items in a system similar to your own, Sheva can hold her own against a reasonable number of enemies, but will occasionally require an assist or two when things get hairy. A Capcom representative told me that the cooperative mode will function in a similar way-on-screen indicators to alert you if your companion is grabbed or incapacitated, detailing their current location and status.