Steve Burnside

Steve Burnside is a fictional character in the video game, Resident Evil Code: Veronica. He is a prisoner in Rockfort Island's military training facility owned by Alfred Ashford of the Umbrella Corporation. During the events of the game, he helps out fellow prisoner Claire Redfield escape from the island after an attack from rival forces, which caused the T-Virus to be spread over the facility.

Background

Template:Spoiler Steve is the son of a former Umbrella employee, who attempted to steal from his company. Because of his father's actions, Steve's mother ended up being killed by Umbrella's forces and Steve himself was imprisoned on Rockfort Island, along with his father. As a result of this experience, Steve learned not to trust anyone, not even his closest relatives.

When Albert Wesker's forces attacked the island, Steve took advantage of the ensuing confusion and escaped from his captivity and met with Claire Redfield, who was recently imprisoned on the island herself. At first, Steve was reluctant to cooperate with Claire, leaving Claire to fend for herself. But after a close encounter with one of the facility's traps and the fact that he and Claire were the only non-infected individuals on the island, Steve had no choice but to trust Claire. During their exploration of the facility, Steve met with his father, now transformed into a zombie as a result of the viral outbreak. Steve was forced to kill his father in order to save Claire.

Steve began to open up to Claire more, becoming more affectionate towards her and also started to recover his trusting nature. The two were hunted by the facility's manager, Alfred Ashford, as they made their escape from the island. Although Steve managed to find a sea plane on the island's airport, the plane's navigational system was programmed to arrive at Umbrella's Antarctic Facility. The plane crashed into the facility, since it had no landing gear. Claire and Steve confronted Alfred within the Antarctic Facility and Steve managed to fatally wound Alfred during a shoot-out. When it seemed like the two were free from Alfred's clutches, they were once again taken captive by Alexia Ashford, who was awakened from cryogenic sleep.

The two were held within a replica of the Spencer Mansion hidden within the base. Steve was injected with an advanced form of the T-Veronica virus by Alexia that was harvested from her body. Claire managed to free herself with her brother's help and tried to release the captive Steve. However, Steve transformed into a rampaging monster and went after Claire. Unable to control himself at first, Steve eventually recognized Claire and regained his conscience. He was unable to survive the mutation and transformed back into a human. Before his apparent death, Steve declared his love for Claire.

Despite his apparent death, Steve's body was recovered by Wesker in order to extract the T-Veronica virus from within his body and has even hinted that he has the technology to restore him to life. It is unknown what became of Steve after this point.

Trivia

• Steve was modeled after the image of actor Leonardo Di Caprio and Edward Furlong. Steve's reckless personality seemed to be inspired by John Connor in Terminator 2. He was slightly redesigned for the Playstation 2 and GameCube versions of Code: Veronica to appear more mature.
• Steve was able to recover his original personality even after being mutated by the T-Veronica Virus. This, along with the fact Alexia retains her original personality after being infected with the virus, indicates that the T-Veronica Virus is probably the most stable strain of bio-weapon creation viruses to date.
• The events that had happened to Steve were originally intended for Leon Kennedy but this caused an outcry from many fans. Steve was then created to replace him, this is one reason why he looks similar to Leon.

See also

• Resident Evil Code: Veronica
• Claire Redfield
• Rockfort Island
• Alexia Ashford