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LOS ANGELES — Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City isn’t your average Resident Evil game. You’re not crawling through horrifying mansions or trying to make your way out of a zombie-filled village. You just have to survive the chaos.

Set between Resident Evil 2 and 3, Operation Raccoon City (out for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC this winter) sticks you straight in the middle of the eponymous city, where the zombie-spawning T-virus has already started spreading. Also, it’s kind of your fault.

As a member of the Umbrella Corporation, Resident Evil’s ubiquitous bad guy, your job is to stop the truth from getting out of Raccoon City by any means necessary. To do that, you’ll have to fight off not only blood-sucking zombies, but U.S. Special Forces soldiers that would like nothing more than to ruin your day by telling the rest of the world what kind of disaster Umbrella has triggered.

“It’s total chaos,” says Capcom representative Eric Monacelli. “You’ve always gotta watch your back.”

Whether you’re in the single-player or online cooperative multiplayer mode, Operation Raccoon City is all about carnage. You can take cover among the destructible debris and burning wreckage of the city, zipping from point to point as you shoot off the myriad zombies and Special Forces roaming around the streets. You’ll have to pay special care not to take too much damage: Start bleeding and you’ll suddenly look like a hell of a meal to the town’s zombies.

Start bleeding and you’ll suddenly look like a hell of a meal to the town’s zombies.

The E3 demo allowed players to pick one of six classes: Recon, Medic, Assault, Demolitions, Scientist and Surveillance. From there, it’s all about taking advantage of your class’s special ability — whether it’s shifting to unlimited bullet mode as an Assault trooper or hijacking zombie minds as a Scientist.

You’ll also have access to your standard Resident Evil array of weapons, from pistols to grenade launchers. You can collect green herbs and other supplemental items as well.

The shooting feels fairly solid, and blowing up zombies is always satisfying. Much of the game’s focus seems to be on cooperation — you won’t survive the streets of Raccoon City unless you work closely with your teammates, whether they’re your real life buddies or your AI comrades.

You can find unique ways to pit your enemies against one another, too. Shoot a special-ops sniper in the arm, for example, and he’ll start bleeding — which will make the mindless zombies suddenly start heading his way. Capcom promises that the game will feature a ton of different creative methods to slaughter baddies as you navigate Raccoon City.

After a few minutes shooting my way through the city (and dying many times), a cut-scene suddenly started. In dropped Mr. X, a boss fight and one of the crazy mutants from Resident Evil 2. The perfect place for Capcom’s demo to end.