Ada Wong (known to others as The Woman in the Red Dress before learning her name) claims to be an honest civilian in Raccoon City to look for her missing boyfriend who was an employee of Umbrella named John Clemens, but is actually an undercover spy and expert assassin working for an Umbrella rival company led by
Albert Wesker. Her assignment was to retrieve the G-Virus discovered by Dr.
William Birkin. Having received special combat training, Ada is able to remain calm and composed even in the most difficult of situations, enabling her to silently carry out her missions. She encountered
Leon S. Kennedy during the Raccoon City incident and they both risked each others lives in order to achieve their goals.
Despite several encounters with
Leon over the years, Ada has always had an ulterior motive and has manipulated
Leon to try and achieve them. They are not enemies, but nor does there appear to be any indication of friendship or affection between them. Nothing from her past can be verified - even her name is not believed to be her real name.
In the game series, Ada has evolved from a non-player character to a full-fledged playable character in the more recent games. For example in
Resident Evil 4, a scenario called Separate Ways exists in which Ada is the main character. She is again playable in
Resident Evil 6. Also, interestingly the character of Alice from the Resident Evil film franchise was loosely based on Ada. Finally, Ada appears in Resident Evil 3, but only as a cameo, and she is mentioned a handful of times in other games where she does not appear.