Amongst Resi-fans there was a campaign for Capcom to release the game and even a strong fanmade attempt to re-assemble the mostly broken ROM into something playable (ie. You don’t have to look too far online to find well documented accounts of how 1.5 differed from the eventual incarnation of Resident Evil 2 and that was before an early build ROM of the game was leaked online some years ago. I guess given its infamy you might have expected this to be in the top spot, but it’s not necessarily a game I think Capcom should release despite personally being quite curious about it.
The final release of Devil May Cry has very few telltale indicators that it was ever considered as a Resident Evil game arguably the only hint is the use of panning and tracking semi-fixed cameras that are very similar to those in ‘Resident Evil Code Veronica’ and the slight nod in the violence warning of the opening screens. members going to engaged in aerial acrobatics? Were they all going to be kitted out with broadswords? I guess the most logical answer was that there was the idea of an improved melee system for the games given how redundant the knife was in the original trilogy and that this somehow morphed in to a fast paced 3D brawler.
I guess my curiosity lies in knowing what the overall vision for the game was? Were the S.T.A.R.S. I suspect that it all happened early in at the concept stage and that it wasn’t so much of a transition as realising that the style just wasn’t right for a RE game, but that it could form the basis of its own new franchise. Very little has ever been said about how far along the development track Capcom were with RE4 before it morphed in to the then new IP Devil May Cry. I don’t see how this would have fit in to a Resident Evil game…
It seems as though Capcom’s transition to a more action heavy Resi-title wasn’t smooth, but given that number 4 is where many fans joined the series and is often hailed as a classic, it seems as though in the long term it was worth the effort. The fourth iteration of the series had a distinctly bumpy development cycle with at least three abandoned versions that fans know about not including Devil May Cry or the version that was finally released. That’s true, but quite famously it did begin its development life as Resident Evil 4. Devil May CryĮrm… yeah, so, I know what you’re thinking Devil May Cry was released and it is not a Resident Evil game. In honour of these lost games, I’ve decided to run down five of them that I would love to have had the chance to see, either finished or even in their primitive states, and for those who are interested there is a pretty comprehensive list of these unfinished titles over on the Resident Evil Wiki which is where I’ve picked up a good chunk of the information about these games. I guess, given the sheer volume of work under the Resident Evil banner, it’s not too surprising and I think many fans of the series would argue that some of the titles that were released should have by rights also ended up on the cutting room floor (I’m looking at you Umbrella Corps). It’s not unusual for a game to be quite different upon release to versions shown in expos or early trailers there’s often content cut or concepts significantly revised, but Resident Evil has a history of entirely scrapping versions of games to either be abandoned forever or for designers to pick over as they scavenge for usable morsels of content. Having reflected on the whole experience I keep coming back to my thoughts about RE1.5 and more generally how the ‘Resident Evil’ universe ( Resiverse?) seems to be littered with unfinished games. I also rambled about many other things and I’m likely to further unpack the four hour streaming experience in my February editorial – but overall it was super positive!
One of the many things I found myself jabbering about during my Resident Evil 2 Revisit stream event … alpha dash plus special champion edition X… last week was the mythical original version of Resident Evil 2 known in the Resi-community ( Resiumity?) as “Resident Evil 1.5”. I’ll try and resume my usual diverse range of topics after this one!
I know I’ve been hitting the Resident Evil themed pieces hard recently.