TheRetroArcade
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Joined: Feb 2026
In an alternate timeline, Resident Evil could've become a lot more serious.
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While Capcom has been on a roll with the last few Resident Evils, earlier in the series' life things didn't always go so smoothly. Resident Evil 2 was rebooted about 70% of the way through its development, with the original version eventually dubbed Resident Evil 1.5. Later it would take Capcom multiple restarts to settle on a direction for the masterful Resident Evil 4. Both ended up being huge hits, but if either development story had worked out differently, it's likely both survival horror and action games would look a lot different today. I mean, imagine living in a world where Resident Evil isn't goofy as hell.
"It was all too realistic. The ominous atmosphere from the first game, as represented in things like the Spencer Mansion itself, the armor room, key items like the jewelry box and gemstones… all that had been removed," Resident Evil 2 writer Noboru Sugimura said in an interview way back in 1998, as translated by Shmuplations. There he was speaking about that canceled "1.5" version of RE2 that Capcom abandoned—when he joined the project mid-development, his first bit of advice was to rewrite it.
Initially, the police station was too modern, and Sugimura felt that the game's setting felt "too modern and strangely sterile" compared to the first game. "This doesn't feel like Resident Evil," he said. That was when the development started over.
There are some other great tidbits in the interview, which features both Sugimura and RE2 director Hideki Kamiya. But the best bit focuses on Resident Evil's memorable—though often nonsensical—puzzles, which RE2 helped cement as core to the series' identity. Over-the-top villain Brian Irons, the Raccoon City police chief, was originally "normal" until Sugimura started rewriting the game.
"I was the one who created that deviant personality of his," Sugimura said. "Once we had changed the police station building from a modern one to that old art museum, someone on the team said it would be weird if there were medals just lying around in such a place. Then I said, 'Well, we’ll just have to make the police chief a weirdo then!', and Irons was what I came up with. (laughs) I created a hidden room, and the idea that he had been receiving bribes from Umbrella—a police chief with an insane grin on his face… At first people were saying, 'This isn’t very realistic', but I replied that reality depends on persuasion and belief, so as long as everything was consistent, it would appear real."
I love that last line: As long as e...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
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From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
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While Capcom has been on a roll with the last few Resident Evils, earlier in the series' life things didn't always go so smoothly. Resident Evil 2 was rebooted about 70% of the way through its development, with the original version eventually dubbed Resident Evil 1.5. Later it would take Capcom multiple restarts to settle on a direction for the masterful Resident Evil 4. Both ended up being huge hits, but if either development story had worked out differently, it's likely both survival horror and action games would look a lot different today. I mean, imagine living in a world where Resident Evil isn't goofy as hell.
"It was all too realistic. The ominous atmosphere from the first game, as represented in things like the Spencer Mansion itself, the armor room, key items like the jewelry box and gemstones… all that had been removed," Resident Evil 2 writer Noboru Sugimura said in an interview way back in 1998, as translated by Shmuplations. There he was speaking about that canceled "1.5" version of RE2 that Capcom abandoned—when he joined the project mid-development, his first bit of advice was to rewrite it.
Initially, the police station was too modern, and Sugimura felt that the game's setting felt "too modern and strangely sterile" compared to the first game. "This doesn't feel like Resident Evil," he said. That was when the development started over.
There are some other great tidbits in the interview, which features both Sugimura and RE2 director Hideki Kamiya. But the best bit focuses on Resident Evil's memorable—though often nonsensical—puzzles, which RE2 helped cement as core to the series' identity. Over-the-top villain Brian Irons, the Raccoon City police chief, was originally "normal" until Sugimura started rewriting the game.
"I was the one who created that deviant personality of his," Sugimura said. "Once we had changed the police station building from a modern one to that old art museum, someone on the team said it would be weird if there were medals just lying around in such a place. Then I said, 'Well, we’ll just have to make the police chief a weirdo then!', and Irons was what I came up with. (laughs) I created a hidden room, and the idea that he had been receiving bribes from Umbrella—a police chief with an insane grin on his face… At first people were saying, 'This isn’t very realistic', but I replied that reality depends on persuasion and belief, so as long as everything was consistent, it would appear real."
I love that last line: As long as e...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?