The original Resident Evil, for all its b-horror cheesiness, quickly became a classic and helped both establish and pioneer an entire genre of video games on the PlayStation One.
However, we’ve now learned the game wasn’t always originally planned for Sony’s debut home gaming console, news confirmed in an interview with Capcom producer Koji Oda and Game Informer.
“Honestly, I feel like I joined the game industry at the best time,” Oda said. “Typically, games would take half a year and no longer than a year to develop, so I feel like I was able to take part in a lot of different projects. It’s not that well known, but before Resident Evil went to the PlayStation, I was working on it for the Super NES.”
The game was originally developed as a spiritual sequel to the NES horror game Sweet Home, which many longtime gaming enthusiasts consider to be the original survival horror game.
When the original PlayStation was released, it quickly dominated the gaming landscape, leading to Capcom deciding to move development of the game to Sony’s new console.
“This was back before the name Resident Evil had even been assigned to it,” says Oda. “The codename for this was literally just ‘horror game.’ On the SNES, we were working with limited hard drive space, so it’s not like we could dump a movie in there. If we had actually completed it on the SNES, I’m sure it would have been considerably different. For example, it was originally set in a place that had nothing to do with reality – more of a hellish place.”
Game Informer’s new magazine for the month of December has a Mega Man cover, as well as the full interview with Oda. It’s worth mentioning Capcom announced a trio of Mega Man reveals, including Mega Man 11, Mega Man Legacy Collection 1+2 coming to Switch, and re-releases for all the Mega Man X games for modern consoles.
Lea Pastillaroja
December 5, 2017 at 12:08 amLEAK THE DEMO
TheOnceAndFutureKing
December 5, 2017 at 12:35 amThat explains the tank controls
2501
December 5, 2017 at 3:13 amit would’ve been fun to see some concept art or something. RE prototypes are really something.
PaRaLLaXTHeTiCS
December 5, 2017 at 4:40 amI feel like it would’ve looked and played like something similar to Blackthorne.
DrearierSpider
December 5, 2017 at 6:44 amWoulda been 2D…like a Jill sandwich.
TheOnceAndFutureKing
December 5, 2017 at 9:07 amLook up Resident Evil Gaiden for the Gameboy Color, it was probably going to be something like that
Chocolate ISISCream
December 5, 2017 at 2:12 pmThank God it made its way to a superior platform, such as PS1, where everything is better. It even has the best X game (X4).
GameZard
December 5, 2017 at 2:15 pmthen eventually the gamecube.
Γεώργιος Αρχαιοκαπηλίδης
December 5, 2017 at 2:21 pmTank controls was a thing in many 3D games of that era. Even later games like Dino Crisis and Muramasa were like that and Muramasa was a PS2 game.
Γεώργιος Αρχαιοκαπηλίδης
December 5, 2017 at 2:22 pmInteresting how some iconic PS1 and N64 stared their development as SNES games. Take for example Banjo Kazooei and Lylat Wars.
Travis Touchdown
December 5, 2017 at 2:54 pm“It dominated the gaming landscape.”
Lol. More like “Sony paid us to support Playstation and not Nintendo.”
I don’t know why none of these devs want to admit that, even in the current year with retarded decisions like making Monster Hunter PS4 exclusive.
DrearierSpider
December 5, 2017 at 4:17 pmLol, Monster Hunter is coming to Xbox at launch and PC later you dipshit, it’s not remotely exclusive. And most games not going to N64 came down to create cartridge costs and save limitations.
Travis Touchdown
December 5, 2017 at 4:23 pmWhich basically amounts to it being a PS4 exclusive, yeah.
Galvanized Dreamer
December 5, 2017 at 6:01 pmTell that to the GBA port.
RichardGristle
December 5, 2017 at 6:54 pm>tfw even Saturn had X4 (and first)
Chocolate ISISCream
December 5, 2017 at 7:56 pmGarbage ports.