20 Resident Evil Facts You DIDN'T Know

The Secret Link

Remember “Resident Evil Re:Verse”? Yeah, not exactly one of Capcom’s finest moments in the 2020s. Though the game itself wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t anywhere near as remarkable or mildly notable as we were hoping for. But would you believe “Re:Verse” was supposed to be the setup for a brand new “Resident Evil” game? We were supposed to get “Resident Evil Revelations 3” sometime in 2022 with “Re:Verse” serving as the setup for the game with new characters and maps. Alas, the delayed release and poor reception towards “Re:Verse” caused these plans to be scrapped entirely. Instead, Capcom focused on development for “Village’s” DLC and is moving on with “Requiem” at the time of this video.

A Reversed Reveal

It’s funny how “RE3’s” remake is more memorable than the multiplayer component, “Resident Evil: Resistance”. In all honesty, that was bound to happen as “Resident Evil” has rarely been more than decent at multiplayer. However, does anyone remember how the two halves of “RE3’s” remake were revealed? You may have forgotten about this, but “Resistance” was initially revealed as if it was its own game. It wasn’t until December 2019 during a Sony State of Play when we got a new look at “the unannounced campaign portion of Capcom’s ‘Project Resistance’”. Yeah, this was one of the wildest and cheekiest bait-&-switches we had seen in video game marketing, though Capcom might have taken a bit of a PR hit by putting so much focus on “Project Resistance”.

RE53DS

When you look at the entirety of the Nintendo 3DS’s lifespan, you’ll find that Capcom was one of the biggest publishers on the platform as it threw almost every game it possibly could onto the handheld. Capcom briefly toyed with the idea of putting “Resident Evil” on the 3DS as this was the system where the first “Revelations” released on. At some point, Capcom was even looking at possibly making a port of RE5 for the system due to the existence of an internal tech demo. For one reason or another, this tech demo turned into an entirely different project in the end, and that is how we got “Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D”.

When Chaos Brings Order

Earlier, we mentioned how Capcom has struggled in making “Resident Evil” work with multiplayer formulas. Well, admittedly, the closest they’ve ever gotten to making it work was with “Resident Evil Outbreak”. The spark in “Outbreak” was first discovered when producer Noritaka Funamizu had Capcom staff playtest a multiplayer build of RE2. Funamizu had noticed how everyone played “Resident Evil” differently when in a group; one player would be the hero, one may be cowardly, another may be the pack mule for items, and so on. This would wind up inspiring the RPG-esque formula for “Outbreak”, specifically the different stats each character has in the game.

Begging for Advance

It is still bizarre that “Resident Evil Gaiden” was ever a thing. Really, a “Resident Evil” game made for the Game Boy Color? It’s neat in how it was executed, but overall, not a great game. Would you believe that it could have been better? While making “Gaiden”, development studio M4 had begged Capcom and co-publisher Virgin Interactive to allow them to shift the project over to Game Boy Advance when it launched in March 2001. M4 even went so far as to create a prototype to show what they could do with the advancements. Sadly, Capcom would not budge. According to the two publishers, it was better to stay the course due to cheaper costs in making games for Game Boy Color compared to GBA.

Only Room For One

For the most part, dual protagonists are kind of the schtick with “Resident Evil” save for a few mainline entries. So, what’s “Resident Evil 3’s” excuse? Why was Jill the first to get her own game in the mainline series? Well, it’s for two very simple reasons. The first is that Chris and Claire were already chosen for “Code: Veronica”, which takes place a little bit after the events of RE3, making them unavailable for this point in the story. Second, Capcom did not want to reuse protagonists consecutively, Claire and Leon having been the stars of RE2. So, Jill was kind of the only choice albeit an obvious one since she was the more popular character at the time.

The Value of Budgeting

In this day and age, many AAA companies complain about how video game development is so expensive while they continue hiring celebrities to do voiceover work and pay for copyrighted songs. Of course, game budgets in the mid-90’s had a few less zeroes tacked on in most projects. “Resident Evil” was among those, made on a modest budget of roughly one million dollars. Considering how many copies have been sold in the millions across every single game, it’s safe to assume that every “Resident Evil” has managed to turn a good amount of profit, even the bad ones. However, “Requiem” seems to be the first time Capcom is going full fistful of cash as the publisher has stated that the game is their most expensive project in the company’s history.

The Joke and the Cyborg

While we’re on the subject of the original “Resident Evil”, let’s talk about two characters that were supposed to be a part of the game but never made it in. Instead of Rebecca and Barry, Chris and Jill were supposed to be joined by a black man named Dewey and a hulking cybernetic man named Gelzer. Dewey was meant to be the comic relief character while Gelzer came from the remnants of “Resident Evil’s” original story, a story where our four heroes were all supposed to be cyborgs. In the end, Barry and Rebecca wound up becoming the more appealing options.

The Zombie Book

And what about the other member of S.T.A.R.S., our sneaky little Albert Wesker? Well, Wesker wasn’t added into the story until after Dewey and Gelzer’s removal. Capcom had brought in Kenichi Iwao to expand upon the story, leading to an altered cast and new story elements. Wesker was added into the game as a spy for Umbrella, but that’s not the funny bit about his inception. During recording for the voiceover, actor Richard Waugh took inspiration from Disney’s “The Jungle Book” for Wesker’s voice. Waugh loved the arrogance and posh voice of Shere Khan that he used the character as a base for how Wesker should sound. Today, Wesker’s entire character has cemented his status as one of gaming's best villains ever.

Spooky…Or Spoopy?

The “Resident Evil” series has seen all kinds of horrors throughout the decades. It started with zombies, then bioweapons, then parasitic mold and fungus, then werewolves, and just about everything else in between. It’s almost hard to believe that the series almost went nowhere close to zombies in the first place. Yes, “Resident Evil” originally had plans to go with ghosts as the main enemy type. This was because the 1996 original was supposed to be a general haunted house-themed game, which typically means you want to throw in a little bit of everything when it comes to terrifying creatures.

Home, “Sweet Home”

While franchises like “Resident Evil” have gone on to attain legendary status across the wide world of entertainment, even the most successful properties need to have taken inspiration from somewhere. In the case of Capcom’s action-horror franchise, that inspiration came from a little NES game called “Sweet Home”. Cited as a masterpiece by RE’s creator Shinji Mikami, “Sweet Home” was basically the grandfather of the survival horror genre, incorporating RPG mechanics into its gameplay and focusing much more on puzzles and inventory management, not just scaring the player. Simply spend an hour or so with this title, and one can see how many horror games today, not just “Resident Evil”, have evolved and innovated thanks to the groundwork laid out by “Sweet Home”.

First-Person Origin

When “Resident Evil 7” launched in 2017, many were surprised at Capcom’s new angle for the franchise, some claiming that Capcom was taking cues from other successful horror titles like “Outlast” and “Amnesia”. However, the first-person angle has been a desire for “Resident Evil” since the very first game. Early in development, Capcom intended for the first “Resident Evil” to be experienced in a first-person view with a UI similar to games like “DOOM”. As much as Mikami wanted this as a part of the finished game, the original PlayStation could not handle it. And so, it was scrapped.

Getting Scared With Friends

During the first game’s development, “Resident Evil” was aiming for an ambitious feature that few horror games offered at the time: co-op. When the game was shown off in 1995, gameplay footage and screenshots showed both Chris and Jill exploring Spencer Mansion and fending off zombies. As history has shown, this feature was not implemented into the final game. The reason was very much the same as the first-person camera - the PlayStation simply could not handle it. Mikami himself admitted that the co-op gameplay itself “wasn’t good enough.” It wouldn’t be until 2009’s “Resident Evil 5” when the series finally got to dip its toes into co-op gameplay.

Late Homework

You wanna know what WASN’T planned and yet made it into the final game? The hokey voice acting. Towards the end of development, Capcom came to a sudden realization - this game with Japanese audio was also getting shipped to the West with not an ounce of English in it. Worried that this would turn off potential customers, Capcom scrambled for English localization. American actors were quickly rushed into Japan to film the FMV sequences, and the actors were only given two takes for every scene. Thanks to the miniscule budget for this rushed piece of development, the campy nature of “Resident Evil” ended up being one of its strongest aspects.

It’s Always DOS

It isn’t uncommon to find games with different names across different countries. “Resident Evil” was basically forced into having a different name, specifically for its North American release. Capcom had planned to release the game under the name “Biohazard”. Unfortunately, their timing was messed up as an MS-DOS game called “Biohazard” had already launched in North America. A metal band in New York was also using the name. And so, Capcom’s North American offices held an internal contest, allowing the staff to decide the new name. Much to the chagrin of Capcom Japan and Mikami, the name was chosen, and the rest is history.

Legends Meeting Legends

In addition to a massive success in the realm of video games, “Resident Evil” found surprising success in the world of cinema, too. Horror movie fans and “Resident Evil” fans are all too familiar with Alice today, but there was a moment where the franchise could have gone down a completely different route. After directing a commercial for “Resident Evil 2” in 1998, the late filmmaker and grandfather of zombies George A. Romero was approached by Capcom to direct a “Resident Evil” movie. Makes sense considering Mikami has stated how much of a Romero fan he is and how “Night of the Living Dead” influenced “Resident Evil”. Romero would turn down the offer…at first, before handing them a draft of what he wanted to do. According to Romero, Capcom and production house Constantin Films liked the script. The head of Constantin Films, on the other hand, did not, and they went with Paul W.S. Anderson’s version instead. Currently, the University of Pittsburgh holds Romero’s drafts in their George A. Romero Archival Collection.

Ending the…Duology?

As we’ve seen thus far, “Resident Evil” hit so many significant points where the series could have ended up being drastically different from the one we know today. What’s shocking is that the series was originally going to have a much, much shorter lifespan. Just when “Resident Evil 2” was getting close to finishing development, supervisor Yoshiki Okamoto threw a wrench into everything. He was not happy with Mikami’s original version as it would close off any potential for more sequels. The rewrites that came after would force the team to redesign almost the entire game just so that the story made sense. In other words, there is a completely different version of RE2 floating around out there somewhere.

Horror In Your Pocket

When it comes to handheld gaming, “Resident Evil” was definitely late to the party. That isn’t to say it took forever for the franchise to make a handheld debut; it just took a while until we got a really good one like we saw in “Revelations”. There were a few more, less successful attempts in the years prior. “Resident Evil Gaiden”, released for the Game Boy Color, featured a weird blend of shooting gallery gameplay with an RPG setup. Then, we had the clunky pocket game from Tiger Electronics. …Yeah, that was a thing. And then, we had a DS remake of the first game, “Resident Evil: Deadly Silence” that was only released in Japan and featured a decent multiplayer mode. Still waiting to hear from Capcom as to why us Westerners never got that one.

Raccoon City, Toronto, Canada

Location scouting is incredibly important in entertainment when you’re trying to make your experience invoke a certain tone or atmosphere. With its countless exotic landmarks, one can easily decipher what regions of the world Capcom pulls from for “Resident Evil”. But one location remains somewhat of a mystery - what is Racoon City based on? From simply observing skyboxes, buildings in backgrounds, and the like, fans believe that Racoon City is based on Toronto, the capital city of Ontario, Canada. It is worth mentioning that Capcom has never officially confirmed where in the world Racoon City is exactly, and they likely never will.

Leon S. Kennedy - Capcom’s Gold Mine Prophet

“Resident Evil 4” spent so much time in development that its 7-year development cycle would seem absurd if not for disasters like “Duke Nukem Forever”. One would wonder just what the heck was happening behind closed doors that would cause such a lengthy development. Well, it basically came down to the art direction and environment. At one point, RE4 involved demons, but the theme didn’t feel like “Resident Evil”. However, the concept would be recycled for “Devil May Cry” which would go on to become another massive Capcom franchise. Another iteration of RE4 made use of a “samurai/ninja” theme where zombies would appear from trapdoors and fake walls. This, too, would be unlike “Resident Evil” and would be recycled to birth the “Onimusha” series. Basically, RE4 helped bring forth new ideas while it tried to get its own bearings, and it only makes the title even more significant in both “Resident Evil” and Capcom’s history.

Did any of these “Resident Evil” facts surprise you? Let us know down in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to MojoPlays for more great videos everyday!