Officially announced in 2001, Resident Evil 4 underwent a long development period in which four proposed versions of the game were discarded by the developers before the finished product was released in 2005.
Development versions
Four formats existed before the final version that became Resident Evil 4. The last three are named the "Castle"; "Hallucination" and "Zombie" versions.[1]
Stylish (Build 1)
An early attempt at developing Resident Evil 4 was made from 1998 to 2000 for the upcoming PlayStation 2, with Resident Evil 2 director Hideki Kamiya leading the project. The first year was primarily spent on research of what the project would be, and included a trip to Spain for the development staff to study Spanish architecture. The first character designs were made. The direction that the project took was considered too radical a departure from the traditional Resident Evil style and the resulting game was revamped and released as Devil May Cry, which began its own franchise, in 2001.
Castle (Build 2)
- Main article: Castle (Resident Evil 4 build)
The "Castle" version was announced at TGS 2001's Spring expo.
Hallucination (Build 3)
- Main article: Hallucination
As "Castle" continued to develop, the "Hallucination" version was spawned. This version was shown at E3 2003, featuring dolls coming to life in Leon's hallucinations as enemies to fight. Due to exceeding cost of development and limitations of the GameCube, Capcom scrapped the game instead of finding a work-around.
Zombie (Build 4)
The final proposal before the finished product reportedly featured zombies as enemies once again. Not much is known about this version as it was never shown publicly, though was given an expected Q4 2004 release date.[2] It was considered too formulaic by the developers and was discarded.[3] After this, Shinji Mikami took over directorial duties from Shibata and began working on the version that was released.
Videos
Sources
- ↑ Rely on Horror interview: Hiroyuki Kobayashi
- ↑ Gamespot: Resident Evil 4 in Winter '04
- ↑ Kevin Gifford, Mark MacDonald (2005-04). "Afterthoughts: Resident Evil 4". Electronic Gaming Monthly (Ziff Davis Media Inc.) (190): 51–52.