Resident Evil

About this game

On March 22, 1996, Capcom released Biohazard for the PlayStation in Japan. Outside Japan it was called Resident Evil. You play as Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, members of a special police unit, shut inside a mansion outside Raccoon City. There are zombies in the mansion, and bullets and healing items are hard to come by.

Shinji Mikami directed it. In an interview that Archipel published on YouTube in October 2020, he talked about how it began. He says:

"It started with Fujiwara, my superior at the time, calling me in his office. There was a game on NES named Sweet Home, it was an adaptation from a horror film by Juzo Itami. It was very well done. That game wasn't a success though. Still, it was a good game so I was asked to make a horror game using its mechanics."

Fujiwara is Tokuro Fujiwara, who had directed Sweet Home at Capcom in 1989. Mikami also talked about what the monsters were going to be. He says:

"At the very beginning, for the first month, it was based on ghosts. What is the scariest? I figured it was ghosts, spirits. [...] It was scary enough, but when I wondered whether it was a good game, suddenly I wasn't that confident. It could have been a game that pleased core horror fans, but it wouldn't sell a lot of copies. I reviewed my plan from scratch, looking for something more accessible. I remembered watching Dawn of the Dead back in junior high. The characters would struggle to survive, you would look and yell at them when they took the wrong decisions. 'Why would you do that?' But in a game, you can choose whether to fight or to run away."

The Story Behind

In this game the camera does not follow the player. Each scene is shown from a fixed angle, and the view cuts to another angle as you move on. In the same interview, Mikami says:

"My first plan was to make Resident Evil 1 a first-person game. I figured that view was the scary one. I wanted to pursue that plan, but Capcom was unexperienced with 3D, we weren't able to put on screen the graphics that I had in mind. The project was at risk if we pursued that direction. This is when I saw Alone in the Dark. I thought that we could pre-render the backgrounds to make it work. [...] In the end, many players told me that they thought that view is what made the game scarier. I was really embarrassed. I am still told to this day. 'That was so good.' To which I say that it was just a workaround."

Tricks & Tales

The game features a live-action FMV introduction sequence — actual actors performing a scene in the Spencer Mansion — that was a distinctive production choice at a time when most games used in-engine cutscenes. Jill Valentine's larger inventory (8 slots versus Chris's 6) and access to a lock pick make her the easier character for first-time players; Chris's lower inventory is compensated by higher health. The "Itchy. Tasty." diary found in the kennel has become one of gaming's most recognisable pieces of environmental storytelling. The Hunter enemies that appear after a certain plot event cannot be heard until they are very close — a deliberate sound design choice to maximise the moment of ambush.