With Mega Man 11 as the publication’s latest cover story, Game Informer has had the opportunity to sit down and interview a variety of Capcom employees. While most of these conversations promise to focus on Mega Man as a franchise, a little tidbit gives us a glimpse at the history behind one of Capcom’s biggest franchises – Resident Evil.
According to director Koji Oda, who got his start at Capcom working on Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts and The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse, the seminal survival horror game began development as a SNES game. Here’s his full quote:
“Honestly, I feel like I joined the game industry at the best time. 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.”
He goes on to reveal this early Resident Evil had the simplistic codename of “horror game” and wasn’t set in reality like the final product, instead the story would unfold in a more “hellish place.” It’s worth noting that Capcom had previously made a horror game for the NES, “Sweet Home”, which has been pegged as many as an influence on their later work.
By the time the Sony PlayStation launched in late 1994, however, Capcom moved the project over to the much more capable hardware. Thankfully the franchise hasn’t been a stranger to Nintendo systems since, with Resident Evil Revelations 1 & 2 launching for the Nintendo Switch just last week.
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Written by Tom Brown
Whether it’s an exciting new entry in a series long established or a weird experiment meant only for the dedicated, Tom is eager to report on it. Rest assured, if Nintendo ever announces Elite Beat Agents 2, he’ll be there.
