In a franchise as dense and prolific as Resident Evil, there’s certain to be a buffet congealing on the chopping room flooring. The sequence’ deserted video games have turn out to be the stuff of legend; a discarded drafts folder that features ports that pushed traditional {hardware} previous its limits and phantom prototypes for consoles that by no means made it to the West.
Whereas the title Resident Evil is commonly thought of synonymous with PlayStation, due to the sequence getting its begin on Sony {hardware}, Capcom’s survival horror has had a comfy relationship with Nintendo throughout the years. Whereas that collaboration is beloved for birthing the as soon as GameCube-exclusive Resident Evil 4, there have been a couple of less-successful ventures on Nintendo consoles.
Resident Evil has by no means been a stranger to handheld {hardware}, although its early monitor report got here with casualties. The sequence’ transportable debut on Tiger’s doomed, ignominious Sport.com machine in 1998 bode in poor health for Resi’s viability in a single’s pocket, however Capcom wasn’t about to surrender on the concept of carrying survival horror round in your shorts.
The {hardware} wasn’t making it simple, although. Handheld gaming was in its AA battery and magnifying lens period, a time of chunky underpowered gadgets with atrocious screens and insufficient backlights. None have been apparent candidates to host one of many PlayStation’s most atmospheric video games.
In 1999, Capcom employed a small London-based studio referred to as HotGen to shrink Resident Evil all the way down to the Sport Boy Coloration’s 2.3-inch display screen. Such a feat might, theoretically, be achieved two methods:
- Create a bespoke port that performs to the GBC’s strengths, maybe a top-down expertise akin to its 8-bit ancestor, Sweet Home.
- Try to cram a 514 MB CD-ROM into an 8 MB Sport Pak.
HotGen selected the latter, and they very practically pulled it off. The staff recreated hundreds of Capcom’s pre-rendered backgrounds for the GBC’s 160×144 pixel, 56-color show. Characters scaled dynamically with depth and distance on a CPU that was designed in 1974. The outcomes have been ugly by any cheap commonplace and astonishing by each different– it actually was your complete PSX sport squeezed inside a translucent plastic slab the dimensions of a matchbook.
The challenge reached near-completion earlier than Capcom pulled the plug, citing issues in regards to the ultimate product’s enchantment. One developer has hinted that considered one of Resident Evil’s “authentic creators” didn’t suppose the port was worthy of their achievement. Regardless of the cause, whoever made the decision, they didn’t preserve the sport buried perpetually.
An incomplete construct leaked in 2011, purposeful however tough. In December of 2025, preservation site Games That Weren’t surfaced a 98% content-complete construct supplied by assistant programmer Pete Frith. It’s lacking a few months of polish, however it’s totally attainable to clear Jill Valentine’s full marketing campaign, from the Spencer Mansion’s welcome mat to scraping Tyrant guts off her boots.
Capcom quietly changed the cancelled port with Resident Evil Gaiden in 2001, an authentic GBC title developed by M4, set on a cruise ship and constructed from the bottom up for the growing old transportable {hardware}. Gaiden appears like a stopgap and is basically forgotten, overshadowed because it was by the launch of the Sport Boy Advance.
The GBA by no means obtained a Resi sport, although some Italian builders pitched a port of Resident Evil 2 for the platform. Capcom handed on their demo and determined to deal with Resident Evil’s handheld future by itself. It was the proper name.
Resident Evil: Lethal Silence delivered the unique expertise in a handy clamshell case, utilizing each loveable gimmick of Nintendo’s DS in a new Rebirth mode alongside the untouched 1996 traditional. Later, Resident Evil: Revelations on 3DS would fulfill the franchise’s promise of full-blooded survival horror experiences on the go. The fashionable RE Engine takes it even additional, with at this time’s flagship Resi titles working superbly on highly effective PC {hardware} just like the Steam Deck. You may even get the fashionable trilogy of video games – Biohazard, Village, and this 12 months’s Requiem – on Change 2. We’re a great distance from squinting at a worm-light within the again seat of grandpa’s automotive.
Resident Evil, it seems, can run on virtually something. Even the Nintendo 64. Capcom contractor Angel Studios miraculously compressed 1.2 GB of Resident Evil 2 onto a 64 MB cartridge, together with its CG cutscenes – unparalleled on the N64 – with additional options and high-res graphics courtesy of the almighty Enlargement Pak.
Capcom’s inner crew had a more durable time realizing their imaginative and prescient on the platform, although. Because the millennium drew close to, the event staff started work on a prequel for the Nintendo 64 referred to as Resident Evil 0. Envisioned as an unique for Nintendo’s ill-fated disc drive add-on, the “64DD”, it was initially meant to make use of the peripheral’s learn/write capabilities to increase RE2’s “zapping system” and do every kind of neat stuff with twin protagonists. The sport could be harder, with no bottomless merchandise containers, as an alternative paying homage to the pioneering “drop your stuff on the bottom and hope another person finds it” sport mechanic of sequence progenitor Candy Dwelling. Native co-op allowed protagonists Rebecca Chambers and Billy Coen to outlive from the identical sofa, all with out a loading display screen in sight.
Regardless of one of the best efforts of Doshin the Large, the 64DD sank rapidly. Growth at Capcom Studio 3 switched to the bottom N64 system, and all the dimensions limitations that got here with it. Whereas the staff at Studio 4 had two complete GD-Roms for his or her simultaneously-developed Dreamcast challenge, Code: Veronica, the RE0 crew needed to make do with simply a few dozen megabytes of ROM at their disposal. They designed the sport accordingly, avoiding house hogs like cutscenes in favor of a leaner, more durable expertise with sooner zombies and on-the-fly, on the spot character switching.
The sport was actual. Footage was proven off at E3 and screenshots have been extensively obtainable to the press. Residing, respiratory human beings performed a demo at Tokyo Sport Present 2000 and a Japanese selection present even did a segment showcasing the early build on a huge cumbersome prototype cartridge. Resident Evil 0 was round 10% full and rising more and more unfeasible on the N64 platform when the challenge was saved by the intervention of a marine mammal.
Capcom’s relationship with Nintendo’s Mission: Dolphin, later often called the GameCube, is the stuff of legend, a partnership that produced so many bangers that a handful of them have a cool title and their very own Wikipedia page. The previous and way forward for Resident Evil was about to be written on that purple, behandled field, and it was the proper residence for RE0.
After switching {hardware} twice, Studio 3 was in a position to land the aircraft in 2002 with the Resident Evil 0 now we have at this time, a flawed gem with cool concepts. The situation and characters survived the transition and have been expanded for the GameCube’s beneficiant optical discs that gave the staff some respiratory room and introduced again loading screens. The working zombies idea was quietly snatched up for the 2002 REmake, however it’s largely the pure development of what we noticed in that N64 footage. It’s not not like the journey of Mom 3, one other title orphaned by the 64DD and ultimately realized on a platform better-suited for its strengths.
Not like the Sport Boy Coloration model of Resident Evil, or the legendary Resident Evil 1.5, there isn’t any code of the N64 RE0 within the wild – not that it’s stopped followers from wanting, and even coming tantalizingly shut. In 2018, a curious collector peeled back the label on their N64 developer cartridge containing a prototype of Mega Man 64 to disclose a “BIOHAZARD 0” label beneath. At one level the EEPROM inside held a construct of RE0, written over way back for the adventures of Rock Volnutt. RE0’s N64 prototype could be gone, however a minimum of we all know it existed.