Media Gamer: 2007 Resident Evil Trailer and Early Concept Art

By BlueZero
05 Nov 2010 23:58

I've recently purchased the DLC for Resident Evil 5 and I have finally gotten what I wanted. Josh Stone knows how to do a suplex as well as a power kick. The two extra story modes are exciting and are challenging. Not a bad deal for the bundled price of $6 which is no longer available. Anyway, I was looking at Joystiq post about God of War III cut content, and I read Omega2822's post about how Resident Evil 5 had some amazing concept art and ideas which were scrapped. Here'e the original 2007 RE5 trailer which captured my imagination:

The trailer shows a much faster paced game with elements of Resident Evil 4 brought over. At 1:24, Chris Redfield should have said, "Where is everybody? Bingo?" because of the parallel camera zoom-out. There are so many enemies on screen which never happens in the real game. I mean, just look at the huge crowd at 2 minutes. That would have been impressive to fight. Chris is also shown being smacked down on the ground and headbutted. There really was no reason to take this out. My guess is that by adding co-op, Capcom had to reduce the enemy count to achieve a better framerate or it was technically impossible with splitscreen to render these scenes.

The video was what setoff the misconception the game was racist. Without proper context, it appears to be a white man getting attacked by Africans. The perceived racist probably was why Capcom added Sheva as an African sidekick. Here is a look at the concept art of what was planned before co-op was added from Resident Evil Center.net.

Huge Uroboros battle on train

Chris and Sheva. Sheva meets Excella, the CEO's assistant

Large environments. El Gigante siege and mine level looking city

Weskar killing the Tricell CEO and having Tyrant kill Excella

Weskar's Downfall (Version 1.0)

The panels are self explanatory but here is my extra interpretation. Chris battles Weskar in the jet hanger and is almost about to lose. Sheva appears and shoots Weskar in the eye. Later on at some point Weskar has kidnapped Jill and blood is still coming out of his eye. We are missing the battle scene and somehow Chris is on the side of the jet while Weskar is warming himself in the lava. The jet pilot unleashed a volley of missiles at Weskar and his only working eye knows he is going to die.

For Resident Evil 6, Capcom needs to redefine the genre again to avoid rehashing the same formula. Bring back scary while upping the action. Co-op is fine as long as its not forced.