Resident Evil hit the big 20. The survival horror game has become a household brand that has stood the test of time and continues to rise to the top year after year. Screaming onto the gaming scene March 22 1996, Resident Evil has sold over 66 million copies worldwide. It has become such a huge success that there are Hollywood feature films, merchandise, attractions and events that continue to draw Survival Horror fans from all corners of the globe. The Resident Evil team is hard at work and will be bringing some amazing new surprises to the fans this year.
Capcom is releasing a video series interviewing the developers and team members that brought the series to you, the fans. Hear from the team as they return to the mansion and look at how this survival horror phenomenon rose to the top over the years and how they found such great success by doing things untested and new in the genre.
Resident Evil started as Biohazard and was renamed for western marked but is ultimately a remake of an earlier Capcom game, 1989’s NES title Sweet Home. Sweet Home was based on a Japanese movie title of the same name that meshed horror and RPG that found five documentary-makers trapped in a mansion full of mazes and monsters.
The original 1992 game Alone in the Dark was a more direct technical influence that pioneered the use of 3D polygons and fixed angle cameras with digitized pre-rendered backdrops to show the most detail possible, and it just happened to be in a huge haunted mansion. This became the core of the franchise and the designers went with the decision to use the fixed camera angles to continue showing as much detail as possible throughout the game.
Every aspect of the Resident Evil game ties in to one another in an effort to create fear in the players. The use of sound effects adds to the fear building in the player as the fixed camera causes many blind spots that make it hard for the player to see what is about to happen.
The sound is the most underrated aspect of the game but without it the fear aspect would be completely invalidated. Even zombies groaning as they shuffle around to a dog’s paws attributes to that goal, to complete the fear factor building in the player as they navigate the mansion and solve the many puzzles spread throughout the game. When you hear things that you cannot see, you know something is about to happen and it is usually bad. The anticipation that builds is what builds the fear and an uncomfortable feeling in the player.
Since the release of the first game, Capcom has found great success. They have planned a lot of things to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Resident Evil brand.
Twentieth Anniversary Titles
Twentieth Anniversary Projects
If you haven’t checked out the games, you should do so. In my opinion (and this is just my opinion), they have found a great niche with these games and continue to do so. I personally love the series and will continue to play the games as they are released. I even go back to the earlier games and replay them often.
