SameTeem
Search titles only
By:
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Home
Forums
Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
What's new
Featured content
Media
Resources
Free TeamSpeak Channel
TeamSpeak
TeamSpeak
Vote
Rank System
Make a Channel
Free Channel Information
Servers
Sourcebans
New posts
SameTeem
Home
Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
Featured content
Media
Resources
Free TeamSpeak Channel
TeamSpeak
Vote
Rank System
Make a Channel
Free Channel Information
Servers
Sourcebans
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Navigation
Install the app
Install
More options
Contact us
Close Menu
Download TeamSpeak Today
Proudly sponsored by TeamSpeak
Forums
News and Announcements
Gaming News
The Resident Evil Game That Died so That RE2 Could Live
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Admin" data-source="post: 70585" data-attributes="member: 1"><p><img src="https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2026/03/18/re-1-5-cancelled-1773844897615.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></p><p>Between unusually candid developers and an obsessive fan community that has spent years unearthing franchise history, we know that the classic Resident Evil games we love and cherish are the final survivors of a wild, iterative development process. The road to the 1996 original BIOHAZARD is practically unrecognizable, thanks to first person perspectives and <a href="https://residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/Gelzer" target="_blank"><u>cyborg supersoldiers</u></a>. The creative partnership between director Shinji Mikami and his collaborator Hideki Kamiya would both shape and derail some of the most fascinating games Capcom never released. Games like Resident Evil 1.5.</p><p></p><p>It wasn’t actually called that, of course. Back in 1996 it would have been considered Resident Evil 2 within the offices of Capcom. The studio had quickly greenlit a sequel following the surprise success of the first game, and tapped Kamiya to take the lead. For this second chapter, he envisioned Raccoon City itself under siege from the zombie swarms, with rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy trapped inside the police headquarters with a motorcycle-riding college student as his co-protagonist.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Sounds familiar, right? But that’s about where the similarities between it and the Resident Evil 2 we’ve played end. The police station Kamiya built was a shiny, fluorescent-lit modern station house rather than the sprawling converted museum of the iconic RPD. Zombies would have fewer polygons, but come in greater onscreen numbers, while characters wore armor and accumulated visible damage. Chief Irons was an avuncular authority figure, while Claire Redfield was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the star of the second disc was slated to be Elza Walker, a blond biker with no ties to first-game hero Chris.</p><p></p><p>The game was extremely far along in development when Mikami, who had taken on the role of producer and had been watching from a distance, finally tasted what Kamiya was cooking and sent it back to the kitchen. By all accounts the game was boring, samey, and bland, with ugly zombies and uninspired architecture. Kamiya himself later admitted that <a href="https://x.com/HidekiKamiya_X/status/388528860146319360" target="_blank"><u>he wasn’t up to the challenge</u></a>, so he called in a ringer: veteran tokusatsu writer Noboru Sugimura, best known for penning Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, the Super Sentai series that would later become Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. Sugimura was a huge fan of the first game, and agreed to come aboard and craft the Resident Evil 2 we know today.</p><p></p><p>By all accounts the game was boring, samey, and bland, with ugly zombies and uninspired architecture.</p><p></p><p>But how do we know so much about a game we were never supposed to see? Well, we actually saw quite a lot of it. Unlike most lost games, the unravelling of what we now call “Resident Evil 1.5” was extraordinarily public. <a href="https://residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/BIOHAZARD_1.5/gallery#Magazine_Scans" target="_blank">Magazine coverage</a>, trade show appearances, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cclTPAxzMjo" target="_blank">promotional videos</a> kept coming even after the game had already been axed internally. We were still seeing footage of the game as late as December of 1997, with the completely different, final version of Resident Evil 2 just one month out from release. Remnants survived in unexpected places: cut content on a Director’s Cut bonus disc, leftover assets buried in an early RE2 demo, all of which became essential when fans eventually went looking.</p><p></p><p>A scene coalesced around the mysterious missing Resi game, flooding forums with rumors, hoaxes, and an <a href="https://www.gamesradar.com/how-the-never-released-resident-evil-15-survived-22-years-to-appear-in-resident-evil-2-remake/" target="_blank"><u>all-encompassing search for builds</u></a> that preservationists were convinced existed somewhere in the wild. In 2011, hunters traced a prototype version to a deceased Capcom employee’s estate sale and <a href="https://www.eurogamer.net/raiders-of-resident-evil-1-5" target="_blank"><u>pooled $8,000 to acquire it</u></a>, but instead of releasing it to the public, they kept it to themselves</p><p></p><p></p><p>The group, known as Team IGAS (“I’ve Got a Shotgun”), promised to shape the roughly 40% complete data into something playable before sharing it with the world, which did not go over well with the die-hards who had spent decades lusting after it. Some fans wanted Kamiya’s original “Pure Vanilla Build” preserved perfectly for posterity. Others were content to wait for a reconstruction. Many were still chasing something else entirely: the mythical “80% build,” the nearly-finished version that caused Mikami to pull the plug. This extremely nerdy standoff ended when a leaker took the decision out of IGAS’ hands entirely and <a href="https://www.the-horror.com/forums/forum/general/umbrella-labs/9820-some-cool-1-5-exclusive-screenshots/page575?9548-Some-cool-1-5-exclusive-screenshots-(Respect-the-mods-avoid-stupidity)=&viewfull=1#post347937" target="_blank"><u>released the build publicly in 2013.</u></a></p><p></p><p>Today, Resident Evil 1.5 is the rarest kind of lost media: one you can actually experience. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBjUc15aJsM" target="_blank">The build is fully playable</a>, though not beatable, and the community reconstruction efforts are ongoing. Nearly three decades after its demise, the resurrected corpse of Resident Evil 1.5 still isn’t finished with us.</p><p></p><h2>The Lost Games of Resident Evil</h2><p></p><p>In celebration of Resident Evil’s 30th anniversary, we’re looking back on the survival horror games that never escaped Capcom’s walls. The stories of a culled sequel, a struggling Game Boy port, the prequel designed for a failed Nintendo 64 peripheral, and the many, many versions of Resident Evil 4 are all explored across a trilogy of articles (or, if you prefer, <a href="https://www.ign.com/videos/the-canceled-resident-evil-games-you-never-got-to-play" target="_blank">one packed video</a>).</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/the-resident-evil-game-that-died-so-that-re2-could-live" target="_blank">The Resident Evil Game That Died So RE2 Could Live</a></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/resident-evils-big-nintendo-swing-and-a-miss" target="_blank">Resident Evil’s Big Nintendo Swing and a Miss</a></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/the-quadruple-death-and-rebirth-of-resident-evil-4" target="_blank">The Quadruple Death and Rebirth of Resident Evil 4</a></li> </ul><p></p><p><a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/the-resident-evil-game-that-died-so-that-re2-could-live" target="_blank">Continue reading...</a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Admin, post: 70585, member: 1"] [IMG]https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2026/03/18/re-1-5-cancelled-1773844897615.jpg[/IMG] Between unusually candid developers and an obsessive fan community that has spent years unearthing franchise history, we know that the classic Resident Evil games we love and cherish are the final survivors of a wild, iterative development process. The road to the 1996 original BIOHAZARD is practically unrecognizable, thanks to first person perspectives and [URL='https://residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/Gelzer'][U]cyborg supersoldiers[/U][/URL]. The creative partnership between director Shinji Mikami and his collaborator Hideki Kamiya would both shape and derail some of the most fascinating games Capcom never released. Games like Resident Evil 1.5. It wasn’t actually called that, of course. Back in 1996 it would have been considered Resident Evil 2 within the offices of Capcom. The studio had quickly greenlit a sequel following the surprise success of the first game, and tapped Kamiya to take the lead. For this second chapter, he envisioned Raccoon City itself under siege from the zombie swarms, with rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy trapped inside the police headquarters with a motorcycle-riding college student as his co-protagonist. Sounds familiar, right? But that’s about where the similarities between it and the Resident Evil 2 we’ve played end. The police station Kamiya built was a shiny, fluorescent-lit modern station house rather than the sprawling converted museum of the iconic RPD. Zombies would have fewer polygons, but come in greater onscreen numbers, while characters wore armor and accumulated visible damage. Chief Irons was an avuncular authority figure, while Claire Redfield was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the star of the second disc was slated to be Elza Walker, a blond biker with no ties to first-game hero Chris. The game was extremely far along in development when Mikami, who had taken on the role of producer and had been watching from a distance, finally tasted what Kamiya was cooking and sent it back to the kitchen. By all accounts the game was boring, samey, and bland, with ugly zombies and uninspired architecture. Kamiya himself later admitted that [URL='https://x.com/HidekiKamiya_X/status/388528860146319360'][U]he wasn’t up to the challenge[/U][/URL], so he called in a ringer: veteran tokusatsu writer Noboru Sugimura, best known for penning Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, the Super Sentai series that would later become Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. Sugimura was a huge fan of the first game, and agreed to come aboard and craft the Resident Evil 2 we know today. By all accounts the game was boring, samey, and bland, with ugly zombies and uninspired architecture. But how do we know so much about a game we were never supposed to see? Well, we actually saw quite a lot of it. Unlike most lost games, the unravelling of what we now call “Resident Evil 1.5” was extraordinarily public. [URL='https://residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/BIOHAZARD_1.5/gallery#Magazine_Scans']Magazine coverage[/URL], trade show appearances, and [URL='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cclTPAxzMjo']promotional videos[/URL] kept coming even after the game had already been axed internally. We were still seeing footage of the game as late as December of 1997, with the completely different, final version of Resident Evil 2 just one month out from release. Remnants survived in unexpected places: cut content on a Director’s Cut bonus disc, leftover assets buried in an early RE2 demo, all of which became essential when fans eventually went looking. A scene coalesced around the mysterious missing Resi game, flooding forums with rumors, hoaxes, and an [URL='https://www.gamesradar.com/how-the-never-released-resident-evil-15-survived-22-years-to-appear-in-resident-evil-2-remake/'][U]all-encompassing search for builds[/U][/URL] that preservationists were convinced existed somewhere in the wild. In 2011, hunters traced a prototype version to a deceased Capcom employee’s estate sale and [URL='https://www.eurogamer.net/raiders-of-resident-evil-1-5'][U]pooled $8,000 to acquire it[/U][/URL], but instead of releasing it to the public, they kept it to themselves The group, known as Team IGAS (“I’ve Got a Shotgun”), promised to shape the roughly 40% complete data into something playable before sharing it with the world, which did not go over well with the die-hards who had spent decades lusting after it. Some fans wanted Kamiya’s original “Pure Vanilla Build” preserved perfectly for posterity. Others were content to wait for a reconstruction. Many were still chasing something else entirely: the mythical “80% build,” the nearly-finished version that caused Mikami to pull the plug. This extremely nerdy standoff ended when a leaker took the decision out of IGAS’ hands entirely and [URL='https://www.the-horror.com/forums/forum/general/umbrella-labs/9820-some-cool-1-5-exclusive-screenshots/page575?9548-Some-cool-1-5-exclusive-screenshots-(Respect-the-mods-avoid-stupidity)=&viewfull=1#post347937'][U]released the build publicly in 2013.[/U][/URL] Today, Resident Evil 1.5 is the rarest kind of lost media: one you can actually experience. [URL='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBjUc15aJsM']The build is fully playable[/URL], though not beatable, and the community reconstruction efforts are ongoing. Nearly three decades after its demise, the resurrected corpse of Resident Evil 1.5 still isn’t finished with us. [HEADING=1]The Lost Games of Resident Evil[/HEADING] In celebration of Resident Evil’s 30th anniversary, we’re looking back on the survival horror games that never escaped Capcom’s walls. The stories of a culled sequel, a struggling Game Boy port, the prequel designed for a failed Nintendo 64 peripheral, and the many, many versions of Resident Evil 4 are all explored across a trilogy of articles (or, if you prefer, [URL='https://www.ign.com/videos/the-canceled-resident-evil-games-you-never-got-to-play']one packed video[/URL]). [LIST] [*][URL='https://www.ign.com/articles/the-resident-evil-game-that-died-so-that-re2-could-live']The Resident Evil Game That Died So RE2 Could Live[/URL] [*][URL='https://www.ign.com/articles/resident-evils-big-nintendo-swing-and-a-miss']Resident Evil’s Big Nintendo Swing and a Miss[/URL] [*][URL='https://www.ign.com/articles/the-quadruple-death-and-rebirth-of-resident-evil-4']The Quadruple Death and Rebirth of Resident Evil 4[/URL] [/LIST] [url="https://www.ign.com/articles/the-resident-evil-game-that-died-so-that-re2-could-live"]Continue reading...[/url] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
News and Announcements
Gaming News
The Resident Evil Game That Died so That RE2 Could Live
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
Accept
Learn more…
Top
