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The History of Resident Evil 2

The sequel that was thrown away at two thirds finished, rebuilt around a rookie cop and a zapping system, and became the series' best seller.

Resident Evil 2 reached the PlayStation in North America on January 21, 1998 and in Japan, as Biohazard 2, on January 29. Rookie officer Leon S. Kennedy and student Claire Redfield arrive in Raccoon City two months after the mansion, on the day the city itself falls. Each has their own campaign, and finishing one unlocks the other character's second scenario, retelling the same night from the other side of the locked doors.

THE MAKING

Resident Evil 1.5, and the restart

Produced by Shinji Mikami and directed by Hideki Kamiya with a team of about fifty, the sequel was first built as what fans now call Resident Evil 1.5: Leon paired with a motorcycle racer named Elza Walker, a smaller modern police station, characters whose paths never crossed. Mikami judged the whole inadequate, dull in gameplay and locations, and it was scrapped at 60 to 80 percent complete, weeks from its projected May 1997 date.

Supervisor Yoshiki Okamoto brought in screenwriter Noboru Sugimura, who reworked Elza into Claire to tie the story to the first game, and the team redesigned the game from the ground up. The signature idea, the Zapping System, was partly inspired by Back to the Future Part II: the same events replayed from a second perspective, changed by what the first character did. The police station's look was based on photographs of Western style building interiors in Japanese cities, and its creation on Osaka City Central Public Hall.

THE DESIGN

Two discs, four playthroughs

Leon and Claire differ by starting item, a lighter and a lockpick, and by story: Claire protects Sherry Birkin, Leon is entangled with Ada Wong, and a Tyrant called Mr. X hunts both. Clearing an A scenario unlocks a B scenario, for four unique playthroughs, ranked at the end, with the standalone 4th Survivor mission behind high ranks.

The music, by Masami Ueda, Shusaku Uchiyama, and Syun Nishigaki, was built to convey desperation: a three note leitmotif that recurs across the score, militaristic percussion for the streets, ominous piano inside the police station. In Japan, the game's live action television commercial was directed by George A. Romero himself, with Brad Renfro as Leon and Adrienne Frantz as Claire.

THE EDITIONS

The versions, documented

Japan · 1998

PlayStation, January 29, 1998, as Biohazard 2. The easier original: Capcom's later Dual Shock release even includes a U.S.A. Version mode so Japanese players could try the harder Western difficulty.

America · 1998

PlayStation, January 21, 1998, a week before Japan. More violent game over screens that Japan removed, and a higher difficulty tuned, like the first game's, against short rentals.

Dual Shock Ver. · 1998

Vibration and analog support, a Rookie mode with an infinite weapon, and the Extreme Battle minigame. The basis for most later ports.

Nintendo 64 · 1999

Two CD-ROMs compressed onto a 64 MB cartridge by Angel Studios in twelve months for $1 million, with exclusive Ex Files documents and a randomizer. Eurogamer called it one of the most ambitious console ports of all time.

Dreamcast and GameCube

The Dreamcast port shows the character's condition on the Visual Memory Unit; Japan's edition carried a Code: Veronica demo. The GameCube port is the Dual Shock version unmodified.

The Saturn port that died

A Saturn version was in development at Capcom, planned around the 4 MB RAM cartridge, and cancelled in October 1998 on technical difficulties. Its failure is where Code: Veronica begins.

THE RECEPTION

Scores, sales, and the dissent

Metacritic · 89 / 100

The PlayStation original. GameRankings aggregated it at 93 percent.

The praise

Acclaim for atmosphere, setting, graphics, audio, and the branching scenarios, and for improving on the original across the board.

Sales · The series' single platform best

More than six million copies across all versions, and the best selling Resident Evil game released for a single platform. The plan had been two million.

The dissent

Controls, voice acting, and some gameplay elements drew criticism even in 1998. The all Canadian voice cast was recorded before the cutscenes were finished.

A remake followed in 2019, but the 1998 original is the one that proved the series was not a single mansion's accident: it was a world, and Okamoto's metaseries idea, self contained stories in a shared universe, is the structure the franchise still uses.

THE LEGACY

What it left behind

Resident Evil 2 left the series its city, its second generation of heroes, and its production lesson: Capcom would rather scrap a nearly finished game than ship a dull one. The scrapped 1.5 build leaked in unfinished form in 2013 and is now studied like a lost film.