The History of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis reached the PlayStation in Japan on September 22, 1999, in North America on November 11, and in Europe on February 21, 2000. In Japan it is Biohazard 3: Last Escape, and that subtitle is the plot: Jill Valentine, alone of the first game's cast left in Raccoon City, trying to get out in the 24 hours around Resident Evil 2, while something Umbrella built hunts her by name.
THE MAKING
The side story that took the numberAfter Resident Evil 2, Hideki Kamiya's next main game, set on a cruise ship, was cancelled when Sony announced the PlayStation 2: it could not finish before the new machine launched. Capcom did not want PlayStation fans waiting years, so it promoted a side project, an escape story by a younger team under director Kazuhiro Aoyama, to the third numbered game, and Kamiya's team moved on to Resident Evil 4. The project had been referred to in development as Biohazard 1.9.
The promotion changed the game: a new protagonist became Jill, and Raccoon City, originally to survive, was now to be destroyed. The script was written not by Flagship but by internal writer Yasuhisa Kawamura, who played the original to learn its universe, with Flagship proofreading for continuity. Producer Shinji Mikami kept the numbered chronology on PlayStation by policy, which is also why the Dreamcast sequel became Code: Veronica instead of Resident Evil 4.
THE DESIGN
The Nemesis ideaThe Nemesis was inspired by the liquid metal T-1000 of Terminator 2: a pursuer who cannot be reasoned with and does not stay down. Mikami stated the intent plainly: a persistent feeling of paranoia, a player who, after the first confrontation, lives in constant dread of the next attack, stalked. Nemesis runs, opens doors, carries a rocket launcher, and can be fought or fled at each encounter, with live selection prompts forcing split second choices that bend the story and the ending.
Around him the game is the fastest of the PlayStation trilogy: streets instead of interiors, up to nine enemies at once, explosive barrels, gunpowder the player mixes into ammunition, and two new moves, a dodge and the 180 degree turn the series kept forever after. The score is by Masami Ueda and Saori Maeda. Clearing the game unlocks The Mercenaries, a timed run across the city that later games turned into a series institution.
THE EDITIONS
The versions, documentedTHE RECEPTION
Scores, sales, and the dissentCapcom spent a shared $20 million advertising Resident Evil 3, Dino Crisis, and the Nintendo 64 Resident Evil 2. The game it bought that attention for was meant to be a stopgap. It is remembered as a classic.
THE LEGACY
What it left behindNemesis became one of the series' defining monsters and its pursuit structure a horror design standard: the enemy who will not stay in his arena. The Mercenaries mode outlived the trilogy. And the city whose destruction this game staged is the event every later Resident Evil is dated against. A remake followed in 2020, rearranged and shortened, which made the original's density easier to appreciate.