The History of Resident Evil Zero
Resident Evil Zero reached the GameCube in North America on November 12, 2002 and in Japan on November 21. Set the night before the mansion, it pairs S.T.A.R.S. medic Rebecca Chambers with escaped convict Billy Coen aboard a stalled Umbrella train, the Ecliptic Express, and in the abandoned training facility beyond it.
THE MAKING
The Nintendo 64 game that outgrew its cartridgeDevelopment began in 1998 for the Nintendo 64. The partner system, switching between two characters in real time, was designed around the cartridge's lack of load times; the cartridge's limit, 64 MB, a tenth of a CD-ROM, shaped everything else. By 2000 the data would no longer fit one cartridge, and production moved to the GameCube: the concept and story carried over, and everything else was rebuilt. Even the leeches' sounds were improvised in the new build, from recordings of cooking hamburgers.
THE DESIGN
Zapping people, dropping thingsZero's two systems are the series' old ideas pushed further. Partner zapping makes Rebecca and Billy a single distributed character: split them to solve puzzles in two places, exchange items hand to hand, cover each other. And the item boxes are gone: items are dropped on the floor where they lie, marked on the map, by design, the team said, to make the game more like Sweet Home and more difficult than its predecessors. Rebecca mixes chemicals but is fragile; Billy is strong, carries the lighter, and cannot mix herbs. The score is by Seiko Kobuchi.
THE RECEPTION
Praise, argument, and four millionIn the prototype's story, either Rebecca or Billy could die and the other finish alone. That was scrapped because Rebecca's death would break the timeline: she has a mansion to survive tomorrow.