A timeline of RE15's history and the hunt for it (1996-2013)

[Kegluneq]

There isn't much difference between the "40%" build and the "Complete" build. Sure, overall it's literally more "complete", but that doesn't speak at all for its quality. The "Complete" version is the point where they decided that it wasn't going to end up very good. Mikami went with your line of thinking ("oh, time will fix it") and when he saw the near-finished result he didn't like it. Nor did anyone else.

I did not say a thing about its quality. In far, I was careful enough when I picked my words and said that such build would have not indicated if it were superior to retail BH2 (which I don't think it would, but then again BH2 had done nothing substantial aside from the way it presented its story and narrative - Dual Shock is a different story though - so it's up the player's preferences to decide that). There is no doubt that the final build would have a lot more content than the PSM build, though. Not a lot of changes (if at all) would exist in the game engine, but a lot of other issues I addressed would have been drastically changed by this iteration.

Basically, not a lot (or anything) was changed between 40% and Complete. They had the game plan set out at that point and were just focused on getting it done through grunt work. All substantial creative decisions were pretty much set in stone by then. It just didn't come together well.

You don't have a clue about what you're talking about. There are plenty of changes made from the PSM build to the final build. A lot of them actually. New locations had been added, new cutscenes had been created, voice-acting was already incorporated, enemy placement was added or changed, item placement was added or changed, weapons that were previously not working were now functional, puzzles were expected to be in place, some pre-rendered backgrounds were remodeled and bits of tiny other differences were also present. Consider that I'm basing all of this off public footage. I'm certain there's a lot more missing here which could be detailed had we at least some short of graphical walkthrough in video form.

"Unfounded expectations" is 1.5 in a nutshell, really.

Not at all. You cannot begin to comprehend what my expectations are, therefore you cannot call them unfounded. If you think I'm preaching that the final build would vastly outmatch the retail product, or that we're see some drastic change in the skeleton of BH2 Prototype, the point is going above your head.

Nonetheless, it's not up to you, or anything else, to decide what expectations people should have of the final build. Kamiya and Mikami have expressed their view on it. That doesn't necessarily mean those statements should form opinions without having played the actual thing.

[News Bot]

You missed the intention of my post completely. Please double back and re-read.

Things like backgrounds, voice acting and placement of enemies/items are fickle and are not huge changes that change the game very much. "Tiny other differences" mean very little in the grand scheme of things. 40% is very much the foundation of the game. If you expected the Complete build to be dramatically different aside from being, as I said, "more complete", your expectations are unfounded.

Backgrounds in particular were drawn and mapped out in the game plan. Then the modeler created them based on those preordained sketches. The tiny changes they make to them later are like a pebble in the sea. Likewise with the dialogue and event scenes, which go hand-in-hand with locations. These were all decided early on. 40% is close to the start of the "coming together" period where everything they had planned was actually being implemented, but the 40% build has almost all major elements already incorporated (but broken/incomplete). Again, it's a foundation. The Complete build is obviously more finished and polished. It's just that this polish didn't make it shine or seem much different from the older builds, and that's the main reason it was dumped.

(I'm very tired so I may not be explaining very well, apologies)

[Graco]

The build that has been leaked (albeit in a modified form) is far from the complete build (which I assume you're referring to the one present in bioflames.com screenshots and the complete disc video footage). Consider the following. From September to November, Capcom made a great leap in terms of game developing with BH1.5. A lot of backgrounds were added, enemy models and placement was somewhat stable enough to give them a good idea of what needed to be tweaked, most of the character models were made, even if in a rudimentary form, a lot of cutscenes have been created to get a general feel of the narrative and many features have been introduced. If they accomplished all of this from September to November, can you imagine what they managed to do in the following two months, when they were already comfortable with the development of it? Or rather, let me put it this way. Had you played the TGS build (the one with Leon in his civilian clothes) and then two months later had the chance to play the PSM build, would you not be astonished by the amount of content that had been made in such little time?

If the final build is ever leaked, I can guarantee you that this leak will pale in comparison. It does not mean that will be superior to retail by any means, but you will get a very functional beta that would most likely play in the way that was intended. This build that leaked? It's pretty much the draft coming to life without any kind of polish or refinement.

After having re-read what I initially posted I realized I could have used better wording to explain myself. To clarify, I believe some people (the ones who were upset with the MZD build) felt that it (the untouched 40% build) would be closer to the final build with only a few minor assets missing, and wrongly accused IGAS of removing a good portion of the original content. But yes, I share your sentiments in regards to the amount of progress made between the 40% and the final build which is why I was initially very upset over the loss of the other builds. However I found some form of reassurance for the project when they stated that they have more available to them than simply the 40% build. How much, or what exactly I do not know. But I'm trying to remain optimistic as I have little faith of any new leaks in the near (or distant) future.

[RMandel]

Minor update to Part 1 of the history. Nothing major or earthshaking, just some errata and corrections here and there.

Hey Zombie_X, could you make a slight adjustment to your book cover? I've decided to go with THE HUNT FOR / RESIDENT EVIL 1.5 as the title. All you'd have to do is change the title lettering accordingly. "THE HUNT FOR" would be in small letters on the first line, and "RESIDENT EVIL 1.5" in big bold caps underneath. Similar to what you've already done, only inverted and with the different wording. Thanks.

Oh, regarding illustrations ... if anyone's interested ... what I think I'll do is what some authors do, and have an inset of 4-6 pages of pictures at the end of each section. Just enough to illustrate some of the key points, people, events, places, etc. of each part. I'm sure everybody's got ideas for Part 1 and they're welcome, but what about the later sections? I may just leave this part of the book up to you guys, since I'll be kinda busy in the near future. Thanks again.

[Kegluneq]

Things like backgrounds, voice acting and placement of enemies/items are fickle and are not huge changes that change the game very much. "Tiny other differences" mean very little in the grand scheme of things. 40% is very much the foundation of the game. If you expected the Complete build to be dramatically different aside from being, as I said, "more complete", your expectations are unfounded.

Backgrounds in particular were drawn and mapped out in the game plan. Then the modeler created them based on those preordained sketches. The tiny changes they make to them later are like a pebble in the sea. Likewise with the dialogue and event scenes, which go hand-in-hand with locations. These were all decided early on. 40% is close to the start of the "coming together" period where everything they had planned was actually being implemented, but the 40% build has almost all major elements already incorporated (but broken/incomplete). Again, it's a foundation. The Complete build is obviously more finished and polished. It's just that this polish didn't make it shine or seem much different from the older builds, and that's the main reason it was dumped.

I don't understand what you're trying to say. As I said before, the 80% build is not an experimental build like the 40% build. By that, I'm of course referring to game progression, puzzles and events placed in an organized sequence, functional weapons, proper enemy code and programming, resources allocation, combat system balance and item placement. The 40% build is the glued result of the developing team's attempt at getting the game ready for display, but anyone that thinks it representative of what how BioHazard 2 Prototype would play in its entirety is delusional. I don't think that the 80% build would be representative of it either, but it would certainly resemble far more the intended product than its previous builds.

That does not mean that the developing team had not thought about it until the 40% build, but they did not incorporate it because that's secondary. Their objective was to get all of the assets created and in place. Only afterwards would they trouble themselves with the inclusion of game design notes that had been previously discussed, eventually polish and refine them if it was necessary and tweak whatever issues they came across, as they did numerous times during the development of it (as the different era builds can attest to). 2 months (November - December 1996) and 4 additional months (January - April 1997) were more than enough for them to significantly change the game past the core of it.

I'm not saying that this would completely change the way the game played though; but survival horror games depend far more on balance than anything else. A good example of that would be the Director's Cut Arranged Mode for Chris, in particular when compared to the Original Mode of Jill. Despite being virtually the same game, the insane leap of difficulty, the complete redo of item placement and game progression and little (but substantial) differences between the characters completely forced the player to approach the game in a different way and provided a whole new experience. The only limitation here is creativity of the people who design the game.

One of the best survival horror games I've experienced to this day would be described as a stiff and horribly slow-paced game by most people. A game that doesn't have fluid combat system or a lot of features. If anyone had played in a similar way as we did with BioHazard 2 Prototype, most people would write it off and deem its sequel 10 times better. Yet, despite all this, it was the meticulous balance and challenge in its game design that made Dino Crisis such a great game.

[Kegluneq]

My apologies for the double posting.

Mandel could you please state the changes done to your document each time you update it? Like a small section describing what was added or re-written.

[RMandel]

Sorry. There's really only one major change. I corrected the burn date of the 40% build to 6 November 1996. That's the date buried within the PSX.EXE game executable. I missed that before because I was only looking at the file date stamps in the regular directory. It's only been in the last month or so that I've started digging around in the game itself with a hex editor.

SLPS-00222
CAPCOM-Nov 6 1996-13:09:19-CAPCOM

Same as the MZD build - but that was expected.

I've forgotten so much in the past three decades .... urgh!

[warren]

the Director's Cut Arranged Mode for Chris was and still is great

i wish there was something similar for resident evil 2, i don't like nightmare mode. Maybe IGAS will create something similar for re 1.5 ?

thanks for the video of the pure build mandel. I still find strange that the curator never showed in his videos the unfinished cutscenes, which are the most interesting thing about this build.

[RMandel]

Major update, guys. Link on the first page. It's all one big file now, in preparation for adding the cover. May not have time to add the picture pages, but oh well ...

"What's the update?"

I had long talk with one Colvin last week ...

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just do a text search on his name and have fun.

There may be one more minor update tomorrow, but only to bring it up-to-date and add the cover. After that, I'm done.

Later, guys. Gotta head to work ....

[warren]

i wish that 2012 leak never happened, i want to play all those builds...

however at least we know that they exist and the owner/s wants to sell them, so sooner or later...

[Zombie_X]

It's kinda sad to know that we could have had the 80% build if the leak never happened. It's depressing. We could have possibly even had earlier builds yet..

[Rombie]

I had a quick look at Colvin's comments out of interest... he seemingly took all the statements about him throughout the history reasonably well. On a personal note, I'd never known he seemingly thought I'd taken something of his without his credit. I know that's not the case as everything I posted on New Blood and RE Fan was always credited (and this can be checked in the REFan News Archive which includes all the New Blood and pre-NB news I did right back until 1997). As for Yu_Ri I don't recall him sending it to me, but if he did that in 2003 or 04 that's well after I knew about it and that's also the fact it was a program quiet easily available online... I recall using it in early 2000 (one of the first things I did with it was pull the map files from Biohazard Gun Survivor in Feb 2000 as part of double checking my ones for the txt guide).

If he doesn't see this some feel free to pass on this info, and that if he somehow things I slighted him I never did or never intended it. That's a mystery solved to me... as I never knew why he took any issue with me till now... a decade later. LOL

[STARSRedfield]

Wow... reading all the time line give me a lot of pain in my eye (i was able to read until 2004), i born on 1995, and i met RE on 2000 and in 2006 i saw the 1.5 thread first day in my life by the Playstation Museum Video and since then i begin on collecting info about, images (COST ME A LOT OF COMPUTER REPAIRS), making maps in my scholar books, and i never talk about it in any forum because i was so childish, now i can tell anything, but reading this, i realized that what i know is so incomplete, i read interviews about the 1.5 cancellation, download videos to keep, even i dreamed playing with the 1.5 on my modded PS2, it was a drama... now that we have it, all the drama dissapeared and a new one appears... THE 80% BUILD (Very oddly to appear) and the IGAS Complete Build...

In the timeline (Thanks for writing it RMandel) i almost felt from my chair when i read "January 1997" part, i called that part "the beginning of the chaos", how the critics do a shot in front of all the efforts of the workers of 1.5 and Mikami it self...

It's so sad if i were a worker of the 1.5 Original Team, but finally becames the new RE2, well... remember 1997, the worst year in the history of BIOHAZARD...

[MeganGrass]

"What's the update?"

I had long talk with one Colvin last week ...

Wow. Spoiler:

show spoiler

Slander? This coming from the guy who went out of his way to bring our private messages through AIM to the public, with subject matter that was completely unrelated to video games or Bio/RE in general, and used that content to 'diss' me in his own colorful words?

That guy played a major role in the harassment I had to endure online! My oh my, karma is definitely a bitch of a whore!

If one tries to rewrite history, they had better be careful:

http://www.bioflames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3189

I had a quick look at Colvin's comments out of interest... he seemingly took all the statements about him throughout the history reasonably well. On a personal note, I'd never known he seemingly thought I'd taken something of his without his credit. I know that's not the case as everything I posted on New Blood and RE Fan was always credited (and this can be checked in the REFan News Archive which includes all the New Blood and pre-NB news I did right back until 1997). As for Yu_Ri I don't recall him sending it to me, but if he did that in 2003 or 04 that's well after I knew about it and that's also the fact it was a program quiet easily available online... I recall using it in early 2000 (one of the first things I did with it was pull the map files from Biohazard Gun Survivor in Feb 2000 as part of double checking my ones for the txt guide).

If he doesn't see this some feel free to pass on this info, and that if he somehow things I slighted him I never did or never intended it. That's a mystery solved to me... as I never knew why he took any issue with me till now... a decade later. LOL

Pfft. I received the same nonsense about that damn TIM viewer program (yu_ri), years after your case... acting as-if he coded it, or something (to my utmost knowledge, that definitely isn't the case), or that it was the only one available.

[Rombie]

Hah somehow given the history of him from what I saw and what the file says I guess am not surpised. At least you knew though. Or he told you. He went around grumbling about me on various places and to other people but I had no idea as to what his deal was because as far as I know he never said. Until now.

I do recall him contacting me about providing content now and then for a number of years but I declined everytime because of the drama that followed him everywhere. So I always just assumed it was because of that.