Resident Evil 1.5 it's OVER

[WeskerIncarnate]

We knew Capcom would never release the game. Which I always find a little crazy. It would take a minimal cost to finish and offer up for download on the PSN/Microsoft Store, but enough of the big wigs at Capcom don't like it that it'll never see a release...at least, not by them.

However, there are goodness only knows how many copies floating around in the real world. In theory those copies are protected against sale by agreements with Capcom, but we know they've been sold occasionally, or possibly copies of them have been. It's a question of when, not if, someone in the community such as Dot or Alzaire manages to get hold of it and slip it onto a torrent.

We may wait a while but it will happen. And when it does? You'll hear my fangirlish shrieks of joy wherever you are in the world.

I believe the main problem in finishing it and releasing it as a full game is that CAPCOM may not even have the original data to being with.

For we all know, it was deleted, and only exists in the form of a demo on a special BH2 disk.

[Darkmoon]

It's unlikely. Like I said, we know some prototype builds went out to magazines. Capcom could get it back, assuming they had deleted all the data. They know where at least some of those discs are. Plus they reused sources of it for various other games now and then...and honestly, I just find the idea they'd sling it out odd.

Do you not understand English very well or are you just plain stupid?

I believe he's French.

[Helegad]

Because you can't speak English for shit and you have no idea what anyone else is saying.

[fujin78]

i can speak english a little

[RetroRain]

This is old news, and if my memory serves me correctly, what Clayonite said was actually in a Private Message between me and him on the old Capcom Europe forums. By the way, my name on Bioflames is Rockman, and my name on the old Capcom Europe forums was Rockman_FlameStag I believe. I also have another PM from Clayonite that I posted on Bioflames. But this was a long time ago. You can view it here:

http://www.bioflames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2884

[Stars1356]

I never expected an official release of this game to the public but would take a making DVD of 1.5 and how things were supposed to be and what was we got in 2. The 1.5 footage always interested me but think that we got the best version of the game. It would be nice if the mysteries of the game were explained so some of us can move on.

[RetroRain]

I disagree. The final version we got was definitely better in terms of quality, but all it was, was an improvement over the original game. It didn't really offer anything new. BH 1.5 was the original sequel to the first game, and it had a lot of innovative and fun stuff. It also had more atmosphere and character interaction, and had the horror vibe that the first game did. Leon in RE2 was more cool and composed, and seemed a bit angry at times. The Leon in 1.5 was more scared. They should have released 1.5, but they couldn't milk the series if they did.

[alf717]

I don't understand why some say the series couldn't be milk if RE 1.5 was released. Is it possible that 1.5 would have ended the events with Umbrella? Was this mentioned in some interview with Mikami? If 1.5 would have ended the milking of RE than I think this would have been a good thing. It would have been great if the events of RE were done in a trilogy and ended with the PS1 while what we know as RE today could have been a series reboot. Imagine if Capcom would have gone through with a remake of all RE/Bio games on the GameCube. I still wish this would have happened to this day but it just isn't what Capcom is willing to do no matter how much we ask for it. I still remember playing REmake on GC and getting all excited about how great RE 2 and 3 would have look like running on the GameCube's hardware.

[belmont1997]

I don't understand why some say the series couldn't be milk if RE 1.5 was released. Is it possible that 1.5 would have ended the events with Umbrella? Was this mentioned in some interview with Mikami? If 1.5 would have ended the milking of RE than I think this would have been a good thing. It would have been great if the events of RE were done in a trilogy and ended with the PS1 while what we know as RE today could have been a series reboot. Imagine if Capcom would have gone through with a remake of all RE/Bio games on the GameCube. I still wish this would have happened to this day but it just isn't what Capcom is willing to do no matter how much we ask for it. I still remember playing REmake on GC and getting all excited about how great RE 2 and 3 would have look like running on the GameCube's hardware.

Capcom always does this Do you relize how many Mega Man's we have and Mega Man 1 2 3 had very minor improvments 4 5 6 made other minor improvements then 7 was a graphics overhual then 8 Mega Man Was Phenonimal. Then we went back to Super Nintendo Graphics? Why jump to playstation to supernintendo is beyond me but that's capcom and we ended up getting another 8 mega man X games and Mega Man 9 which shouldve retained its mega man 8 graphics. Street Fighter 2 There are so many street fighter 2's that people literally thought there was never a Street Fighter 1 So we end up getting like 7 Street Fighter 2's 3 Street Fighter 3's and So far we got 1 Street Fighter IV Don't be suprised if you see a Street Fighter IV Hyper Dildo Haduken Edition. If Biohazard 1.5 was released thats Basically like releasing the Entire Mega Man X Series into 1 game all those little advances that were in 1.5 slowly made there transition into the other Resident Evil Games Still I still do not see Any Harm in releasing 1.5 im sure it will sell like hot cakes, but that's Capcom and in the next couple of years keep looking for the same Mega Man Street Fighter Games you've been playing Since Capcom knows when.

[Stars1356]

I don't understand why some say the series couldn't be milk if RE 1.5 was released.

It depends on how it would have selled. RE 2 was the of the best selling games of the franchise so after that is was RE maina with about 5 games being released or annouced at the time.

[Alzaire]

I'm sure there are possibilities for the RE universe had 1.5 been released, but we'll never know.

Unlike in retail, in 1.5 the surviving STARS members information was investigated and Umbrella was found guilty of what went on in the mansion. The official story was that because of this, Umbrella's downfall was coming much earlier. Most of the top executives and such had been arrested and many of their facilities were shut down or being shut down. So basically in 1.5, Umbrella's downfall was coming much faster. Would this have had any major impact on the story compared to where we are now? I don't think so. RE3 could have still taken place with a few changes, and CV (although with some obvious necessary changes) could have happened as well to a degree.

I think RE4 made it obvious that Capcom really overestimated their expectations of how far they were gonna take the Umbrella storyline. Of course this is just my opinion, but I believe they didn't want to destroy Umbrella, or have them be publicly guilty, so early if 1.5 had been made because they had planned to some degree eventually lead up to players taking some kind of active role within a game to do it. Then when RE4 rolls around they felt the old formula was already stale and the story needed a new direction. I think they got too ambitious with the Umbrella storyline itself, and that's why when 5 major games later (0,1,2,3,CV) and not really that close to being in a good position to take out Umbrella within a game, they fast forwarded what was it, 4 or 6 years into the future in RE4 and announced Umbrella's downfall straight out then ended up having to/deciding to create RE:UC and RE5 to tie up loose ends.

Anyway I'm rambling on. Besides the official 1.5 story synopsis Capcom released several times over the course of development, there's not a lot known about individual details, though a lot seems pretty similar. Supposedly Capcom hired a "professional script writer" to look over 1.5's script and he had a lot of criticism about it. I think they decided there were too many survivors, hence why Marvin and John got killed off early, with Marvin taking over Roy's role and Roy being scrapped altogether. They changed Irons to be a bad guy to create some human hostility (Irons was a good guy in 1.5), and Annette becomes more hostile in retail (Annette was much more helpful in 1.5). Elza being changed to Claire is obviously a choice to have a connected entity between RE1 and 2 (with Chris and her brother/sister relationship) which would also carry over into a need for use in future games (Claire has to find her brother afterall!).

Capcom will undoubtedly never release 1.5 on their own, we've known that for a while even though we've been hopeful over the years.

Edit: I should also note there's an interview where one of the developers states that he believed 1.5 was generally a good game and that it would probably have sold extremely well, but that there was nothing anybody would really be looking forward to after it. This statement in the interview is one reason why some people believe 1.5 was mostly changed so that future sequels could be milked.

[Undead Sega]

i really dont understand when Capcom knows there is a massive outcry for it, but yet they are not doing anythnig about it, this really gives me little faith in Capcom and in their games, SF4 could be an acception.

i also dont understand whatever happened to the original 1.5 owner whose images are lying all over the net, and seems to be the most completed version out there.

[Alzaire]

i really dont understand when Capcom knows there is a massive outcry for it, but yet they are not doing anythnig about it, this really gives me little faith in Capcom and in their games, SF4 could be an acception.

i also dont understand whatever happened to the original 1.5 owner whose images are lying all over the net, and seems to be the most completed version out there.

In actuality, there isn't as much of an "outcry" as fans of it would like to believe. Most RE fans that know about it have a minor interest but couldn't care if it ever saw the light of day. There's really only a relative handful (a few hundred, couple thousand maybe) that have a really strong desire for it, and then of course you have the RE and non-RE proto collectors who want it. However, one very important aspect that is often overlooked is the Japanese community. Our friends in the JP scene have indicated there is much less of an interest in their community than there is ours.

For whatever reason(s), Capcom considered 1.5 not worthy of releasing. Could they finish it one day and release it? Sure. Will they? Most probably not, there's really not much of a reason. Capcom has known of the interest for years, and has passed up the 5 year, 10 year, and RE2 10 year anniversaries for the RE stuff where it could have been a great bonus disc. What I would love to see (and is more possible, but still unlikely) is a real quality, very informative and detailed book that goes into much more detail about the creation of the games. Archives really skimped out on information about 1.5. A direct comparison section of 1.5 to retail 2 would have been fantastic.

As for the source of Inflames' final beta images, all that needs to be said is there were some issues that occurred and the lead is gone for good. It hasn't resurfaced in 10 years, so the odds aren't good for that one showing up again.

[Undead Sega]

well that is really a shame, its no wonder why in the official capcom forums that there was a thread of someone bringing up RE1.5, and replies where typically weird, they didnt seem interested and i think they didnt really want it to come out, i found that quite bizarre

i really dont know wat it will take to convince Capcom to release it or to even provide a documentary of any sort surround this beta game.

Inflames source really must have been a goldmine, since he has the final beta, but i was always curious on how he ever obtained it, maybe he was an employer of Capcom JP? and wat issues happened? im certain however was in contact with him was very careful on the delicate matter.

[belmont1997]

In the playstation museum video the video is changed from resident evil 1.5 from Resident Evil 2 Unreleased exclusive footage thats rather odd