Meanwhile, I wanted to develop original games, but it didn’t look like there’d be any opportunity to do so in the foreseeable future,” Fujiwara says. “Outside of Resident Evil, Capcom wanted to continue making franchise titles like Street Fighter. Fujiwara’s decision to leave came down to his desire to make new and original games, something he says he would have been unable to do within Capcom. Having been the grand master of Capcom’s console games since 1983 and a mentor to younger creators at the company, his departure marked the end of one era and the beginning of another. The first change was the departure of Tokuro Fujiwara from Capcom in late 1995, before the original game was even released. However, even before Resident Evil 2 officially got off the ground, personnel shakeups at Capcom ensured that it would be created under a different environment than its predecessor.
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Creators aim to improve the quality for the sequel, usually adding new elements that were not previously possible due to time, technology, or budget constraints, all while expanding the scale to attain a better value proposition. Ideally, any video game sequel is propped up by the experience gained by its creators during the production of its predecessor. The team wanted the sequel to be what James Cameron’s Aliens was to its predecessor, Alien: more groundbreaking and more ambitious. For Capcom to maintain its momentum in the newly christened survival horror genre, though, Resident Evil 2 had to be better than its predecessor, much like Mega Man 2 and Street Fighter 2. The success of Street Fighter 2 was even more remarkable: it blew the first game so far away that the original is barely a footnote in Capcom history.Ĭompared to Mega Man and Street Fighter, the first Resident Evil was a more immediate success, putting it ahead of Capcom’s historical curve. Mega Man 2, believed by many to be the best in the series, outsold the original and became a global million-seller. Mega Man and Street Fighter did not light sales charts on fire in 1987, particularly compared to the success stories of other companies like Nintendo and Sega, but they performed well enough for Capcom to release sequels that put these franchises on the map. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Capcom released games that achieved respectable sales. And it starts with the promotion of game director Hideki Kamiya. It’s a story about staff changes, failed experiments, and extraordinary success.
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But to celebrate today being the 21st anniversary of Resident Evil 2 ’s release, he has put together a preview of the book in the form of an excerpt looking back on the creation of RE2. Looking back at the franchise’s development history from the earliest days, the book - planned as two volumes - folds in interviews with many of the key figures who worked behind the scenes at Capcom.Īniel isn’t planning to release the first volume - titled An Itchy, Tasty History of Resident Evil: 1994-2006 (Vol. note: Since 2014, Alex Aniel has been working on a book chronicling the history behind his favorite series, Resident Evil.