“I started drinking brandy on the rocks every night”: famed creator Hideki Kamiya tells the story of Resident Evil 2's tumultuous development

You should follow Hideki Kamiya on Twitter, even when he's not talking about Resident Evil 2. The Japanese developer and Platinum Games founder responsible for titles like Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, and Okami is a formidable presence in the social media sphere, tweeting at and with his followers using blunt force honesty and a no-nonsense attitude to harassment.

A quick scroll through Kamiya’s Twitter feed reveals him effortlessly one-upping his trolls with pithy one-liners and equally harsh put downs. He’s a notorious grump, then, but Kamiya’s fans wouldn’t have it any other way. 

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But today was different. Inspired by the goodwill messages he’d received following the 20th anniversary of Resident Evil 2 over the weekend, Kamiya decided to tweet about his experience working on the game all those years ago, which was his first big break as a creative director.   

Over a series of 20 tweets, Kamiya reveals that creating Capcom’s horror masterpiece was hardly smooth sailing; as he tells the story of starting over from scratch (after a botched project that eventually would go on to become Resident Evil 1.5), moving to a new studio in Canada, and being forced to put the game on two discs as the result of its “zapping system”.

It sounds like all the hallmarks of development hell, but Kamiya fondly looks back on the memories as “irreplaceable treasures” that helped to make him who he is today. 

For the Resident Evil fans, Kamiya’s thread reveals some really interesting nuggets of behind-the-scenes info about RE2 that make the whole thing worth reading, including his working relationship with Shinji Mikami himself. I’ve put the whole thing down below, so do have a look for yourself. 

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With tweets like these, it’s easy to wonder if Kamiya will ever reveal more about what happened to his canned Xbox One project with Microsoft, Scalebound, though I’d imagine that battle scar is probably still too sore to be reopened right now. Or the NDA too legally binding.

The good news is that Scalebound’s cancellation has allowed Kamiya to begin work on Bayonetta 3 for the Nintendo Switch, and he’s just as happy confronting his doubters on Twitter about that project as he is about everything else.

Alex Avard

I'm GamesRadar's Features Writer, which makes me responsible for gracing the internet with as many of my words as possible, including reviews, previews, interviews, and more. Lucky internet!