A new Resident Evil 7 making of video has gone behind the scenes of the recent horror game to reveal its development and some of the things we never got to see, like the Baker family dog, a breath-holding mechanic and the original CG movie created to sell the tone. You can watch the video up there for all the details but here are three of the best bits:
The Bakers nearly had a dog called Diane
Koshi Nakanishi, director:
"In the early stages we were trying all kinds of new ideas but there were a lot of things that didn’t make the cut. For example, looking back now one of the things I wish we could have kept was that the family used to have a pet dog. I forget its name, I think it was Diane, and it was part of the dinner scene, I think. For one reason or another we had to cut it, which is a shame. Thinking back now I wish we could have kept that."
There were zombies that reacted to breathing
Jun Takeuchi, executive producer:
"We prototyped a few concepts, one of which was, we were going to have zombies which would react to human breathing and to get past them you had to hold down a button to hold your breath. There would be a limit to how long you could hold it, with a breath gauge that would go down as you held the button, and if you didn’t get past them in time then the zombies would find you and grab you. It was a really fun idea but we found people tended to tense up and hold their breath for real making it very tiring to play. It was a great idea on paper but we ditched that because we thought doing that for 15 hours would give people hypoxia."
Capcom started with a pitch movie to set tone and tested it on their western office
Masachika Kawata, producer:
"When the project officially kicked off in February 2014, the first thing Takeuchi-san wanted to do was make a kind of 'pitch movie' that would show off the concept. So he quickly put together this very short CG movie which was not focused on the Resident Evil-ness of the game but the new horror style we could make with the tools available. We thought the movie was so good that we sent it over to our western office and they loved it. They sent us back a reaction video that they’d taken and in that video one of the younger staff members in particular had her face twisted in fear. That really motivated us because it told us we were were on the right track."
In interesting to see how the change in style came around, especially Capcom's own acknowledgement that previous instalments had 'lost their identity.' Hopefully 'Part Two' and beyond will dish out some more secrets.
