Gothic, ornate, but just close enough to normality that it feels real, the Raccoon City Police Department building in Resident Evil 2 is one of the greatest settings in horror game history. But it didn’t always look that way. Before RE2 made it to shelves back in 1998, another version of the game came close to completion. Starring a different-looking Leon Kennedy and a Claire Redfield prototype named Elza Walker, what fans now refer to as Resident Evil 1.5 was a very, very different game, with alternate locations, more guns, and expanded escort-quest sequences. Capcom scrapped this version, but it’s since been rebuilt by fans – and a new, improved restoration is available right now.
Compared to the original Resident Evil 2, the RPD of RE 1.5 is much more grounded and realistic. Rather than the abstract, art museum backdrop of the final horror game, this version is composed of offices, reception areas, long corridors, and metal shutters – it looks much more like a working police station.
There are other major differences. In 1.5, Leon Kennedy is supposed to be a veteran RPD officer rather than a rookie on his first day. Marvin Branagh is a much more significant character who accompanies Leon for most of the game, and, as well as Elza, there are other characters that were cut from the final edition including an Umbrella researcher called Linda and a Raccoon City citizen named John.
The story is still divided between two characters, but in RE 1.5 Umbrella’s crimes have already been exposed to the world and the evil corporation is in its death throes. Other details of the story have been difficult to piece together, but large portions of the game’s code and assets have leaked over the years.
Demo discs for the original version of the horror game still exist and draft versions have been shared by former Capcom staff. Between these scraps of information and some creative work by modders, who have used old interviews and design documents to inform their own restoration efforts, a ‘complete’ version of Resident Evil 1.5 is now available.
And now it’s better than ever. Created by Resident Evil modder and archivist ‘MartinBiohazard,’ the latest edition of RE 1.5 includes a number of bug fixes, adds a section where you can play as Marvin, and adjust some of the damage values for zombies.
In short, it represents the newest, cleanest way to try Resident Evil 1.5 and experience this moment from videogame history for yourself. Of course, it’s still a little choppy and incomplete, but you can definitely get a clear sense of what Resident Evil 2 might have been had Capcom and director Hideki Kamiya not decided to start over. Try it right here.
Elsewhere in Resident Evil news, there’s reason to believe that RE6 might be getting a re-release.
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