Trivia / Resident Evil

• The Danza: Subverted with Barry's original voice actor, Barry Gjerde; the actor's birth name is Oddbjørn Egil Gjerde.
• Dummied Out: Several things that were deleted from the original game later found their way back into the remake. However, there are a few that never made it into any final versions, yet still existed in the game's code:
  • There were originally supposed to be messages scrawled in blood written on some of the mansion walls. The original release simply recolored the messages to hide them, and they can still be seen in-game by tweaking the color palette with an emulator. Later editions removed them entirely.
  • There were supposed to be dumdum rounds available for the Colt Python, which were more effective against zombies but weaker against other enemies. The beta versions and demo basically treated the magnum as a somewhat stronger version of the Beretta rather than the instant-off switch for non-boss enemies it is in the final release; it would only occasionally blow off a zombie's head and usually took 2-3 shots to kill most enemies; this behavior can only be seen in the original Japanese demo for the game. They decided to give the Python a massive power upgrade and simply remove the dumdums altogether. Oddly enough, they were very nearly added but eventually cut from the remake, too. The scene where Barry takes three shots to kill a zombie with his Colt Python is likely a holdover from the beta where regular ammo would be less effective against zombies.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Linda, Rebecca's live action actress, was blonde when she was cast. Her hair was dyed pinkish-brown in order to make her look more like Rebecca's design.
  • Charlie Kraslavsky, Chris's live action actor, had his hair bleached to try and match Chris's character art. Unfortunately, they used straight peroxide to do so, and ended up turning his nearly black dark brown hair red.
• Fake American: In the original version, Barry's voice actor (Barry Gjerde) is Norwegian, while both Chris' voice actor (Scott McCulloch) and Jill's voice actress (Una Kavanagh) were Canadian. In addition, Gregory Smith, Barry's live action actor, is Australian.
• Follow the Leader: Resident Evil may not have invented the Survival Horror genre,^note That honor goes to Sweet Home (1989), which Resident Evil was originally created to be an updated version of, while the cinematic, fixed-camera gameplay model was pioneered by 1992's Alone in the Dark but it did invent the name, and it proved the concept could sell. Cue Silent Hill, Fatal Frame, Carrier, Countdown Vampires, Martian Gothic Unification, Capcom's own Dino Crisis, and so on.
• No Budget: The developers had very little money for actors. This is why the hilarious intro sequence exists for the original game.
• The Other Darrin: In Deadly Silence, Richard is voiced by a different voice actor solely because he has a new line of dialogue in Rebirth Mode where he gives the player a hint to a secret ammo cache. Likewise, Jill and Chris have new voice actors just for their frustration / celebration sounds when solving puzzles exclusive to Rebirth Mode, even though they still use the original voiced recordings for everything else.
• Referenced by...:
  • One puzzle in the game involves Jill playing the piano. Tormented Souls is a Resident Evil homage, and in one scene protagonist Caroline finds a piano. If you click on it, she says "An old piano. Sadly, I don't know how to play."
  • Shantae: Half-Genie Hero: An achievement is named "Master of Unlocking", which you get by unlocking all 10 Art Galleries.
• Technology Marches On: Figuring out the slide projector puzzle towards the end of the game requires a general understanding of what slide projectors are and how they work, something many members of today's audience (especially younger gamers) wouldn't have a clue about, given that such projectors have long since been phased out by digital ones (and presentation software like Microsoft PowerPoint). Similarly, typewriters can be seen all over the place, even though by 1998 standards,^note The year of the game's setting. typewriters were heavily phased out and a lot of younger audiences that didn't grow up with the game wouldn't get what a typewriter was.
• Uncredited Role: Pablo Kuntz completely forgot he voiced Albert Wesker. Furthermore, he didn't learn of his involvement in the franchise until twenty years later, when a fan recognized and commented on his identity in a YouTube video on his own channel selling Japanese swords. He originally considered letting Sergio Jones take the credit for the role due to embarrassment at his Narmtastic delivery, but eventually owned up to it, even going as far as to host a series of YouTube videos of him and his son playing the game together.
• Vapor Ware: The Game Boy Color port was very near to completion when it was canned. Naturally, the ROM eventually found its way to cyberspace, so even though it was never released, it's still possible to play it.
• Word of God:
  • In an 2015 interview, Barry Gjerde, Barry's original voice actor, stated that contrary to popular belief, he wasn't the actor who portrayed the character in the live action scenes. Also, neither Jill's voice actress or live action actress was Irish actress Una Kavanagh^note The former is a similarly named Canadian voice actress, while the latter was in high school at the time. and by extension, none of the voice actors have any relation to the live action actors.
  • During a playthrough with his son, ^note In a response to the linked comment chain. Pablo Kuntz, Wesker's voice actor, said that part of the reason the dialogue was so hilariously unnatural was because by the time the cast were hired to voice the characters, they had all been living in Japan for some time. As a result, they got used to oddly phrased English by non-native speakers and thus didn't notice or think to correct the writers about whether their dialogue sounded natural.
• What Could Have Been: In what would become a tradition for the series, the game had several differences from the drawing board to the beta version to the final version:
  • Development of the game originally began on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. At this point, it was far more similar to Sweet Home then its final version, and was set in a less realistic location, described as a "hellish landscape" by those who worked on it. The announcement of the PlayStation convinced Capcom to shift development to it.
  • The game was originally conceived to be played from a first person perspective, but shifted it to fixed camera angles like in Alone in the Dark. While spinoff games such as the Resident Evil: Gun Survivor series and the Chronicles Duology were in first person (or a mix thereof with Dead Aim), the main series proper didn't go first person until Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
  • There was originally going to be an African American character named Dewey, who was going to be comic relief. There also was going to be a Cyborg character named Gelzer. He would have saved the protagonist by holding the ceiling trap. In fact, in early drafts, the entire cast were planned to be cyborgs, and the setting was supposed to be more futuristic. Gelzer was cut when the setting was brought more down to earth, though some aspects of the character were transplanted into Barry; and Dewey was probably cut because they quickly realized his whole character was a horrendous idea.
  • Chris and Jill were going to be together throughout the game, and Jill could be controlled by a second player or an AI partner who could be given instructions, but this idea was removed because the AI was deemed unfit for a final product.
  • The original version was going to feature Japanese voice acting. This was scrapped because Shinji Mikami felt that the performances were subpar. He also thought it was unrealistic that the characters would speak in another language even though they're supposed to be American. Apparently no one told him about Translation Convention.
  • The infamous hallway where the zombie dogs burst through the windows had a giant spider crawling along the ceiling instead in the beta. This would have changed the tempo of the horror considerably at this point of the game. The spiders do appear in the hallway in the final version of the game, but only after you snag the Helmet Key from the guardhouse.
  • The remake's Real Survival mode removes the auto-aim features and makes it so that item boxes are not interconnected, which was the way things were originally going to be in the original game until play testers complained that it made the game too hard. The unlock message for the mode even lampshades it:
    "This is the prototype feature that existed even before [the] first Resident Evil game."
  • Rebecca was nearly cut from the game due to Mikami greatly disliking the character because of her submissive personality. However, she was saved due to the rest of the staff insisting on her inclusion.

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