Article by yota
Resident Evil 5 was officially announced on June 2005, but it was shown for the first time to the public only two months later in a CG trailer. This video was essentially one of the concepts that the developers were working on since the release of Resident Evil 4: in what at time seemed to be the Middle East or Africa, we saw Chris exploring the alleys of a city and then being attacked by a group of enemies.
The graphics style and the general mood were already much similar to the released game, even if Chris looked somewhat younger and less bulky.It is interesting to note that producer of the game said, in an old interview, that originally the time of the day and the weather were supposed to have a major impact on the gameplay and affect the main characters abilities. Also, Resident Evil 5 was intended to be single player. Sheva was originally a NPC and a member of a local militia.She would have meet Chris only later in the game.
Anyway, Capcom created another trailer for Resident Evil 5 in 2007. The beginning of this video was not that different from the final game: Chris walked for a bit in the village and then suddenly all the natives seemed to vanish. There were, however, many important differences: Sheva and the dealer were nowhere to be found, Chris didn’t have his safari dress, cutscenes and dialogues were shorter, the location where we fought for the first time was completely removed, enemies had some attacks that can’t be found in the released game, such as the headbutt, and so on.
Even in the last year of the development Capcom was still moving things around. For example, the crash site of the helicopter was originally a fully playable section, not a series of QTE’s.
2004 Beta artworks
The merchant from Re 4 was supposed to return in Resident Evil 5. There were many shops around the town and you could even stole weapons and ammo.
