Hideki Kamiya Reflects On Resident Evil 2's Development

Often regarded as one of the high points for Capcom's survival-horror franchise, Resident Evil 2 celebrated its 20th anniversary this past weekend. The original title's director, Hideki Kamiya, took to Twitter to relay his memories about his first time in the director's chair.

The first take at Resident Evil 2 was canned when development was around 70 percent complete, due to multiple concerns from higher-ups about the story and design, which included concerns from series creator Shinji Mikami. Despite the major misstep, Kamiya tweeted that Mikami placed a surprising amount of faith in him to see the project through before he took on the director's role with little experience.

"You're the dark horse of the new recruits. You're either going to fail spectacularly, or you're going to be a huge success." (5/6)

— 神谷英樹 Hideki Kamiya (@PG_kamiya) January 24, 2018

Scenario writer Noboru Sugimura also played an influential role in Resident Evil 2's completion, who encouraged Kamiya and greatly influenced his knowledge of script writing for titles he directed like Viewtiful Joe and Okami.

Sugimura was old enough to be my dad, and when he looked at RE 1.5 in the early stages of development, he was the one who advised me to start over, and he gave us all the courage to actually do so. (5/16)

— 神谷英樹 Hideki Kamiya (@PG_kamiya) January 24, 2018

Other interesting facts include Kamiya having to awkwardly direct Capcom's first English voice actor sessions overseas after his interpreter called in sick. During that session, Kamiya created Claire's line, "Chris, I have to find you." Sugimora didn't expect this change and had to adjust the script in turn. The tumultuous development took a toll on Kamiya as well, who drank every night and slept in his studio's meeting room during lunch breaks. All in all though, he expressed that he was thankful for the experience, as it shaped him into the director he is today. You can check out both threads of tweets he posted by clicking here and here.

Resident Evil 2 will be remade by Capcom, which has had no official announcements about development progress for the original title's anniversary. While the director of the remake is unknown, at least Kamiya believes it's in good hands. In the meantime, you can check out former editor Tim Turi's thoughts about what should be done with a Resident Evil 2 remake.

[Source: @PG_kamiya]

Our Take
The crunch of game development has been an age-old problem throughout the industry's history, as fellow writer David Milner recently wrote about in a feature. However, as recent titles like The Last Guardian and Doom have shown us, sometimes failure and arduous work can lead to the most memorable, refined video games. It's wonderful that Mikami and Sugimora had such faith in Kamiya because it certainly paid off. Here's hoping the remake will be unveiled soon and advance on what the original title so beloved.