5 Games That Changed Drastically During Development

Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil 2 is one of the most iconic PS1 video games that scared plenty of fans back in the day. The plot centered around rookie police officer Leon Kennedy and Chris’s sister, Claire Redfield as they worked together to escape Raccoon City. During their exploration, the two come across some interesting personalities like Ada Wong and Sherry Birkin, who have also become notable characters in the series. Most of Resident Evil 2 took place in a police precinct and included some pretty terrifying monsters like the Licker, giant spiders, and Mr. X.

However, this video game was actually drastically changed during its development period as Capcom scrapped their initial ideas for the project. Some fans managed to dig up the source code for the original project, dubbing it as “Resident Evil 1.5.” This version was meant to be far more gruesome than the final version and even included different characters.

In Resident Evil 1.5, Leon Kennedy was already working as a police officer in Raccoon City, while Claire Redfield wasn’t even in the game. Instead, she was originally a civilian named Eliza Walker who was supposed to create a racing team back in her home town, unaware that the outbreak had already occurred. Meanwhile, supporting characters like Marvin Branagh, Brian Irons, and John were meant to play a bigger part in the game by helping the two protagonists.

Gameplay was also tweaked as enemies were meant to be far tougher to kill, often crawling towards Leon or Eliza with severed bodies. Taking damage would leave visible tears on their clothing while killing enemies up close would leave blood stains. Lickers weren’t even included in 1.5, but “man Spiders,” a disturbing hybrid between man and spider, were prominent enemies.

While it’s unlikely we’ll ever see Resident Evil 1.5, it’s interesting to think about how the series would have turned out if Capcom took that route.

Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite originally released back on the PC, PS3, and Xbox One as the third entry in the series. The video game acted as a prequel to the franchise and focused on protagonist Booker DeWitt on his mission to escort a mysterious woman Elizabeth to New York. Needless to say, their journey is a perilous one filled with political uprising, time traveling, multiple realities, and a giant metal bird. Bioshock Infinite was generally met with positive reviews for its fun gameplay and compelling story line, but looking back at its previous trailers, we can see that the game went through some extreme adjustments.

The E3 2011 demo and another 10-minute gameplay demo showed off some scenes that never made it to the full game, like more active Sky-Hook battles and hostile NPCs. Similarly, while the final game kept its core features like the floating city of Columbia and the Vox Populi, the demos seem to expand on what they were meant to be. Columbia was literally flying through the sky and across the world while the rebel group was ruthless and hostile when it came to fulfilling their goal.

Elizabeth had also gone through plenty of changes during development as she was originally meant to be a mute woman. Even when they decided on her role, she still went through plenty of cosmetic changes, especially her facial features. Her original abilities, on the other hand, revolved around psychic powers like telekinesis and heat combustion instead of opening Tears.

Judging by the previous trailers, it seems like Irrational Games had to scale back most of their ideas during development. Nonetheless, the retail version of Bioshock Infinite is still a great game all on its own.

Super Mario Bros.

Mario has become one of the biggest faces in the gaming industry since the debut of his popular title, Super Mario Bros. His first game was a fairly simple one that mainly involved jumping across platforms and throwing fireballs at enemies. While the franchise has come to be known as family friendly, there was actually a time when Nintendo contemplated on giving Mario a gun.

The early control scheme for Super Mario Bros was A to shoot bullets, B to dash, and up on the control pad to jump. They even wanted to include a shoot ‘em up stage where Mario jumps on clouds and pelts enemies with a barrage of bullets. Later in development, Nintendo scrapped the bullets for fireballs since they wanted to emphasize on all the jumping action.

Incidentally, the idea about including mushrooms linked with the game’s setting in a magical kingdom as people in folk tales would usually wander into forests and eat mushrooms, hence how they ended up with the iconic Mushroom Kingdom name.

It’s a bit mind boggling to think about how the Mario series would have turned out if they kept the gun idea. For all we know, it could have become something similar to Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle.

Devil May Cry

The Devil May Cry series is another of Capcom’s best selling franchises and follows Dante on his vendetta to avenge his mother’s death by slaying demons. The game is actually loosely based on the Divine Comedy, as evident by its various in-game allusions and the names of the cast (Dante = Dante Alighieri, Vergil = Virgil). Gameplay-wise, everything is extremely fast paced as the player must string combos together without trying to get hurt. There are also a few puzzle-solving and exploration elements, but the main meat of the series lies with its action and combat.

Strangely enough, Devil May Cry actually started out as a Resident Evil sequel during its early concepts. Capcom apparently had four version of Resident Evil 4, with one of those ideas coming from Shinji Mikami. However, his idea slowly drifted away from the core Resident Evil series and was scrapped for something else entirely.

In an effort to save his idea, Mikami suggested that his idea should be made into a spin-off instead. Capcom was originally hesitant, but Mikami ultimately won them over, and thus the Devil May Cry video game series was born.

Final Fantasy XV

Final Fantasy XV had been one of the most anticipated video games before it launched in November of 2016. The latest entry in the Final Fantasy series is notorious for its 10-year development period and the major changes Square Enix made throughout its creation. The retail version follows Noctis and his friends on a journey to reclaim his throne after the kingdom of Niflheim invaded Insomnia. While it seemed like this might have been the core idea the developers were aiming for, previous trailers hinted that the overall plot contained a lot more extra scenes.

Before we get into that, it’s worth bringing up that Final Fantasy XV was originally Final Fantasy Versus XIII – a spin-off game for the PS3. Square Enix announced the game back in 2006, yet they often kept a tight lip about the project’s ongoing progress. In spite of this, they managed to continuously release enough information to assure fans that the game was far from canceled. They shared information about the main cast, focusing on characters like Noctis, Gladio, Ignis, Prompto, and Stella.

Come E3 2013, Square Enix revealed that the game was now rebranded as Final Fantasy XV, and the following year, they announced that Hajime Tabata had taken over the project. It was around this time when they pulled out Stella Nox Fleuret from the game and changed her with a new character named Luna. Tabata explained that they had already made some changes to the plot at this point and that they needed to change the role of the heroine in the game.

One released trailer for the game highlighted the Leviathan fight along with some other fight scenes that never made it into the game. The Leviathan boss fight looks completely different (and much more exciting) in the trailer than how it did in the retail version. The same clip also highlighted other characters like Cor and Verstael while giving more importance to the relationship between Noctis and King Regis.

There’s honestly a lot to go on about Final Fantasy XV’s changes during development ranging from plot to gameplay, yet it seems like most of it is being integrated into the character episode DLCs. It’s probably unlikely that we’ll ever see the original Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but it doesn’t seem like Tabata and his crew are finished with Final Fantasy XV’s ever expanding story.