The remake trilogy of the Raccoon City saga came to close earlier this year with the release of Resident Evil 3. While the overall reception was positive, much like the original release in 1999, some weren’t too happy with some aspects compared to its near universally beloved predecessor, Resident Evil 2. Ironically, a lot of that dissatisfaction came from RE3 being a pretty liberal remake with lots of changes, from the minor things like tweaking of Nemesis’ origin, to the major, such as cutting out set piece areas from the original. Despite what you may think, though, the game had plenty of time in the oven.
In an interview with Siliconera, Producer Peter Fabiano was asked how long the game was worked on, and how much overlap there was between this and the remake of Resident Evil 2 (the two only released within a year of each other). He said that the game was development for roughly 3 years. Interestingly, he also said the teams working on 2 and 3 were largely disconnected from one another, with most of the contact coming from needed shared knowledge for the company’s relatively new RE Engine.
“Resident Evil 3 was in development for about 3 years. The teams worked independently for the most part, but there was certainly some knowledge sharing as well as sharing ideas, certain technologies and RE Engine.”
It’s interesting, especially since some people speculate the game had a ‘rushed development’ due to its length and amount of content reworked or cut from the original 1999 release. It seems that wasn’t the case, seemingly. Either way, both Resident Evil 2 and 3 are available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Capcom is also in the midst of planning something for the franchise’s 25th anniversary next year.
