Will future Resident Evil tiltes return to survival horror?

[TheBatMan]

I'd rather Welsh defend himself but mistaking one line for another in the same area is not "making shit up." Everyone makes mistakes once in a while.

Yes everyone makes mistakes. But considering you can't even check Wesker's body in the situation you refer to means there isn't any way he could mistake one line for another.

[Sly]

That's interesting, Welsh found the unconscious line and many Japanese players have mentioned it. He could've mistaken it for the time when Barry knocks out Wesker outside the Tyrant's room in the same scenario.

You can't check Wesker's body in that room because Barry and Jill immediately go see the Tyrant for themselves. In other words, the cutscene begins in the little hall and ends in the Tyrant room.
Video proof (at around 4mn) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUbj4AWTP90

EDIT : The BatMan beat me to it, but I have supporting evidence.

[TheBatMan]

Actually I take back my comment about Welsh there. I have looked into this futher and here are all the aforementioned text descriptions for the second power room where the self destruct is activated.

A: "起爆システム作動を認める"
▽
"起爆システム作動にともない"
"第一級非常事態発令"
▽
"すべてのブロックのロック解除"
▽
"なお起爆システム解除は"
"一切認められない"

A: 起爆システム作動装置だ
▽
かなり大がかりなものだ

(Debug ver.: Only)
A: 気を失っている
C: He is unconscious...

A: 無残な死にざまだ…

A: 電力の回路接続スイッチだ
エレベーターへ接続が切れている
▽
接続しますか? ▷Yes No

A: エレベーターに電力が回っていない
電力が供給されていないようだ

(Debug ver.: Only)
A: エレベーターへの電力は確保されている

A: エレベーターの電力を確保しなければ

A: 回路接続、電力供給が行われ
エレベーターの電力確保は確実だ

A: レベッカは起爆システムを
作動させている

So it seems at one stage something was in place at least for Wesker to possibly escape. Then was removed.

[News Bot]

Yes everyone makes mistakes. But considering you can't even check Wesker's body in the situation you refer to means there isn't any way he could mistake one line for another.

It's been a while but I remember someone being unconscious. Barry during the first Tyrant fight maybe? I'll check which version of the game he used, in-case it's a beta line that got cut.

Are you telling me producers are never allowed to change their mind of what's good for the series?
This happens all the time for every human being, it's a complete possibility that after seeing Wesker's popularity rising up, they thought "Meh, we can bring him back.", but originally intended him to die for real in RE1.

And sorry, but I don't buy this "RE1's events are not meant to be taken as canon". This isn't a trivial subject like "Who survived the mansion?", "Who killed the Tyrant?", "Who was in prison all the time?". Wesker dies in every ending, no matter what you do. Same with Enrico, Joseph, Richard, Forest and Kenneth. That's how you know they're meant to be dead, because you just can't do anything about it.

If this was really the case, then why did they bother bringing Wesker back with such silly backstory of "Yes, you totally seen me dying, but I injected myself with a virus that would ressurect me exactly 3 minutes later with super powers and absolutely no side effects."? This makes no sense. They did care about the fact they have shown Wesker dying every possible way in RE1, and that players wouldn't be dumb enough to assume his death in the game wasn't to be taken seriously.

No, what I'm saying is that it's never been done in the series. That's all.

The backstory is only silly if you look at it alone. It makes complete sense when you consider the other plot points surrounding it. First off, the Progenitor Virus. A virus with the ability to give an ancient human host superhuman abilities, heightened intelligence and immortality. However, it lost genetic adaptability with modern humans over the millenia.

Second, the t-Virus Project. The project's true goal was to create a weakened strain of the Progenitor Virus able to adapt to modern humans and bestow the same abilities, intelligence and immortality. Funding ran low during research, so B.O.W. development was proposed in order to raise funds and continue development.

Third, Spencer's true goal was always to become a "Progenitor Human" and rule over others. He needed the weakened virus to accomplish this.

Fourth, Wesker's ultimate goal was always to cause a mass extinction event on humanity using the t-Virus and the Tyrant, and then utilize the t-Virus to create superior life-forms, so becoming a superior life-form himself ties in with his character. When he discovers the true nature of the Progenitor Virus previously confidential to anyone but Umbrella's founders, he creates the Uroboros Virus.

Fifth, William Birkin was developing the G-Virus, the purpose of which was to serve as an evolutionary tool for all of humanity (to him, not to Umbrella). Its properties matched or exceeded the Progenitor Virus with perfect compatibility with any human (the latter never came to fruition as it was incomplete). At the same time, under Spencer's orders Birkin developed an experimental variant strain of the t-Virus which unbeknownst to him was a first step to the weakened strain Spencer yearned for. Perhaps using his research on the incomplete G-Virus, he was able to finally create such a strain. However, it wasn't perfect. It functioned like the regular t-Virus by ensuring that after injection a host couldn't die, but the probabilities of survival and then whether or not abilities would be acquired were far from perfect due partially to genetic adaptability, and then on the virus' incomplete and experimental nature. Spencer used it as the sample virus for the Wesker Project to screen the more genetically gifted Weskers.

In context, it's fine. All of it aside from maybe the Wesker Project portion were written at the same time as CV. The game was meant to serve as a mysterious introduction to superhuman hosts, BIO0 would've revealed the virus itself while BIO4 with Spencer/Dante/Vergil were meant to be injected with a similar virus to show the full story behind it, and subsequent titles probably would've involved the superhuman Wesker (HCF), Dante (Umbrella) and Sherry (Heroes) as foes.

Actually I take back my comment about Welsh there. I have looked into this futher and here are all the aforementioned text descriptions for the second power room where the self destruct is activated.

A: "起爆システム作動を認める"
▽
"起爆システム作動にともない"
"第一級非常事態発令"
▽
"すべてのブロックのロック解除"
▽
"なお起爆システム解除は"
"一切認められない"

A: 起爆システム作動装置だ
▽
かなり大がかりなものだ

(Debug ver.: Only)
A: 気を失っている
C: He is unconscious...

A: 無残な死にざまだ…

A: 電力の回路接続スイッチだ
エレベーターへ接続が切れている
▽
接続しますか? ▷Yes No

A: エレベーターに電力が回っていない
電力が供給されていないようだ

(Debug ver.: Only)
A: エレベーターへの電力は確保されている

A: エレベーターの電力を確保しなければ

A: 回路接続、電力供給が行われ
エレベーターの電力確保は確実だ

A: レベッカは起爆システムを
作動させている

So it seems at one stage something was in place at least for Wesker to possibly escape. Then was removed.

Yes, a lot was "cut" from the laboratory section due to time constraints. There was meant to be a longer cutscene with Rebecca in the meeting room for instance. You can find the voice files and script on the retail disk. Goes right back to what I said about not taking the game at face value.

[Lanzagranadas]

I can't believe you guys went 4 pages straight discussing if Wesker was meant to die or not.

Will future Resident Evil titles return to survival horror? Well, RER2 will give us a hint about if they have actual intentions of making a true survival or they're just lying again.

[Rombie]

There are no real retcons (later contradictions in narrative) in the series, at the end of the day. That includes Wesker's fate. You can't retcon something that was never canon. I don't care for hypothetical situations or "what if they did this." Explanation and exposition is not the same as retroactive continuity, at least in its most common definition (contradictions). Wesker's revival is written around the Progenitor Virus, and the precedents for a virus keeping a host alive in a clinically dead state (Zombie), healing tissue and reviving the dead (G-Virus) were already in place.

1. "You can't retcon something that was never canon."

As you could tell from my original reply to Michelle four pages ago, I fully get that RE1 had no consistent canon placement when it was released in 1996 - but plot beats were still important to the sequels and would be untouched. This basically makes anything consistent automatically canon if nothing is said otherwise... I've already explained this, and in fact I've seen you use this exact argument yourself in the past about various parts of the series (the idea that if things are not challenged or are consistent then it's canon) so why you continue to argue against it I don't know.

This means as far as retail goes, and we've now seen this in both Japanese and English, that the development within the game is shown to be a demise of Wesker. Arguments about the developers plans are well and good but you have no proof shown of this choice while in development, nothing noted earlier than November 1996 of any ideas of bringing him back, and as I've already stated his death is still consistent even in later iterations - this alone tells you the idea was when the game released that he was to be killed. Any ideas of bringing him back came after are exactly retcons no matter when they were made anytime after March 1996, as they're new ideas that exist only to bring a character back from an original plot choice - from the dead - that was considered an incorrect move at some level.

2. "This doesn't mean the original or remake were retconned, it's just that the game is not meant to be taken at face value.

By this argument you could say this about anything in any of the games at any point should they chose to change things. You're putting this ideal in place of the simple fact that people will sometimes change things and you're just peddling around that issue with examples of the same events being shown different ways instead. But that's not the original point of bringing someone back from the dead. I don't see why it's an issue to admit that developers changed their mind or that other team members have different ideas when you've already said this in the thread anyway. For some reason you have to be stubborn on behalf of others for seemingly no reason... to defend the option of people who changed their minds for what reason?

3. "There is no inconsistency with Rebecca for reasons I've already explained. In terms of story, she is consistent. She's inconsistent in voice acting and direction, but so are most characters in the series."

In terms of story? No she's not. She goes from quite strong and resourceful to weak-willed and in need of frequent rescue. That's more than voice acting and direction, it's the characters personality and the main part of her story arc within Chris' scenario. The simple reason it doesn't match as everyone already knows is Rebecca's story and personality in the original was setup before Zero was fully fleshed out as an idea. Yet when they could have corrected this for the Remake they chose to follow the path of the original for consistency of the character. Just like every other characters demise, including a certain bad guy. But now you'll be telling me the Remake still doesn't have a consistent canon or something else now.

[News Bot]

What plot beats? Only a few events in BIO1 are 100% (S.T.A.R.S. deaths). The rest are completely up in the air.

No proof of Wesker being alive during development? Just scroll up, TheBatman already posted the transcript that proves he was intended as alive. That section of the game was unfinished and hastily thrown together, so they likely cut out the story of him surviving for the sake of getting the game out the door. This helps make the decision to have him disappear completely in the remake more understandable, as that's the closest they could get to what they originally intended without drastically altering that stage of the game. The fact that they wrote him off in the end doesn't change the intention or the fact that the original intention is what they ran with after the game's release, hence the subsequent ambiguity surrounding his fate.

No, you can't use that argument for any of the games. It applies strictly to BIO1, because that's how the game was written, and that's how the game is presented right off the bat. It doesn't line up with even itself because it's not meant to, and also partially because it can't due to being unfinished in places. You could maybe argue that it applies to BIO2, but that's a different case due to the Zapping System (all four scenarios being canon).

Rebecca is 100% consistent. Point out where she is weak willed, because you'll find that outside of saving her from the Hunter, her two "weak" scenes are optional. Canonically, Chris meets her while she's tending to Richard. Hardly weak willed. This is ignoring the fact that she is saved several times in BIO0 by Billy (I count at least 3 times from memory). UC makes it clear that she gets worn down by witnessing Richard's mauling having already seen Edward die, but that's completely natural. There was nothing to correct, as she was already consistent. Basing her personality on her optional scenes is like saying she's dead because you got an ending where the Tyrant killed her. The best comparison in the series would be Jill and Carlos. Depending on the path you take in the game, they literally swap personalities between strong-willed and weak-willed. Neither is "true" in that case, but we know what Rebecca's real personality is because they clarify in UC.

No, the remake doesn't have a consistent canon. It's not meant to, just like the original. No version of the game does (original, Directors Cut, remake, Deadly Silence, Pachi-slot). The goal was to not change too much from the original, and part of that necessitated keeping the story the same.

[Sly]

The intention of the developers is totally irrelevant : the debate was about the so called ambiguity of Wesker's death in RE1, and as far as retail RE1 is concerned, there is NONE. Period. End of story, there's really nothing to argue here.
That is precisely why they had to explain how Wesker came back from the dead later : because he was supposed to be dead, in 4 endings out of 4.
Take Nikolai in RE3 for example : if he ever comes back in the series, they won't have to explain how he survived, because in one ending out of 3, we see him escape Raccoon City.

On the other hand, I'm with NewsBot about Rebecca. I'm more shocked about their voices being totally different than her supposed shift of personality which can be easily explained by her ordeal being too much to handle for her nerves. She had to survive 2 very difficult nights when Jill and Chris "only" had to survive one, after all.

[News Bot]

The intention of the developers is totally irrelevant : the debate was about the so called ambiguity of Wesker's death in RE1, and as far as retail RE1 is concerned, there is NONE. Period. End of story, there's really nothing to argue here.
That is precisely why they had to explain how Wesker came back from the dead later : because he was supposed to be dead, in 4 endings out of 4.
Take Nikolai in RE3 for example : if he ever comes back in the series, they won't have to explain how he survived, because in one ending out of 3, we see him escape Raccoon City.

The ambiguity existed during development and stayed even after release among the main developers. Going by that, retail is technically wrong, but it's not a big deal because the events aren't to be taken as they appear. That's just what happens when you can't put all of your design plan into the actual game, you have to cut corners and make sacrifices. There's a large amount of story scenes, puzzles, environments etc that were fully detailed in the design plan, but never came to fruition because the team didn't have time. Retail is literally stitched together based on what they were able to put in before the deadline, which was about 50% of what was planned. The remake corrected some of this, but had to stay relatively close to the retail game because people would complain and bitch about the "new" stuff.

We also don't know who changed Wesker's status in the power room. Or even if it was intended. It couldn't be Mikami unless he changed his mind... twice.

[Guest]

Funny.
"The game wasn't finished, so someone just copy-pasted Wesker into the power room and forgot to change his text" - You're pulling shit out of your ass.
"The game was finished, however, some developer was rushing and just copy-pasted Wesker into the power room with death message and all" - Perfectly plausible.
"The game wasn't finished, but someone left a He's Uncounscious message on Wesker's bloody body for some reason that nobody knows, so that means it's the official meaning" - It all makes sense now.

The Debug version was still beta, my "just copy-pasted" theory works better than ever here. Why would a developer write "He's Uncounscious" when he shows up the exact same way he was impaled by the Tyrant? In absolutely only two endings out of eight? The same way you think someone may have tried to hide it, someone may have tried to correct it for all we know.

[News Bot]

What's funny is that I said none of those three statements but nice try with twisting it.

A developer would write "he's unconscious" because a pool of blood is not always indicative of death and they wanted the option for him to survive, see Ada and to a lesser extent Annette in BIO2 both of whom can also be examined and viewed as dead until they show up later on. Clearly the survival option was cut for whatever reason, just like so much else in the game. Unless you think they just happened to "copy and paste" one single line out of hundreds of others.

[Guest]

I make Grem's words mine: It's better talking to a brick wall.
It's funny how any theories and assumptions from someone else are completely invalid and crazy, but you two can take assumptions right out of your ass about an entire developer team's intentions from 19 years ago because of 1 miserable little line of interview, and later because of something that was merely a BETA, then present your thoughts on the whole situation as a fact. You'll fit anything into your shitty little context, even if someone eventually shoved it into your face that the creators did intend to leave no ambiguity, am I right? But who cares, anyway? I now know you mustn't be questioned, oh, masters of Resident Evil accurate information.

I'll just quietly leave this thread with three little words:
GET. OVER. YOURSELVES.

[News Bot]

Don't get your panties in a twist just because other people look at and acknowledge all the evidence while you disregard anything that doesn't fit your myopic narrative.

I'll just quietly leave this thread with three little words:
GET. OVER. YOURSELVES.

Throwing your toys out of the pram isn't very quiet.

[Rombie]

Lol... firstly sorry the Picard image is so massive. I posted that on my phone, and now seeing it on my laptop it's freakishly huge

What plot beats? Only a few events in BIO1 are 100% (S.T.A.R.S. deaths). The rest are completely up in the air.

STARS deaths and directly through the basic of endings - some of who lives, what we can gleem from the files about Umbrella are still relevant throughout the series, numerous enemies background starts here and is later expanded on, the mansion itself to an extent. Character types are also fairly realized and don't change much with later appearances - bad translations and acting aside. That's a short list on the spot. I'm sure if I thought about it more I could come up with plenty of other story development elements that are relevant to the overall series. But this seems like a waste of both our times, you already know this stuff.

No proof of Wesker being alive during development? Just scroll up, TheBatman already posted the transcript that proves he was intended as alive.

That's not proof. It's conjecture. And it still as much as it was two pages back by everyone else when it was thought that actually appeared in the retail Japanese game. And it has less voracity now than it did then when people found it only in debug. Yet I wasn't the one sitting here saying this was the issue anyway, I've said it's above that because Capcom showed consistency to the idea he was dead throughout the various ways they've explained Wesker's survival from death. So why are we still debating his 'non-death' when he still dies everytime in all versions and according to the developers in-game plot lines anyway?

To put this in words of someone you'd likely actually listen to on that very point:

The goal was to not change too much from the original, and part of that necessitated keeping the story the same.

So if he still died in the story told by CV, WR1, and REmake... based on the idea he died in the PS1 original... why are people arguing over some sort of ambiguity on this? You said it yourself... keeping the story the same.

I'm happy to entertain these ideas and will certainly and humbly back down from my thoughts on this if I knew I was entirely wrong about him supposed to be dead in all versions, but you know the saying... if it looks like a chicken, walks like a chicken...

That section of the game was unfinished and hastily thrown together, so they likely cut out the story of him surviving for the sake of getting the game out the door. This helps make the decision to have him disappear completely in the remake more understandable, as that's the closest they could get to what they originally intended without drastically altering that stage of the game.

Now you're picking and choosing ideas on behalf of people but no one here so far can prove this right or wrong. I'm not sitting here saying this isn't plausible, and I've said these things to you from the start, but just some posts back in reply to me you say you don't care to deal in hypothetical ideas... but here you are doing it... so far both things you've pointed to at proof are you're own guestimations of ideas made by others in 1995/1996. That's still not proof either way. When you bring it to me I'll happily agree to it don't worry, but it just hasn't happened yet.

On that note, as for Rebecca I'll just agree to disagree on my perceptions on it. You make valid points but I just feel it's too much of a swing provided the situation to me. It's worth noting however you're both trying to tell me no version of the game has a set canon and should be setting some sort of precedent for not having put any direct stock into the way something is shown, BUT then you're telling me the UC version of the story to define her character here as well. So what is it? We just pick and choose again? Doesn't that just show there is no right answer? That's kinda what seems to get this sort of mess happening in the first place.

[News Bot]

Sure. But... none of those have any relation to Wesker. Most of it isn't found in the game itself, either. I'd actually say that the game is irrelevant when it comes to story because all of it is on paper first, and it's on that paper which everything including later titles are based on.

CV, WR1 and the remake are not based on the idea that he died (technically he never did, the virus kept his body alive even though his consciousness faded for a while). They run with a hybrid version of events that amalgamates the scenario of his death and the original possibility that he survived, making both work using other plot elements. They were able to do this freely because BIO1 is, again, completely open-ended. Obviously the story isn't exactly the same between the original and remake, there are changes but they are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. Removing Wesker's body from the power room is one, and a reasonable explanation is that he wasn't meant to be there to begin with as there's no reason to remove him otherwise. Keeping his body but changing the event message would've been an outright contradiction of the original, something they wanted to avoid. So they just removed the potential.

That's speculation, but conjecture based on evidence is better than conjecture based on nothing, which is what's mainly being floated around. We have enough evidence from several sources to support the notion that his ambiguous fate was always the intention, but was altered in the game itself at some point, yet the lead developers maintained the original intention... which implies altering it wasn't their idea. I should've been more clear with my words, hypothetical wasn't the right choice. "What-if" is what I was referring to. Hypothetical is what I have going on due to the fact that it's an assertion backed up by evidence.

BIO1 isn't about picking and choosing, frankly it should pretty much be ignored from a plot perspective and enjoyed for what it is rather than trying to tie it into anything that comes later (files aside). BIO2 is all about picking and choosing on the other hand. There is no UC "version" of Rebecca--- it's just Rebecca, her personality has been the same since she was created. I don't get why people think she either needs to be a badass or a weakling, because we see both sides to her in all three appearances. The only differences are her voice portrayals, which vary depending on actress and voice director like every other character in the series. Like Alexia's original sinister bitch persona in CV into a petulant overgrown child in DC. Same character, same personality, different voice direction.