Will future Resident Evil tiltes return to survival horror?

[TheBatMan]

Ada's Report makes it clear it's a metaphorical play on the word, but it's the dialogue that leads to understandable confusion.

"All for Umbrella's sake?"

"what do you intend to do restoring Umbrella?"

"Thanks to you, Umbrella is one step closer to its re-establishment. And once it is, there will be significant changes in our world."

[Jimmy_Jazz]

Beta scripts are still wholly relevant in this series. Wesker's motives have never changed and he has a number of lines missing from the English version, there are no retcons. Such as this one:

Changes between beta and final will consist of intention and accidental changes. Intentional changes are not relevant. Accidental ones are, but only to those aware of them. No one, so far, has been able to provide a list of missing lines or miss translations so it's impossible to know what exactly was relevant.

The line you quote talks doesn't contain any hint that Wesker wants to take the human race to the next level or enslave them, but that the Tyrant is beyond man and therefore the ultimate weapon.

As someone playing the final game in English, you have to take the story on what is provided to you, not what's been omitted accidentally or lost in translation. And in the English version of RE1 it's the fact that Wesker is asked to destroy his own work that becomes the catalyst for him deciding to steal it, regardless of the original goals for the work.

Subsequently, when playing through the series in order, this motive has been changed (whether it was the original intention or not) to become a per-meditated plan that's tied to a bigger series of events that also involve a separate training facility and working alongside William Birkin.

Whilst the change doesn't seriously affect the series' timeline, it may affect how you view Wesker himself. Personally, I think Wesker's vanity being a flaw & drive much more interesting than him being another person setting out to enslave the world. Plus, the idea of a super human with a goal of world domination having to resort to hopping between companies in order to climb the corporate ladder to get to the top undermines any power he has.

[Guest]

Beta scripts are still wholly relevant in this series.

ELZA WALKER EXISTS *GASP :O*

[Lanzagranadas]

TheBatMan already quoted some for me:

"All for Umbrella's sake?"

"Thanks to you, Umbrella is one step closer to its re-establishment. And once it is, there will be significant changes in our world."

I understand, developers/writers never change their minds, Wesker's plans were fully planned and detailed since 1996, and although many different writers went through the series nothing about him or about his goals actually changed at all, it's just that everything in the series is a metaphor so you can't rely on anything because of what characters say is not what they mean. But don't worry, luckilly it seems metaphors only happen in Wesker related stuff.

"All for Umbrella's sake" and "Thanks to you, Umbrella is one step closer to its re-establishment" are metaphors, Wesker and Krauser say Umbrella but they don't mean Umbrella, they mean "Power".

"Sherry is in our hands" is also a metaphor, it doesn't mean Sherry was in Wesker's hands, it means she was just being monitored by Wesker's spies in the governmet, it was allways meant to be that way.

And "You destroyed my plans" is another metaphor too, it just means "My plan succeeded, but I hate you anyway because you didn't let the Tyrant kill you and I had to work harder to reach my goal because of that"

Ada's Report came later for the PS2 version of RE4, it was not included in the GC version, nor the entire Ada story mode, so there's also no guarantee that they didn't change their mind about the Umbrella revival later and turned into "oooooh... everything was a metaphor" Umbrella didn't mean Umbrella.

[Grem]

I agree with Michelle and Sly. Beta doesn't mean anything. In every creative process they consider things at one point and change their minds afterwards because of various reasons.

Even if they wanted Wesker to be uncounscious in the power room at one point doesn't change the fact they chose to kill him off in the end.

But I do get what News Bot is trying to say. In the developpers minds, maybe (big emphasis on "maybe") they didn't want to get rid of him completely. Eventually, they went with Wesker's death. Probably because they weren't sure there was going to be a sequel first and foremost. So the villain had to die.

In the end, it was a mistake to kill him off, because when they wanted to bring him back they had to find a questionnable plot device to do so.

[Jimmy_Jazz]

Great, so we're all in agreement: bury the current timeline and characters & start afresh ;-)*

* the wink indicates sarcasm.

[TheBatMan]

I agree with Michelle and Sly. Beta doesn't mean anything. In every creative process they consider things at one point and change their minds afterwards because of various reasons.

Even if they wanted Wesker to be uncounscious in the power room at one point doesn't change the fact they chose to kill him off in the end.

But I do get what News Bot is trying to say. In the developpers minds, maybe (big emphasis on "maybe") they didn't want to get rid of him completely. Eventually, they went with Wesker's death. Probably because they weren't sure there was going to be a sequel first and foremost. So the villain had to die.

In the end, it was a mistake to kill him off, because when they wanted to bring him back they had to find a questionnable plot device to do so.

I disagree. I think beta or not, it proves something was considered. And that was the big question wasn't it? was wesker's comeback, regardless of how it happened, a random event for the sake of it? was it shoehorned in, or was it pre-planned? That line alone indicates (and I say indicates, not proves) that once upon a time the developers at least considered a branching scenario where Wesker potentially survived. And had this made it into final retail (which admittedly I thought it did) it may have negated the need for magic revival virus plot to occur in CV. Point is, whilst making the game, capcom considered a future use for the character, which was ultimately discarded at the time. But I'd gamble it was this initial consideration that was the genesis for his eventual comeback in CV.

[Jimmy_Jazz]

When people talk about the Beta script found on the Jap RE1 disc, what do they mean exactly? A database of dialogue entries, unused data for certain rooms, a document with the whole script typed out etc?

[TheBatMan]

a few pages back I posted all available event and text descriptions from the debug version of biohazard relating only to the second power room. This alone dismisses any possibility of it being an unconscious Barry in the main lab.

[Jimmy_Jazz]

I saw them, but I wanted to know about how they were found on the disc and in what kind of format.

Whilst the Beta text includes a different line, there is no proof to suggest whether that was a bug or not.

We can draw our own conclusions but do not mistake or promote to otherrs your interpretation as fact.

[TheBatMan]

We can draw our own conclusions but do not mistake or promote to otherrs your interpretation as fact.

I haven't. Hence words such as 'indicates' 'considered' 'potentially', 'gamble' and 'not proves.'

[Jimmy_Jazz]

This alone dismisses any possibility of it being an unconscious Barry in the main lab.

I can't speak for Resident Evil's systems, but it's common for game dialogue to be entered into a database or spreadsheet (sometimes it's written fresh into the spreadsheet, sometimes it's copied over from a document) then exported / compiled into files that can be read by the game engine. This usually helps keeps translations together when localizing but separate when the game needs them. You reference the heading / location of each line / string, rather than the dialogue itself too.

Due to human error in all parts of every dialogue pipeline I've worked with it's possible for lines to get mixed up on a regular basis. And one of the most common errors arise from copying & pasting string locations and forgetting to change the unique part of the string. So until I know more about RE's tools & based on bugs I've seen & dealt with there's a sensible possibility for the "He's unconscious" line could be a line for Barry's body that was copied to the engine room by accident instead of Wesker's line being copied from the lab to the engine room.

[Grem]

Point is, whilst making the game, capcom considered a future use for the character, which was ultimately discarded at the time.

This is where we disagree.

Who said that ? Was there any proof that Capcom thought about the future of RE whilst making the game ?

In my honest opinion, I don't think they even thought about the "after RE1" during developement. They weren't even sure the game was going to be a success.

[Jimmy_Jazz]

It's not a case of "Who Said That?" but that TheBatman is using the beta line "He's Unconscious" on Wesker's corpse in the engine room as evidence towards that.

I'd be inclined to count that line as evidence too if it wasn't identical to one present on Barry's body in the lab. Mixed up text and dialogue due to copy & paste errors is a common form of bug that is ironed out over development.

[TheBatMan]

I'll check when I get home. For the record, what does it say exactly in the lab when you check Barry's body in the English version? Is it 'He's unconscious', or is it something along the lines of 'There's no time for that!' I can't recall.