Biohazard 2 Beta 1 (Very first beta)

[Darkside05]

I can see the gun animations especially Leon with the shotgun in the Licker hallway is still of the 1.5 era.

[doriantoki]

Yup. Jill's, from what I remember, kind of places her weight on one leg, and with the arm that's on that same leg, taps her gun back and forth. Chris', IIRC, takes both hands, and in a pose of contemplation, crosses his arms. Could be remembering that second one wrong. It's been awhile.

[Enigmatism415]

only to scrap it in favor of reusing Jill's.

I don't even remember characters in RE1 having idle poses... o.O

[biohazard_star]

The characters don't have one in retail. The animation is identical to Elza's from one of the final era trailers, so I guess it's a carry over from 1.5. It's sorta weird how they made a unique idle pose for Elza (the one we see in the BZork video) only to scrap it in favor of reusing Jill's.

[doriantoki]

Looks like an idle pose. What's Claire's idle pose in retail 2? It's been so long since I've seen it.

[biohazard_star]

Around the 1:50 mark with Claire, is that an idle animation I see or just the default Caution pose?

[doriantoki]

Maybe not careless, but perhaps there was a bit of miscommunication.

[Enigmatism415]

^^^ This is all a relief to hear. So the authors of this E3 video and a few of the magazine articles were just being careless by mixing footage and images respectively... how misleading :/

[doriantoki]

This is also backed by the fact that the scenario was rewritten BEFORE development began on RE2. As such, the whole game would be too different for them to work off 1.5 as a base.

[imacwesker]

I was always under the impression that the line between 1.5 and 2 was a clearly defined one.

It is. This video is just a massive screw-up from Capcom's PR department, mixing footage from two games (RE1.5 and RE2) together. Or they were told that they had to provide an x minutes long video for E3, didn't have enough footage of RE2 and decided to produce this hybrid video.
Point is, RE1.5 and RE2 are two different games.

[Enigmatism415]

I was always under the impression that the line between 1.5 and 2 was a clearly defined one. A few magazine articles showcased images from both and interspersed them, but I just assumed it was an oversight or ignorance on their part. After watching this E3 footage... It seems like RE2beta1 was some kind of hybrid mixing elements of 1.5 and 2. It looks like the BH1.5 RPD was the first to be scrapped and replaced with the retail RPD, yet they initially kept the same Factory and Laboratory from BH1.5. Does anyone know if this is the case? It seems like instead of "wiping the slate clean" in one fell swoop, as the interviews imply, the change from 1.5 to 2 was more gradual and sectional in nature. In other words, as the game-play progresses, the similarities between 1.5 and 2 increase; any changes that were made to the later chapters were applied later on in the redevelopment process.

If we ever got our hands on RE2beta1, we might find tons of assets from the final build of BH1.5. At the very least, we'd find those Factory backgrounds missing from the RE2 Trial disc (three rooms worth), along with the updated version of the Factory Office (the one seen in the Inflames-exclusive images).

I am very curious as to whether RE2beta1's Sewer is more similar to the BH1.5 version or the retail version... hopefully the former. Maybe it's possible that if the unique contents of RE2beta1 were used to "patch up" the PSM build of BH1.5, a product closer in nature to the final "Inflames-exclusive" beta could be synthesized.

[RMandel]

The RE2 Beta 1 trailer starts about 00:14 and ends about 02:22. You know the one - Beta 1 RPD with RE15 Warehouse District and Underground Lab. Nice to see it again, though.

[Dark Biohazard]

New old BH1.5/BH2 Beta 1 mix from E3 1997 (extended gameplay) video posted by Anthaemia from assemblergames forums:

Beta-V1
(Click to see the full size!):

Nice work but source on the beta 1 images? i've been following beta 1 for years and don't ever recall seeing these still images.... Hell i don't ever recalling seeing the second beta 1 image where Ben is a zombie?

The "Beta 1" background for the morgue is still present on the Trial Disk. I guess they're from the same era of development then?

Beta 1 predates the Trial Edition. The Trial Edition is basically a hacked up version of beta 1, it was used as a base for the public demo but a lot of stuff was changed or stripped back, making it a very bare bones build compared to what it once was. This is why you find so much beta content locked away, because it all comes from beta 1 however at this point the game was once again being redesigned, a lot of content was rejected and would no longer be returning in later builds. To the best of my knowledge at the time of beta 1 and the Trial Edition both characters were still being played on a single disc and there were many coding differences compared to the retail game, all this was changing at this point in development and this old design was left behind. This marks the turning point where Leon and Claire were separated onto individual discs and the games design was close to being finalised.