[RELEASE] Biohazard 1.5 Hacks

[Guest]

Is it safe to assume the game was cancelled post 24th December 1996? Surely there's no reason to keep developing content for a game with no certain future.

[Borman]

And there is always the possibility that the last build shown isn't the last build that was made (or the last thing that was implemented), it could have been their last "Milestone" build though. For instance, when Im covering Stargate on my site, I was given the last milestone, but the game had been worked on off and on after that.

[Kegluneq]

The 40% moniker most likely stems from a brief group chat between THIA staff (group was basically the usual gang featured on the podcast) on Skype when talking about the build PSM had acquired years ago, and then the 40% number was just thrown out there as a reference to just approximately how far into 1.5's development period that build "most likely" was -- based on the very limited information we were given when we were both negotiating with PSM and also assisting with content verification and some translations before he basically entirely pulled back thanks to the fantastic public drama the game's sudden discovery unearthed (and by the logic used at the time, "cancellation date == 100%" - So the number wasn't even referencing to "retail goals", but rather time period from start of development to cancellation ;D) Curator also used the 40% moniker, iirc, but I think it came from us after we helped with identifying the state of which his build was in.

The more you know.

Nice to know. I think Alzaire was the first to publicly call the PSM build the "40% build" but it's been so long I'm not certain. How did you guys come up with the 40% value? What was that based on?

Is it safe to assume the game was cancelled post 24th December 1996? Surely there's no reason to keep developing content for a game with no certain future.

Yes, that seems to be the case. None of the assets featured in the Trial Disc were present in the official Complete Disc footage, and that was released in mid-1998.

And there is always the possibility that the last build shown isn't the last build that was made (or the last thing that was implemented), it could have been their last "Milestone" build though. For instance, when Im covering Stargate on my site, I was given the last milestone, but the game had been worked on off and on after that.

The last build shown was technically the last build made, since the official Complete Disc footage was released long after the project was scrapped and Capcom would have no reason to use an outdated build to showcase the Prototype. It was missing some assets that were later revamped, though. Meaning that while they were certainly done by that point, it was never burned to the disc (or coded into the game, like some of the assets floating in the PVB [or PSM] disc).

[Carnivol]

Nice to know. I think Alzaire was the first to publicly call the PSM build the "40% build" but it's been so long I'm not certain. How did you guys come up with the 40% value? What was that based on?

I already said that. We checked what little we knew of the build at the time up against available media and just roughly threw it on a timeline where 0% was start date and 100% was what evt. was our assumed cancellation date (ie. more or less the oldest RE2 assets, which generally dates back to April 1st, although there were probably 2-3 months of pre-production and what not before that). That's context. Gives an idea of roughly where they were time wise, but not really assets wise.

The last build shown was technically the last build made, since the official Complete Disc footage was released long after the project was scrapped and Capcom would have no reason to use an outdated build to showcase the Prototype. It was missing some assets that were later revamped, though. Meaning that while they were certainly done by that point, it was never burned to the disc (or coded into the game, like some of the assets floating in the PVB [or PSM] disc).

Game development isn't linear. Stuff like the builds they've used for footage could be anything from complete milestones to just someone's daily for hardware testing of a single function (or compiled just for the purpose of capturing that footage - despite it not being operatable/implemented in the main code base or part of the current milestone target). The Complete Disc footage was probably just assembled from footage in the archive or the most recent stable build from the vault (since dailies are generally not archived outside of active development anyway - especially not back then)

[Borman]

Exactly what Carn said Assuming the Complete Disc footage is the last build isn't the best way of going about things. The last seen build? Likely. Heck, for all we know it could be taken from a dozen builds each showing off something different that was being worked on. Ive gotten a few builds from different games that were built around the same day, but one was built for an artist, one was build for a programmer, etc.

[Kegluneq]

I already said that. We checked what little we knew of the build at the time up against available media and just roughly threw it on a timeline where 0% was start date and 100% was what evt. was our assumed cancellation date (ie. more or less the oldest RE2 assets, which generally dates back to April 1st, although there were probably 2-3 months of pre-production and what not before that). That's context. Gives an idea of roughly where they were time wise, but not really assets wise.

Thank you for clarifying that. What confused me was that the estimation percentage from the initial development to the cancellation period was off, considering that we know that the game was talked about being scrapped somewhere in February (perhaps even January) and no other assets seemed to be created past December. Like you said, context is king. I don't think that back in 2007-2008 we had that information.

Game development isn't linear. Stuff like the builds they've used for footage could be anything from complete milestones to just someone's daily for hardware testing of a single function (or compiled just for the purpose of capturing that footage - despite it not being operatable/implemented in the main code base or part of the current milestone target). The Complete Disc footage was probably just assembled from footage in the archive or the most recent stable build from the vault (since dailies are generally not archived outside of active development anyway - especially not back then)

I can see why you bring up the possibility of footage being assembled from the archive, as such practice was present in regards to BH2 Prototype. However it's an argument I'd have to disagree with since there's a tangible example that disproves that - the TGS 1997 April trailer footage. Although this footage is proof of what you're saying, it's also proof that past the cancellation date, Capcom went through the trouble of digging the most stable build they had in their vault (as I assume that whatever they had in their computers at the time had been replaced by fresh BH2 data - this is 1998 we are talking about). By April 1997, Capcom had scrapped BH2 Prototype and began to work in BH2 retail. However, for some odd reason, the footage they put for presentation, for whatever reasons they choose, only corresponded to the 4.8 or 4.9 build (as I like to call them). It wasn't until they released the most complete footage they had at the time, the 5.0 build, that we learned of this fact. The evidence belongs to none other than the infamous sewers - the upper canal - that got remodeled and featured the grenades working somewhat properly (minus the animation). This means that the stock footage was pulled out of the archive for the TGS presentation, possibly for in-house marketing of the Saturn vers. long before the April 1997 date, but that such was definitely not the case for the Complete Disc videos. Ys1's analysis further provided evidence that the bioflames.com build and the 5.0 build were one and the same when he compared the two builds to the unused pre-rendered BGs of the C2-Hangar section. While there's certainly a possibility that another build could have existed past the 5.0 build (one which implemented the unused pre-rendered BGs of the Umb. Factory and Laboratory), that seems to be highly unlikely. And if it does, it's highly possible that not even Capcom has it.

[dady977]

Oh my gosh!! Thank you so much for putting your time in this amazing project, You should accept donations because you will get tons of them, Thanks again for putting your precious time in this project for us the public!

[RMandel]

While there's certainly a possibility that another build could have existed past the 5.0 build (one which implemented the unused pre-rendered BGs of the Umb. Factory and Laboratory), that seems to be highly unlikely. And if it does, it's highly possible that not even Capcom has it.

Kinda makes you wonder about that mysterious private collector who was in contact with the Team for a while, plus some other odd reports I've seen (and others) from around the edges of the hunt for RE15. Sigh .... That trail is so cold now, it's got frost all over it.

Oh, well. At least we now know for what to look and how to look for it with regards to just about any RE15 build out there. Someday ... maybe ... but until then, we make do with what we have. Thanks for all your hard work, Keg -- and you too, Martin. Thanks for at least giving us chances to glimpse the unseen, or what might have been.

[GamerTak3r]

Nice mods Darkbiohazard. I wonder sometime in the future if you could mod BH2 to be like BH 2 beta 1. As you see it has slighty different animation, like idle stance. slighty different backgrounds (not counting 1.5 ones) different shotgun "spas 12" and slighty different cutscenes (for example different marvin dialogue).
27:52

(ignore the 1.5 part)
BH 2 Beta status pics

[Dark Biohazard]

Is a nice idea, but I not know, maybe sometime in the future. ;)

[GamerTak3r]

Is a nice idea, but I not know, maybe sometime in the future. ;)

Alright. I look forward for your updates. Keep it up

[Rocket]

Dark Biohazard, nice work! Thanks for HUNK in 1.5!

[Graco]

How difficult has fixing the broken weapons proven to be?

[Mikhail]

I was getting around to it, has RE2MV animation block export / import been added yet? I haven't checked for updates since august.
I was going make Birkin's pipe as another player weapon and reuse the empty flamethrower animation to remake the silent hill hammerdrill.

[Dark Biohazard]

I was getting around to it, has RE2MV animation block export / import been added yet?

Yeah, the creator add those option from a few of months ago, if you not notice yet, I use it to fix/change and add weapons. ;)