Resident Evil 5 was officially announced on June 2005, but it was shown to the public for the first time only two months later in a CG trailer. Capcom created another trailer for the game in 2007. Even in the last year of the development Capcom was still moving things around. For example, the crash site of the helicopter was originally a fully playable section, not a series of QTE. >>> Read the full article: Resident Evil 5 Beta Analysis
Article by yota
Resident Evil 5 was officially announced on June 2005, but it was shown for the first time to the public only two months later in a CG trailer. This video was essentially one of the concepts that the developers were working on since the release of Resident Evil 4: in what at time seemed to be the Middle East or Africa, we saw Chris exploring the alleys of a city and then being attacked by a group of enemies.
The graphics style and the general mood were already much similar to the released game, even if Chris looked somewhat younger and less bulky.It is interesting to note that producer of the game said, in an old interview, that originally the time of the day and the weather were supposed to have a major impact on the gameplay and affect the main characters abilities. Also, Resident Evil 5 was intended to be single player. Sheva was originally a NPC and a member of a local militia.She would have meet Chris only later in the game.
Anyway, Capcom created another trailer for Resident Evil 5 in 2007. The beginning of this video was not that different from the final game: Chris walked for a bit in the village and then suddenly all the natives seemed to vanish. There were, however, many important differences: Sheva and the dealer were nowhere to be found, Chris didn’t have his safari dress, cutscenes and dialogues were shorter, the location where we fought for the first time was completely removed, enemies had some attacks that can’t be found in the released game, such as the headbutt, and so on.
Even in the last year of the development Capcom was still moving things around. For example, the crash site of the helicopter was originally a fully playable section, not a series of QTE’s.
2004 Beta artworks
The merchant from Re 4 was supposed to return in Resident Evil 5. There were many shops around the town and you could even stole weapons and ammo.
Quest was a cancelled Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) game that was in development at Rare Ltd. Before Raretopia.com vanished from the web, they had some interesting informations about the project:
When Microsoft purchased RARE, one of the things it highlighted was its established series. Having paid such a high price for the renowned codehouse, Microsoft naturally wanted to exploit its past work to the utmost. Shortly after its acquisition, it therefore organised a restructuring of the company where high-profile franchises such as Perfect Dark and Conker were prioritized over more experimental titles.
The first game to suffer from this change of focus was RARE’s top-secret online game that was originally planned for the Nintendo GameCube but soon converted to the Microsoft Xbox. Codenamed Quest, it was a massively multiplayer online space shooter led by Mark Edmonds, Duncan Botwood, and Chris Seavor in the programming, design, and art roles respectively. Despite having been in the works for about two years, development on the game was progressing slowly, largely due to its lack of distinct direction with regards to design. With the Xbox already being overcrowded with online games, Microsoft thus decided to cancel the title and relocate the 13-strong team to more important titles.
Thanks to Purerarity, some more info were leaked in october 2011:
Quest started around 2000 after Perfect Dark N64 as a mixed fantasy MMO. One name it had for a while was Elements of 3 Powers but it wasn’t related to Kameo (the other team probably took over the name when it was abandoned). Around 2001 Quest was a space shooter for the Gamecube and in 2002 it was converted to the Xbox and shortly thereafter put on hold. After Perfect Dark Zero a fantasy MMO version came back, this time titled Cascade. It was however cancelled in 2007 when the team did GoldenEye 007 for the XBLA instead. As you all know, the latter was finished but never released.
Sadly there are no Quest images or videos available at the moment.
Wonder Boy in Monster World (Wonder Boy V Monster World III in Japan) is a title in the series of Wonder Boy games which were developed in the 1980s and 1990s by Sega and Westone. It is the fifth game in the Wonder Boy series, and the third game in the Monster World sub-series. [Infos from Wikipedia]
As Zero7 has made us to notice with a topic in our forum, a prototype of this game was leaked online and it’s possible to find it on various Master System roms archives. Some of the differences that can be found in the proto are:
Thanks to Zero7 for the contribution!
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Quake is a famous fps released in 1996. In a preview section of Commander Keen (dated 1/23/90), we can see that originally the game was going to be a 2d role-playing game. Also, when in the mid 90’s they created the quake engine, the early testing was made on some Doom levels.
Also, as we can read on Wikipedia, the earliest information released described Quake as focusing on a Thor-like character who wields a giant hammer, and is able to knock away enemies by throwing the hammer (complete with real-time inverse kinematics). At the start, the levels were supposed to be designed in an Aztec style, but the choice was dropped some months into the project. Early screenshots then showed medieval environments and dragons. The plan was for the game to have more RPG-style elements.
Eventually, the whole id team began to think that the original concept may not have been as wise a choice as they first believed. Thus, the final game was very stripped down from its original intentions, and instead featured gameplay similar to Doom and its sequel, although levels and enemies were closer to medieval RPG style rather than science-fiction.
Before the release of the game or the demo of the game, id software released QTest on February 24, 1996. It was described as a technology demo and was limited to three multiplayer maps. There was no single player support and some of the gameplay and graphics were unfinished or different from their final versions.
As noted by Portend (check the video below):
There are quite a few differences in this deathmatch test release like the map designs and weapon models for instance. When I start moving and going down the stairs you’ll see armour in front of a gate, in the full release of Quake that armour is behind the gate.
After I go through the portal and across the moving platform, then back again… dropping down the lift is the Rocket Launcher (the red model which isn’t the finished version of the weapon). That hall in the final version has an alcove with the rocket launcher in it and straight ahead towards the steps is another alcove with the Quad Damage modifier sitting up top along with some boxes of health, that area as you can see doesn’t exist.
Some more info can be read thanks to old interviews with John Romero:
Quake as it turned out is not what Quake was supposed to be in either that original prototype (TFFJ) or in the original concept of what Quake1 was going to be. The idea completely changed and the only reason we didn’t change the name of the game is because everyone in the world already knew what we were working on.
Nope. Quake was one original idea that got changed 7 months before shipping to something totally different and the name remained because the world already knew what the game was called.
Our dragon was going to be a massive fly-by that traveled along a path outside the level, dropping in for some firebreathing every now and then. Mostly it was gonna be for a cool, huge character event. The Vomitus was going to be something disgusting that vomited small versions of itself that attacked you.
Also Spirit recorded a long session from the Quake beta, you can check it at Quaddicted or Archive.org!
Thanks to Nathan for the contribution!
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