16 Bit Resident Evil Demake Now Called Bio Evil

What would Resident Evil have looked like had Capcom released it on the Sega Genesis? A 16-bit platform that would obviously require a change in perspective – gone would be the 3D polygon enemies and pre-rendered backgrounds. While we may never know what Capcom’s take on survival horror would look like in 16-bits, we can thank independent homebrew developers for that chance. The team at PSCD are doing just that with Bio Evil for the Sega Genesis.

Origins of evil

When Capcom released Resident Evil on the original PlayStation it was a fresh take on a barely known genre. Prior to RE there were entries such as the Alone in the Dark franchise which never really caught on with gamers – probably due to slow gameplay all around and bland graphics. Capcom clearly knew they were in a unique position here and ran with it. Too bad the North American version was censored more than once when you consider re-releases like the Director’s Cut re-release.

Officially Capcom did work on a Game Boy Color version called Resident Evil Gaiden but that version was not exactly well received by fans or critics. It was quite a departure from what fans were enjoying on the PlayStation platform.

Resident Evil Gaiden was played from an overhead perspective with battles taking place in a first-person scene. Battles were handled with a sliding bar, like what sports gamers have dealt with for years. Not exactly the “Resident Evil” feel.

Bringing the evil to Sega Genesis

Work on Bio Evil has been ongoing for a while now. I don’t have a definite date for when the team started but our first coverage occurred in late 2017. What was shown then was slightly less detailed, but it showed familiar scenes from the first game (the first encounter with a zombie for instance).

The more recent photos released of Bio Evil show another familiar location, the piano room in two forms. One is obviously barren with detail level on par with what we saw about in late 2017.

The second portion of the picture shows the same room with much more detail. From the carpet to the walls to the piano itself, there is far more going on in the second picture than there was in the first. The walls are dingy looking, the carpet has more detail and the bar looks well stocked. This looks like a lived-in mansion party room.

This is quite interesting because shows development is continuing Bio Evil. It is going to be interesting as this goes on to see how Capcom responds. There simply has not been that many fan takes on Capcom games to garner enough information to gauge odds they will shut it down like Nintendo or Square Enix would.

Getting your Resident Evil fix today

There are a ton of Resident Evil games available over the years. Check out eBay or Amazon for proof of the sheer number of games and even merchandise available. It is sometimes overwhelming.

Source: Sega Genesis Facebook group

This article was originally published on Retro Gaming Magazine, a gaming website I own.