The pre-beta version of the original Resident Evil is available to play

If you're a hardcore Resident Evil fan, then the PC is your best friend because of all of the mods & conversions that you can download and play. One of the more recent conversions is a pre-beta version of the first Resident Evil title. Fans who dig deep into the lore of Resident Evil should already know that the original version was different from what became the final product.

For those who don't know, Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield were given different names. The former was known as “Jill Morrison” and the latter was known as “Beamer Marcurio” a.k.a “Marc.” The beta of the game is divided into two acts with Marc being playable in the first act and Jill being playable in the second act.

The story's intermission takes place once you come across the Evil Plant (the same one that you kill by the V-Jolt, which you have to create).

The pre-beta's story is mostly similar to the finished story but without Barry Burton and most of the S.T.A.R.S members. The game also begins with you in the woods, where you must evade the zombie dogs and run towards the mansion to regroup with your missing teammates.

Before Barry was created and introduced to the game, his predecessor was a tall & muscular man named Heinrich Gelzer. Gelzer, the heavy weapons specialist, was a war veteran who became a cyborg after sustaining major injuries during his service. The pre-beta introduces players to an animated cut-scene of Gelzer's system being rebooted after lying unconscious on the foyer's ground.

Gelzer is guided by “Laura,” an installed artificial intelligence,” that regulates his organic & cybernetic systems.

When the developers moved away from the science-fiction element that was originally in the story, they found no reason to keep Gelzer in the game. The concept of Gelzer was scrapped and replaced with the creation of Barry Burton.

In Jill's scenario, when Barry opens the door in time to keep her from being crushed by the ceiling, the original scene had Gelzer using his superhuman strength to keep the ceiling from crushing Jill.

The pre-beta had an additional character, Dewey, a tall and skinny black man. The developers had Dewey act as the story's comic relief and act as the unlockable third character with his own playable scenario.

Dewey was cut from the vanished product but his legacy lives on as the instruction manual of the first game mentioned an “Edward Dewey,” whose severed hand is discovered by Joseph Frost (before he's mauled to death by the zombie dogs), as Bravo Team's pilot. In the remake of Resident Evil, originally released on the Nintendo Gamecube, Edward is replaced by “Kevin Dooley.”

Edward Dewey would make an actual appearance in Resident Evil 0 as a member of the Bravo Team who investigates the stranded train. He is severely wounded and succumbs to them but reanimates as a zombie shortly before the train crashes.

The traitorous Captain Albert Wesker, who would grow to become one of Capcom's famous heel characters (likely due to the popularity of voice actor D.C. Douglas), is present in the pre-beta as “Albert Hustler.”

Albert is still a traitorous S.O.B., despite the name change, so that's something to look forward to.

The pre-beta also introduces a mysterious NPC known as the “Lady Hunter,” who is a mostly naked woman with Hunter DNA spliced.

The pre-beta's final boss is much different from the official final boss as the former has psychic powers.

If you're a Resident Evil fan, the pre-beta is worth checking out.

You can read my Medium article on the same topic, too, here at https://medium.com/@canhoangtran/a-pre-resident-evil-1-beta-is-available-thanks-to-the-fans-ce6943ba18f8

In related news, January 27th, 2023 marked the 23rd anniversary of Resident Evil Survivor, which you can read here https://steemit.com/residentevil/@aeonxtrigger/23-years-ago-on-january-27th-resident-evil-survivor-was-launched