Resident Evil 5: Capcom Interview

Here's a fresh and brief interview with Capcom's Resi 5 producers, Jun Takeuchi and Masachika Kawata. Awesome new screens included.

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Kikizo: It seemed like the monsters in RE4 were a bit more 'plausible' than horribly disfigured monstrosities from previous titles. Would you say the enemies in RE5 are more realistic, or more like the fantasy creatures from previous games?

Takeuchi: Well, since this is the first RE game that's going to be on the next-gen consoles, one of the things we're really trying to do with the game is to make things seem as realistic as we can. To fit in with that, the enemies that appear in the game will definitely be a bit more believable, looking like things that could plausibly exist. We think the thought that these things COULD exist might be a bit scarier for the player, as well. But one thing to make note of, I think, is that Japanese and Western people have different ideas as to what could be plausible, what could be believable.

Kikizo: How do you think the sense of fear has changed throughout the RE series?

Takeuchi: That's one of the things we really try to pay attention to - different ways of scaring the player. Obviously we get a lot of inspiration from horror movies - Japanese-style horror movies in particular. A lot of them have taken off and been very successful internationally. Using some of the elements we've seen used in those films, like the contrast between light and dark, is one of the new ways we're trying to create new ways of scaring the player.

Kikizo: Do the enemies we've seen in the game interact with other?

Takeuchi: As you play the game, you'll probably see some scenes where it looks like they're communicating, at the very least.

Kikizo: Has one version been more difficult to develop than the other?

Kawata: I can't really say that one platform is proving more problematic than the other. This game is being developed in Capcom internally on PC hardware. When it comes to porting directly from PC-based hardware, the console that's easier to work with is, naturally, the 360. The PS3 is often said to be more difficult. As someone developing for it, though... I haven't found it to be too tough.

Kikizo: So is porting to the consoles from PC-based development hardware standard procedure at Capcom?

Kawata: Well, it's not the definitive way of how we do things at Capcom, but we found it's one of the easiest ways of doing things for next-gen titles. With our proprietary engine, the MT Framework - it's an engine we specifically made for development on next-gen consoles - one of its particular strengths is ease of porting to different platforms. It's only one of the ways we do development, but in my opinion, it's the easiest way to do it.

Resident Evil 5 is scheduled for release on March 5, 2009 in Japan, and March 13, 2009 in North America and Europe.

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