“Everybody has asked this question,” says Resident Evil Veronica producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, when I quiz him on why Capcom decided to drop the ‘Code’ from its latest remake title.
In Capcom’s golden era, its Resident Evil remakes have been its star players, racking up millions in sales, and plaudits from players and critics alike. However, few were expecting it to turn to Code Veronica, a lesser-known Sega Dreamcast game, for its next big reanimation. And why the name change?
The answer to both of those questions, Hirabayashi says, is that the game’s development team sees Veronica as a far more integral instalment in the Resident Evil series than some historical records might show.
“We respect the original title very deeply. And that goes for all aspects, including the title ‘Code Veronica’,” he tells VGC, following the remake’s reveal at Summer Game Fest. “However, to us, Code Veronica is just as vital and important as a numbered Resident Evil entry. So, the discussion that arose in the development team was, what’s something we can do to communicate that to our audience?”
He explains: “If you think about our recent mainline entries and the titles, you probably noticed a pattern, that they have a one-word subtitle that encapsulates a very important part of the game. So, aligning with that title convention that we’re taking in our recent mainline numbered entries, we followed a similar alignment.”
Veronica’s development team considers the original to be just as important as the series’ numbered instalments. Plot-wise, it’s difficult to disagree: Veronica follows directly on from RE2 and 3, continuing the story of the former’s co-protagonist, Claire Redfield, and her brother Chris from the original game, and contains important story revelations, such as the return of series villain Albert Wesker.
Since Hirabayashi’s team also created the Resident Evil 2 and 4 remakes, Veronica was a natural next project, so that it could continue the storylines of both Leon and Claire, he says.
“We were able to deliver the experience of playing as Leon in the Raccoon City incident with Resident Evil 2 and then continue his story with Resident Evil 4,” the producer explains. “So, one of the key motivations behind [remaking Veronica] was that we also wanted to tell the story of Claire after the events in Raccoon City.”
“To us, Code Veronica is just as vital and important as a numbered Resident Evil entry. So, the discussion that arose in the development team was, what’s something we can do to communicate that to our audience?”
He adds: “We, the development team, think the original Code Veronica is as a title that’s just as important and significant as any other numbered title in the series.”
The Summer Game Fest reveal trailer features a tense apartment scene in Paris – likely a nod to the introduction of the original game, which is set in the city. Despite taking place in first-person, Hirabayashi confirms Resident Evil Veronica is “a third-person game”, like RE2 and RE4, although the producer isn’t revealing many gameplay details beyond that.
One hint might come from the character of Claire. Although Veronica takes place just three months after the events of RE2, in which Redfield was a simple college student searching for her brother, the Raccoon City incident has clearly changed her in some ways, Hirabayashi says.
“You could probably imagine something like a mashup of RE2 game mechanics. It’s not like in the span of three months she became a government agent or anything, but her experiences haven’t left her the exact same person that she was in RE2.”
In Veronica, players will discover more about who Claire is and her motivations, the producer says. “Of course, there’s a lot more about her that we haven’t shared before that you can learn about her; there’s a lot more untold, and so yeah, the remake is definitely an opportunity to dive deeper into those aspects of her character.”
Like Resident Evil’s previous remakes, there are likely to be some big changes planned too. Veronica’s producer said the development team has taken the same approach as with its previous remakes, gathering feedback from players and trying to be conscious of what made the original popular, but also collecting its own feelings about what it feels was important about it.
“It’s not like in the span of three months she became a government agent or anything, but her experiences haven’t left her the exact same person that she was in RE2.”
“After doing that, if you just want to deliver a meaningful remake, we do need new elements that will deliver a meaningful survival horror experience,” he says. “And so that process is a very lengthy one where we put all that on the table with the development team, and we have very long discussions on what the correct way to take things would be.
“Of course, we feel pressure, but that’s extended to the overall philosophy and approach that we take to the game, which is how do we respect and retain that experience in the core points of what everyone thought about the original, but also deliver a new, refreshing experience with the remake.”
Another undeniable influence on the Veronica development team will be the success of its recent releases, notably the huge release of Resident Evil Requiem this year, which smashed launch records for the series.
Though Veronica isn’t taking anything too substantial from the ninth entry, like its switching first and third-person perspectives, Hirabayashi says the team have taken learnings from Requiem.
“I do want to say that, you know, of course, the feedback that we get from audiences, we always reference that for anything,” he tells us.
“Since the original Code Veronica launch in 2000, there have been many different entries from the Resident Evil series up until now. One thing that we are looking at is, not just what’s been done before, but looking at Requiem and looking at where the universe is in that game, and finding ways to reflect that and connect that to the remake and the story there as well.
“Jumping into the more specifics of what we want to take from Requiem, again, we do this for every title, but for the Veronica remake, one big aspect is the usability, and the quality of the game feel itself. We’ve gained a lot of knowledge as we’ve created games, including Requiem, and so we’re taking all that knowledge that we’ve accumulated and using it for Veronica as well.”
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