He felt the game was too similar to the original Resident Evil . It was boring. It lacked the cinematic horror they wanted. So, they threw out nearly two years of work and started from scratch. The result was the Resident Evil 2 we actually played in 1998. When the team rebuilt the game from the ground up, they wanted stronger narrative hooks. Shinji Mikami felt that a random student surviving a zombie outbreak wasn't compelling enough. They needed emotional stakes.
Then, Mikami made a brutal call:
Enter Claire Redfield.
She is the ultimate "lost character," and her lingering presence in the RPD locker room feels like a quiet ghost story hidden inside one of the greatest horror games ever made. re2 elza walker
In 1997, Capcom was roughly 60-80% finished with Resident Evil 2 . Director Hideki Kamiya and producer Shinji Mikami had built a fully playable game. It featured Elza, a different RPD layout (cleaner, more like a real museum), a different enemy type (man-apes), and a much slower, more realistic tone. He felt the game was too similar to
According to the surviving beta builds, Elza was driving to practice at a circuit on the outskirts of Raccoon City when she crashed her bike into a truck to avoid a zombie. She then sought refuge in the Raccoon City Police Department (RPD), where she met Leon. So, they threw out nearly two years of