Resident Evil 4 (GameCube)

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Resident Evil 4 (GameCube).

This page is rather stubbly and could use some expansion. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue this article?

To do: Add information from the sources given on these pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_4#Development https://residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/Resident_Evil_4_(2005)/development https://web.archive.org/web/20120621104531fw_/http://www.geocities.jp/bgrtype/gsl/words/biohazardgc/biogc.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120621104530fw_/http://www.geocities.jp/bgrtype/gsl/words/biohazard4/bio4.html

Maboroshi no Biohazard 4#

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTubeThere's some footage that demonstrates one incarnation of the game in its earlier stages of development. The most notable difference is its ghost-based gameplay and its look, which is more similar to the previous 3 games. Some images found in a prototype version of the game, which include a control diagram and a map of the playable area, seem to originate from this version.

Las Vegas 2004 trailer#

Watch on YouTubeAnother early build of the version of Resident Evil 4 that would eventually be released, this trailer also contains a lot of noticeable differences from the retail build. This trailer is found on biohazard 4 Secret Disc set labeled as the Las Vegas trailer. The pamphlet holding the DVD set notes this trailer was shown off by Capcom at the Capcom Press Event in January of 2004.

• 0:08 - Leon is shown walking through the first area of the game but at nighttime, it is not raining yet. It is impossible to see this combination as during the retail release, this area and the area where Luis was locked in a dressing closet are both boarded off. Even if the player tries to go out of bounds to trigger entering either area, the game will not allow them to. The bullet icon displayed is much smaller than in the retail releases. There are far more more plants growing around the path as well
• 0:14 - Leon's health bar is drastically different showing only the health he has but not the health he can gain throughout the game, the lines breaking down the health bar chunk by chunk are also missing
• 0:20 - Leon enters the village at night with the villagers holding torches and actively waiting for him. A lot more villagers seem to have torches (possibly due to it being nighttime)
• 0:31 - While it is difficult to make out due to how intense the bonfire is, the officer is laying on top of the firewood rather than being impaled on a stake. The woman who is usually carrying a bucket of water here is missing and it is instead a guy carrying the bucket back and forth
• 0:36 - Leon has a placeholder voice actor say "Hey" and no other dialog is spoken
• 0:58 - The villager from inside the first house in the game is shown dead on the porch with the three villagers who come after the small battle is over. This is impossible in the retail build, even if the door to the outside is open, the door will immediately slam shut once you get close and shows the text "It won't budge! They must be pressing against it from the other side!" instead. In earlier demo builds, if Leon does the same thing before killing the first villager, the text is seen but villagers are heard on the other side of the door. The villager audio was removed sometime during development making the text in the retail version make less sense as the villagers do not arrive until after Leon kills the first villager in the house
• 1:01 - A house in the village is entered, due to how little detail is shown, this seems to be a slightly emptier version of the house with the small bedroom and drawer that can be pushed to block the entrance door.
• 1:19 - Another placeholder Leon voice line is spoken here with him saying "No..", in the retail version, he says "Ah... no."
• 1:25 - An earlier version of Ashley is shown in the photo Leon is presenting to the villager
• 1:31 - The harpoon weapon icon is missing, Del Lago also sounds slightly higher pitched when hit. When Leon gets knocked out of the boat, he does not lose any health from it
• 2:07 - A villager is shown using the scrapped leaping attack
• 2:18 - All guns use the same bullet icon in the HUD, likely as icons for other weapon ammunition types had not been implemented yet
• 2:26 - Whether an error or not, a villager is shown wearing either Leon's jacket in the back left or a very similar jacket
• 2:34 - Another placeholder Leon voice with him asking "What are they doing?!"
• 2:41 - Leon is shown using a TMP here, a weapon he cannot obtain until Chapter 1-3 when he meets the Merchant for the first time
• 2:46 - A villager with a beanie is shown here instead of a woman like in the retail version
  
• 3:09 - Leon is shown fighting off and surviving Dr. Salvador's chainsaw attack. While this was scrapped in the retail build, later ports do have small chances of triggering a bug where it can still happen at either 60 FPS and higher or if the player somehow causes the game to lag down to 10 FPS.
• 3:16 - Leon is shown saying something but no dialog is heard
• The end of the trailer implied the game would be released in December of 2004 but the game's release was pushed back by a month to January 2005

GameSpot March 2004 review#

In January of 2004, GameSpot's Ricardo Torres got to play the Las Vegas build of Resident Evil 4 with some notable differences still present.

• The bullet icon is still small according to the screenshots present
• The bridge that Leon was driven in from is implied to have collapsed already, whether the two police officers drove him there or not is unknown
• An interesting detail that somehow makes its way into the retail release is the demo allows the player to jump through the window into the house before meeting the first villager. The screenshot shown in the article made its way into all versions of the Playing Manual 1 guide in-game on page 4.
• The implication that Leon finds the Rifle instead of the Shotgun in the second story of the house with the extended roof structure

IGN March 2004 review#

IGN posted a review in March of 2004 as well citing that they were also present at the Capcom Press Event 2004. There are an even greater amount of details noted in this review, with some of it referencing content that was eventually dummied out in the retail release.

• It is noted Leon drove to this location by himself instead of with the two local police officers driving him there
• Leon is seeing more of the villagers all gathered around the bonfire where the police officer is on top of the bonfire, deceased
• The path to the village was open already implying the truck that drives the vehicle off the bridge is somewhere else as when the playtesters tried to escape back to the car at the bridge, the bridge has collapsed with the vehicle in the river
• The choice system is noted here with the option to either ask the villager in the first cabin if you "want to ask about the girl" or "call for backup."
  • The playtesters choose "call for backup" which results in the villager knocking the radio communicator out of Leon's hand by throwing an axe and then trying to attack him with an axe.
• The players have to push the bookshelf in front of the door to block it, in the retail version, this happens during the cutscene instead
• In this build, the D-Pad has a camera function allowing the player to zoom-in, zoom-out, or change the camera back to default zoom. In the retail release, the D-Pad functions the same way as the Left Control stick
• R+A serves a different purpose, rather than aiming and firing a weapon, pressing these two together allows for Leon to do special animations such as running up to an enemy to kick them then shooting them right afterwards, a feature completely removed by the time the game released
• 8 Dr. Salvador goes down in four shotgun shots
• It's again implied that Leon has the TMP early, although this time it seems to be noted as being in his inventory already
• A red spray is noted to extend Leon's health when used. Given the playable demo version of Resident Evil 4 / biohazard 4 feature an earlier look when combining the G+R+Y herbs together, the red spray was most likely a very early version of this herb mixture
• Shinji Mikami's wristwatch is also noted here as an item that Leon can pick up, in the retail builds, the wristwatch is still present but has been dummied out and can only viewed by digging through the game's textures