Exclusive interview with Resident Evil 4 writer Yasuhisa Kawamura focusing on his ‘Hookman’ & ‘Castle’ beta scenarios, collectively known as ‘biohazard 3.5’. The interview & accompanying article contain exclusive development details.
“I’m confident I remember things in detail, but my memory may not be the same as others. Answers are drawn from my own views and experiences, focused on the facts. My recollections are like those of a war veteran. There are accomplices & spectators in war, telling stories from different perspectives, and among soldiers on the same side there are aways different ways of seeing things depending on their role. If I was to liken this to war, I’m a soldier with many tasks!”
CH: It’s a privilege to have this opportunity, we can confidently say on behalf of so many devoted fans across the world, passionate about your work, how delighted we all are to be gifted this interview. We would like to discuss the narrative plot points, creative passions, and influences behind your work creating ‘biohazard 3.5’, that saw you conceive the considerably atmospheric ‘Castle/Fog’ gamelay build, and the ethereal, haunting ‘Hookman/Hallucination’ experimental game-play.
Both versions of your biohazard world, evoke the same senses experienced when playing the first three titles, emotions only survival horror can illicit, and the final version of biohazard 4 failed to produce this experience for many fans. What is the relationship between your Castle game build, and your Hallucination experimental gameplay, and had the Castle build been cancelled before you began to design the Hallucination scenario?
YK: Let me first define more accurately the context in which you use of the word ‘version’. In the development of cinematic games, a game system is integrated into a world view and stories which are already defined, but this was not the case for biohazard 4. Our priority was to build a game system and scenario that induced fright & horror foremost. Therefore, both Hallucination and Catsle were trial and error ideas we thought of implementing, but which ultimately didn’t appear in our final version.
In terms of the order things progressed, the Castle scenario came first, it was the most established. Then the Hallucination element came second. However, when the Hallucination was introduced into the narrative, the concept of the Castle, where Leon kept fighting while an illness was destroying him, was already passed on. So although the Castle was replaced with the Hallucination, one of its themes remained in the game as an expression of Leon’s illness. Also the mechanic where Leon could view a hallucinatory or spirit world, and fight against its residents when the fog filled the room, was considered then too. We had so many trial and error moments at this stage of development.
“Shibata-san, the director had a very clear concept which he described as seeking the horror. He had the image of the horror of mogaki, or of struggling.”
It’s difficult to directly translate the Japanese word ‘mogaki’ into its exact meaning, it’s when you shake your whole body in fear, unable to escape. He wanted me to create not just physical mogaki, rather a state where Leon couldn’t resist mental or psychological pains and difficulties. A type of mogaki simultaneously mental and physical. This mogaki was used as the key concept by the production team, being the keyword created by Shibata-san. The word mogaki is sometimes displayed during the continuous button pressing to escape from enemies in the Japanese biohazard 4. Sadly it’s not in the non-Japanese version, as the word doesn’t translate directly into other languages.
Mikami-san stated biohazard was a horror game demanding a production revolutionary in the horror genre, the concept he used was that of ‘full model change’ from the start of biohazard 4 production.
Shinji Mikami wanted a theme similar to film ‘The Thing’, where you couldn’t tell who was friend and who was foe. I suggested a game system about fears & doubts, but recapturing that essence in a game structure was very difficult, so it was passed on.
With such trial and error I had world views and concepts of game systems to test, that I thought would be suitable to express the type of horror Shibata-san our director were searching for. The idea of hallucination, to see into another plane of reality was one of them. So in the winter of 2002, I gathered the staff and showed a scene from film ‘Lost Souls’, where the room starts to corrode with a blue tint, and a killer emerges.
“This scene of a hallucinatory vision from the character, and the way the room changed in real-time, moved me very much emotionally. So I brought up the idea of attempting this in a game.”
“I wanted to make biohazard 4 scarier, and I suggested that the main character travelled into a hallucinatory world. This hallucination was caused by something" caught in his vision, a trigger of horror.”
The first thing I wanted to create was the structure the world would transform into, a horror hallucination world in real-time when viewing pictures, letters and other points of interest. These would become triggers, as a means of seeing the story with clarity, understanding the truth behind the scenario, seeing another truth outside the ‘real world’ scenario.
It was very interesting but was extremely difficult, as it meant effectively having two different worlds in one, operating simultaneously in real-time, which was a challenge given the memory restrictions and hardware specification in those days. In the process of resolving those problems, ideas from the other staff were adopted and the black fog, Leon’s monstrous arm, and the Hookman appeared in improvements and experiments. There were many experiments and proposals, such as peeling of enemy skins when attacking!
CH: Was the virus that had infected Leon in the Castle scenario, the same as the one that had featured in the Hallucination game-play?
YK: It’s not necessary to distinguish the two. Once the game system is fixed, we can modify the scenario & setting even though they’re already established. That is our method of production. Although Sugiyama-san wrote a good scenario which I contributed to with the framework, it was not adopted in the released biohazard 4. When myself and the Flagship team left the project, Mikami-san reorganised the team, made the game system & mechanics concrete, and went on to re-write the whole scenario. This was OK by me, it was the right way for them to proceed.
CH: What was the featured virus of your scenario, and was it brought into the Castle version, or was it already included, and if brought in by an outside party, who was responsible?
YK: The fog is a new gaseous bio-weapon by HCF, a new biological weapon company Wesker belonged to. It was brought into the Castle by a HCF squad planning to seize Umbrella’s HQ, Spencer’s castle. They ran into and battled Leon’s army, and HCF troops were destroyed by the black fog. Leon’s army were also destroyed except for him, but he was also affected by the virus, and with little time to live, had to fight in the time he had remaining. Incidentally, Wesker did not enter at this point.
CH: Is there a link between Leon’s infection and the pursuing tentacles, which also look similar to Uroborus?
YK: I have no knowledge of Uroborus. The ‘Black Fog’ is collection of viruses, gathered to form a bacteria sized entity, they behave as if they have a unified, sole intelligence. The tentacles may or may not be a hallucination. Uroborus virus wasn’t part of this, and was created for Biohazard 5.
According to the setting I created, the progenitor virus was a superhuman virus, found in an ancient fossilised human, at an archaeological site deep underground Spencer’s castle. This virus could not be applied to modern humans, but then the t-virus was created during a process of adaptation. However, while the t-virus could cause mutation, mutated beings could not thrive as a species (they were sterile), so there was no effective means other than to grow biological weapon through cloning.
There is also a t-virus like t-Veronica, improved for the purpose of making a super-human. To transcend the t-virus, William Birkin developed the G-virus. The concept of G-virus was so revolutionary, because a G-being would stabilise after mutation, then they could breed with other G-beings, from the same species. There is a possibility that Sherry was the only G-being in the world. Was Annette working on the vaccine for G-virus?
This was my own setting and is no longer official, but the biohazard 4 I was involved with, was built with the Flagship world view. This is my feeling. The change of name to BIOHAZARD with capital letters may be a declaration the game is no longer the same as previous biohazards. Naturally the staff in production have been replaced and Mikami-san has left too. I don’t think it is wrong. It’s restarted, so what they are doing now is the right.
CH: Here is a piece of concept art, from the Famitsu feature on the Castle version. As you can see it shows a large theatre stage and ornate auditorium. Were you involved with this design?
YK: No I am not familiar with these.
CH: What is the building that Leon is exploring in the Hallucination game-play? Is it the same Castle we see in the Castle version?
YK: It was Spencer’s castle. Everything started from the castle owned by Ozwell Spencer, when the ruin was found, and aristocrats started digging. They found the primal virus and Spencer began to have his ambitions. Leon infiltrates this castle seeking the truth, and meanwhile deep in the catacombs of the castle, a young girl wakes up in a laboratory. She starts to ascend the castle, accompanied by a B.O.W. dog.
CH: What, if anything causes the mannequin dolls and the Hookman to animate, and then attack Leon? Are they merely non-moving hallucinations, or part of the lucid world? Are they B.O.W.s or are they secondary infectants?
YK: They are mostly Leon’s hallucinations. Some are hallucinations, but others could also be B.O.W.s, or enemies in the real world. However, they are far from a lucid reality, since Leon only sees them when he is delirious. So they die when Leon dies. You hear a story that a person develops a blister when he is hypnotised to believe he has been burnt. That was the nature of concept that we aimed to apply.
CH: There was another attempted build after your Hallucination version which has been commonly referred to as the ‘Zombie’ version, but it was never revealed publicly, and details are very scarce. Can you give any further details on this beta scenario?
“We had the prototype of Ganados, applied from the idea of doubts & fear, the horror of who was who, like the film ‘The Thing’. It was called Doba-man because their faces would suddenly split and show the real identity.”
— Yasuhisa Kawamura interview with Crimson-Head.com
YK: That was after I departed the team, while I was still there we had the prototype of ‘Ganados’, applied from the idea of doubts & fear, the horror of who was who, like the film ‘The Thing’. It was called Doba-man because their faces would suddenly split and show the real identity. ‘Doba’ is an imitative word describing a sudden movement. I was the one to conceive it name, since the model was built first for Ganado, and I put a lot of my own thoughts into it, experimenting with the Doba man as a project.
CH: Is there anything further you can tell us about your contributions to biohazard 3.5 or your other works in the genre?
YK: Another time I can offer more stories I didn’t include today. I have more stories to tell which involve different references, such as my own scheme, hobbies & preferences. I have new game projects but I don’t have the funds or a publisher. There is no studio in Japan making Zombie games. I work like a mercenary, working at one studio, then leaving for another. There are plenty of resources out there to develop AAA games in Japan, but the main stream is social & puzzle games, and only a few games like Resident Evil. I would lovd to create more horror games.
Yasuhisa Kawamura interview with George Trevor (Halloween 31.10.13)[Not to be reproduced (c) Crimson Head Elder 2013]