Retro Replay Retro Gaming History, Reviews & Emulation
Before Jill Valentine had Nemesis chasing her through Raccoon City, Resident Evil 3 was supposed to take place on a luxury cruise ship. HUNK would be the star, trying to bring back a sample of the G-Virus. Capcom was planning to put the next numbered Resident Evil on a boat.
It’s a pretty good place for something to go horribly wrong. In a mansion, you can at least dream about reaching the front door. On a ship, getting outside still leaves you in the middle of the ocean. HUNK wasn’t exactly being booked for a relaxing holiday.
A cruise with the wrong cargo
RE3 writer Yasuhisa Kawamura recalled the plan in his Project Umbrella interview: a luxury liner, HUNK and a G-Virus sample to bring home. For fans who knew the masked operative from Resident Evil 2, that was a tempting prospect. He’d survived his previous assignment. Giving him a whole game would let us spend more time with the man behind the gas mask.
Capcom’s HUNK retrospective looks back at that reputation for survival. The ship premise would have given him a different kind of problem: even if he reached the deck alive, he’d still need a way off the boat, preferably with Umbrella’s precious sample intact.
Then the next PlayStation got in the way
While that sequel was being planned, Kawamura was working with director Kazuhiro Aoyama on a smaller Resident Evil side story. Their game was meant to be a quicker production. Then PlayStation 2 approached, and Capcom had to decide which game belonged on which machine.
According to Kawamura, the larger project moved toward the new hardware. Capcom didn’t want PlayStation owners waiting years for another sequel, so Aoyama’s side story was expanded and given the Resident Evil 3 name. Jill’s escape became the main event.
Aoyama remembers the ship game running alongside his project in his Crimson-Head interview. He liked the idea of horror at sea: there was nowhere to run. He thought a subsequent change of director was why the ship setting disappeared.
From a ship to a city in flames
What players finally got was Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Jill was back, Raccoon City was falling apart, and a towering monster had decided that her day wasn’t bad enough yet.
It’s hard to picture the number three belonging to anything else now. You think of Jill hearing trouble nearby, trying to decide whether to fight or run, and finding that a street you’d already crossed wasn’t safe anymore. But for a while, Capcom’s next big Resident Evil adventure was headed somewhere else entirely.
That HUNK game never reached the harbour. Instead, we got Jill trying to get out of town while Nemesis insisted on coming along. Neither sounds like a trip worth buying travel insurance for.
Sources
- Project Umbrella: Yasuhisa Kawamura interview, the supplied shortlink’s destination and source for the HUNK premise and project reshuffle.
- Crimson-Head: Kazuhiro Aoyama interview, for the separate ship project and his recollection of why its setting changed.
- Capcom: HUNK, the Fearless and Fearsome 4th Survivor, for the character retrospective and HUNK image.
- Retro Replay: Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Dreamcast edition, for the finished-game screenshot.
More #RetroReplayFYI
For another game that borrowed an adventure from elsewhere, read about Indiana Jones helping inspire Zelda. Or see the much smaller change that almost made it through production: MGS4’s “Shriveled Snake” recording blooper.
