Retro Gaming Australia

What’s Resident Evil 1.5 you say? Well, the story goes that about 70-80% through development, the producers of Resident Evil 2, Shinji Mikami and Hideki Kamiya, decided the game was too action oriented and not up to the high standard of the original game. So they started again.

That original version of Resident Evil 2, dubbed Resident Evil 1.5 by fans, has been the most wanted prototype on the PlayStation. Many have teased that they have a copy of the prototype, but aside from a couple of screenshots and videos, nobody has released a playable version.

Until now. The Resident Evil 1.5 restoration project is a rag tag group that managed to get a copy of the prototype and has since spent considerable time restoring it to a point where it can be enjoyed by all. Today they released a playable demo version marking the first time the public will get a taste of this mythical beta.

Of course, the project still continues – apparently the in-development version is quite a bit further along than this demo. The demo release was prompted by someone attempting to sell the team’s work to date on eBay; originally the team had intended only to release their work once it was completed.

You can get the demo here.