Resident Evil fan remake ‘cancelled by Capcom’

A fan project aimed at remaking a classic Resident Evil game has reportedly been shut down by series developer Capcom after a year of development

A fan-developed remake of Resident Evil Code: Veronica has reportedly been shut down by Resident Evil series developer Capcom, according to the remake’s developers.

The Code: Veronica remake first made waves in June 2021, after a playable teaser demo was publicly released that allowed players to get a taste of the ground-up reimagining of the game. The remake was being developed in Unity, and was largely the work of just two developers, Briins and Matt Croft (thanks, TheGamer).

Now, according to the fan project’s creators, it’s apparently been shut down by Capcom, alongside another project the fan developers were working on, a remake of Resident Evil 1. While the reasons for the legal challenge are not entirely known, the remake’s developers say it was for the use of Capcom-owned characters and the Resident Evil trademark.

“Unfortunately Capcom has contacted us and they have canceled our projects,” the fan developers said in the project’s official Discord server, “We are very sorry to tell you that they canceled it out of pure evil, since there are no signs that an official code veronica is coming from them”.

As reported by TheGamer, some Discord users speculated that Capcom may have shut down the project due to the use of donation links set up by the development team. Many large companies choose to avoid taking down fan projects that are non-commercial in nature, but making money using a publisher’s IP is largely seen to be risky when it comes to fan games and other fan art.

The fan developers disputed this however, saying that it was “not the reason Capcom decided to put an end to [the projects], but the fact of using the Resident Evil name itself, and Capcom characters, etc”.

As noted by the remake’s developers, Capcom does not appear to be interested in remaking Code: Veronica at the moment, as it moves forward with a remake of Resident Evil 4, instead. Code: Veronica was first released in 2000 for the Sega Dreamcast, and takes place between Resident Evil 2 and 3. It was later ported to other platforms, including the PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo GameCube.

The Resident Evil Code: Veronica fan remake was quite ambitious, completely reworking the game for modern audiences. Picture: Briins and Matt Croft

Capcom recently announced that Monster Hunter Rise would be coming to Xbox and PlayStation, after almost two years of console exclusivity on the Switch. The game was first released in March 2021, and was later ported to PC in early 2022.

Unfortunately, the porting process seems to be more difficult the other way around, as it was quietly revealed this week that two Tomb Raider Switch ports had been delayed. The games in question Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, and Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, two spin-offs that were incredibly well-received by fans.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.