Another day, another fan made project is shut down by the official developer/publisher. This time it’s from Capcom’s most successful franchise ever, Resident Evil. The company has officially shut down a fan made remake of Resident Evil Code: Veronica, one of the most popular entries in the entire series. The announcement came from the developer of the fan made remake, just as the game was set to be released. The announcement came via their Twitter, with a slightly more detailed explanation on their official Discord server.
As you can expect, the main reason for this abrupt cancelation was due to the fact that Capcom owns the name, the characters, and other trademarks that they’ve been using for the better part of 25 plus years. However, it should be noted that there have been other unofficial projects that have been able to avoid this legal pressure thus far. The developer of the fan made remake also stated that this should not be taken as any sort of evidence that Capcom is working on their own remake of Resident Evil Code: Veronica. “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.” The developer said.
However, there’s a potentially darker turn coming from this situation. As pointed out by the used in their Discord server, the team set up donation links during the development process. This could potentially be seen as the developers profiting off of the Resident Evil name, even though the remake would’ve been distributed for free. The developers responded to this accusation, “Accepting donations was not the reason Capcom decided to put an end to our projects, but the fact of using the Resident Evil name itself, and Capcom characters, etc.”
It’s a sad end to what many were hoping would be a true remake of a beloved entry in the long running franchise. Resident Evil Code: Veronica, which launched in 2000 for the Sega Dreamcast, was at one time considered one of the best in the series, even contending with the all-time classic Resident Evil 2. However, once 2004’s Resident Evil 4 launched, the title was more or less an afterthought. The game did get a re-release on other platforms as Resident Evil Code: Veronica X, but a true remake like Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3, and soon Resident Evil 4, still alludes the video game community.