Dummied Out / Survival Horror

---

• Dead Island contains a collection of dummied emails that expand upon the game's backstory. A few also explain why the four protagonists came to Banoi, implying that they were deliberately flown there as part of an experiment to gather immune test subjects for the vaccine, confirming that the virus was intended to be used for military purposes.
  • Jin also has an unused memo, which functions like a diary. It retains certain aspects of the original draft, such as her interest in becoming a nurse (in the game, she seems more inclined to become a mechanic like her dad), and delving into a long rant about how Humans Are Bastards. This can't be obtained in game, and considering Jin's body is inaccessible once she dies, there is no way to collect it.
• Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator has five animatronic IDs, but only four of them are referenced with ID 1 being empty, and IDs 2 through 5 referencing Molten Freddy, Scraptrap, Scrap Baby, and Lefty in that order. It's unknown what ID 1 would have been, as even with it active nothing happens, but data miners have learned that purchasing all sponsorships will activate it — presumably this was removed as having all sponsorships already makes the night Harder Than Hard and it also unleashing another enemy likely would have made things too difficult. Interestingly this also causes a glitch as only IDs 1 through 4 are allowed to utilize the once-a-night teleport mechanic, which means only three of them can do this with Lefty never being allowed his teleport opportunity.
• Several areas and one complete subplot were cut from the original release of Resident Evil. George Trevor's diaries were completely cut out and the only evidence of the scrapped graveyard area is a split-second view of its entrance in the Hunter's debut cutscene. Both were restored for the 2002 remake.
  • Very early in development they also intended to have cryptic messages written in blood on the walls, left behind by the infected people in the mansion as they lost their sanity. They were actually removed from the DualShock version, but the original hid them by simply recoloring them to match the walls. By tweaking the game color palettes with an emulator, you can see them. This one reads "For God's sake GET OUT!!!"◊
  • There were also "Dum Dum" rounds for the magnum. They are fully functional in the game, being slightly more powerful than magnum rounds against zombies but weaker against anything else, but without a GameShark the only evidence to their existence is the phrase "it is loaded with Magnum rounds" in the description of the Colt Python which implies there is more than one kind of ammo (Like with the bazooka). Oddly the 2002 remake has the same rounds again dummied out, and the same description for the magnum!
  • There was also to be a laser weapon introduced to this game. That's right, we almost got to toast zombies with Frickin' Laser Beams but, sadly, it was apparently cut relatively early in development as it doesn't even have its own model and instead uses the Flamethrower model.
  • The Director's Cut contains many improvements over the original 1996 version. However, despite what the subtitle implies, it still retains all the censorship of the earlier version, apparently due to a localization error.
• Poking around on the Resident Evil 2 disc with a Game Shark reveals a number of items and weapons that were cut from the final game, including a submachine gun called the Calico, which eventually Claire would get ahold of in the later Code Veronica. Early gameplay trailers also depict Leon firing a G3 battle rifle and flinging grenades at zombies, though this was a build made using the original game's engine and featured a whole host of other mechanics and enemies who were eventually scrapped, enough so that most fans consider this earlier version a completely different game all together, Resident Evil 1.5.
  • The first encounter with the Licker was supposed to start with it dropping the head from the decapitated corpse in the hall. The staff changed their minds late in development, perhaps figuring it would be censored anyway, but decided to simply cut out the cue for this and leave the head stuck up on the ceiling. It's normally out of the the camera's view since the game was meant for a 4:3 picture ratio, but playing the game on an emulator with widescreen support reveals that the head is still there.
    • In the Versus strategy guide for the game, a small appendix discusses things the writers found by combining a Gameshark with the Japanese-only demo disc included with Resident Evil: Director's Cut. Several key items are completely different for starters, but perhaps the most puzzling is what happens when the player inputs a command which tells the game scripted sequences (such as the Tyrant smashing his way through the RPD's press room) have already happened: when this command is implemented, the large glass skylight in the RPD's main hall shatters, suggesting at some point in the game's development, something was supposed to smash its way in from outside, although no one has any idea what that was supposed to be, and enemies are never encountered in this area in the final game, outside a few zombies in the upper gallery.
• Empire Interactive's "Xplosiv" budget PC release of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis completely omitted The Mercenaries, an extra game mode accessible from a separate executable in the 2000 Windows version. While it can be accessed by downloading an .exe file online, this release also removed the function to save your completed game file. Because weapons unlocked through The Mercenaries can only be used in a second playthrough on a completed save, the Xplosiv version completely broke every unlockable item in the game and removed most of its replay value.
• Resident Evil: Outbreak and Outbreak File #2 both contain data for extra character costumes not normally acquirable in the games, and it's largely speculated that these were intended for a File #3 if it ever saw the light of day. A GameShark can be used to put them in the game proper, but while the games were online, Capcom eventually locked out accounts that were found to be using these inaccessible characters.

  • The PAL version of File #1 had the online multiplayer completely disabled. In a game whose entire gimmick was that it was an online multiplayer survival horror.

• Before the PAL release of Outbreak, there was Resident Evil: Survivor, a first-person light gun game that had its light gun support disabled in the NTSC version due to pressure from Moral Guardians after the Columbine shooting.
• Like the Dum Dum Rounds, Resident Evil – Code: Veronica has functional ammunition◊ for the Sniper Rifle, which was apparently to play a much larger role in the game rather than being a one-time crutch weapon against Nosferatu that you lose immediately after the battle. It was likely removed as the Sniper Rifle is incredibly overpowered and has a first-person perspective that completely breaks the balance and style of the game, and was removed fairly early in development as it only has Japanese text for its description.
• Resident Evil 4 has a couple:
  • The Chicago Typewriter of Resident Evil 4 was originally a regular obtainable and upgradeable weapon, as evidenced by it's firepower and capacity having been already customized (unlike other un-upgradeable weapons) and it's reloading animation (it has unlimited ammunition). Presumably it was made into a special unlockable weapon because it's too much of a Game-Breaker.
  • There is also a removed cutscene that introduced the wingless Novistador enemy. To remove it from the game they simply moved the trigger out of bounds, meaning it can be triggered with a wall clipping glitch. Later games disabled the trigger altogether.
    • In the original demo for Resident Evil 4, the knife was a separate weapon rather than being constantly equipped by Leon and Ada; instead, hitting the knife button equipped Leon's binoculars, although the feature was apparently scrapped (possibly because of the host of scoped weapons in the game which serve the same purpose, while the knife is significantly more useful at any point in the game). Leon uses the binoculars in a few cutscenes, including one optional event when he finds one of his Spanish police comrades murdered in the village, which uses the same controls as were featured in the demo version.
    • At one point, the suppressor equipped to Wesker's Silver Ghost was originally to be available to other handguns, and could've been used in conjunction with the FN Fiveseve N (the Punisher). A model with the suppressor equipped exists but it was cut from the final game, although, bizarrely, the Fiveseve N's firing sound is a much higher pitch than any other handgun in the game, suggesting Capcom used its suppressed sound effect with the vanilla model.
• Silent Hill has several dummied-out rooms in Midwich Elementary School. Also, the Bottomless Pits were intended to be death traps as in the later games, but you can't fall into them during normal gameplay.
  • The boat was meant to be a vehicle to reach the lighthouse, as evidenced by Harry looking at the steering wheel although it does nothing.
• Silent Hill: Homecoming has a ton of unused voice files that hint at various dropped characters, a cameo by Walter Sullivan of Silent Hill 4, a larger amount of involvement by Deputy Wheeler, and lots of explicit backstory before it was made more subtle. There's a blog entry going into tremendous detail, here, as well as a YouTube video containing some of the unused dialog here.

---