* It was indeed originally a 1 player game with Chris as the main character. Sheva was an NPC you would meet later in the game and instead of a BSAA agent, she was originally part of a local militia. She was changed to a BSAA agent when co-op was brought in.

* Chris has ridiculously big muscles because he has been training hard for his eventual confrontation with Wesker.

* Sheva's breasts are slightly smaller than Jill's. She is not muscley because the developers wanted her to look sexy. Her tattoo 'Shujaa' means 'hero' in Swahili.

* Wesker kept his Samurai Edge as it was deemed he would only use his super strength against 'worthy' opponents. Originally, he was to have no gun as the developers thought he wouldn't need one due to his powers. His coat is made of special material that can deflect shrapnel and other common shards.

*Jill's control mechanism was originally to be on her head but the project leader said "If we put it on her chest, we can open up her chest area and it'd be sexy." No one on the development team argued with that.

*Excella was originally a secretary to the male CEO of Tricell. Wesker becomes intimate with her to gain access into Tricell. Thier relationship is strengthened by what they believe they can gain by manipulating each other. When the male CEO idea was scrapped and Excella was put in charge, her character was changed to a more elegant celebrity type, and again the developers worked hard to ensure her breasts were always on show in the cutscenes.

*Instead of Las Plagas, the T-Virus was to be used. The public assembly stage would have had zombies and so the level map would have been three times larger than the final game. The PA stage was eventually redone three times.

* Jill 'dying' was always in the story. However, there was a time where there was a branch in the scenario where she would die for real depending on how the story progressed.

*The Executioner was originally just a chainsaw majini with a large axe, but it didn't look right, so a bigger enemy was created.

*There were running zombies, though its not stated if they were a new breed or crimson heads.

*The scene with Kirk's crash and the Kiepepeos was originally a spectacular cutscene to demonstrate the first appearance of the creature. But it was dropped in favour of introducing the Kiepepeos in the sewers and the helicopter crash was done in real-time.

*Chris began the game on his own, but at one stage Jill was leading a team of BSAA agents who Chris presumably met up with. Pg 74 has a shot of Jill being attacked by biker Majini.

*Kijuju originally had a night level which included a large tower in the centre of town. The player could go up this and from the top could see across the whole of Kijuju.

*Irving was originally an experiment himself and had a bar code on the back of his neck to identify him. Originally you were still in the city when you fought him.

*The scene were Chris and Sheva were seperated in the Ndipaya kingdom was originally Chris falling down a large pit. He falls into a waste management building for the Umbrella Africa lab and had to fight his way through that alone. Sheva entered the African lab alone and found Jill's test tube and this time she was still in it.

*When the game was single player, the Ndipaya levels were a lot more adventurous. When co-op was added, they had to reduce the number of tricks and traps.

*The Ndipaya valued the Ndipaya flower for its medicinal purposes, but its overuse eventually ended up wiping out the entire civilization.

*The Progenitor flower was originally an aquatic flower.

*Wesker originally died by simply falling into the lava without mutating. This was then changed to him dying via rocket launcher as a homage to the earlier games.

*The volcano and erupting lava location was chosen to emphasise that this truly was the end for Wesker. {Ironic given all the 'Wesker still lives, the rockets missed him!' threads.}

*Wesker could originally control Uroboros with his mind.

*Originally the final battle was a full on raw fight between Chris and Wesker but this was changed with co-op when it became 2 on 1.

*Development on the game began in 2004.

*The weapons Merchant was brought back after RE4.

*Originally there was a huge level that was just desert. But since there was no cover available they would have to resort to enemies popping up out of the sand so it was dropped. This level also contained the wreckage of a ship on a long dried out lake. A weapons merchant had set up shop here.

*At one stage the timed level where you have to survive for a set period of time until the helicopter arrives to rescue you was a night stage and the enemies were all Lickers.

*Originally when the game was 1 player it began with a battle against an Uroboros {which at this stage was just another BOW} in the streets of town. Secretary Excella and Irving are looking on from a safe distance. Cameras have been set up all over town and they are being monitored by the male Tricell CEO.

*Eventually, Sheva got separated from Chris and was captured by Excella and her men. After she is rescued, we see her shaking hands with Jill.

*The CEO character is betrayed by Wesker and Excella and is murdered in cold-blood.

*There was a Tyrant in the game, and it killed Excella under orders from Wesker.

*In the first battle between Chris and Wesker, Chris is beaten to within an inch of his life until Jill rescues him.

*When Jill fell with Wesker at the Spencer Estate, she stabbed him in the right eye with a knife. As a result, Wesker had a glass eye in his right socket which was to be his one true weakness.

*The final battle ended with Wesker still human but knee deep in rising lava. Chris was about to go under but a jet arrives piloted by Sheva and Jill. Chris jumps onto the wing and the player fires the rockets, killing Wesker. The game ends with the players getting out of the jet and walking away.

*The first city section had a train full of zombies that derailed in front of the player.

*The weapons merchants had shops in town. But the player has to rip down barricades to get to the door as the merchant has been protecting himself from the zombies. You then pressed the action button to knock on the door The merchant then peeks through a viewing slit where the scene switches to first person. He asks if you are friend or foe and if there are any zombies around.

*One scene involved the players jumping off a second floor balcony onto a set of unstable pillars. Lots of zombies would be milling around on the floor below and the player had to jump from one pillar to the next while the zombies shook them trying to make the player fall.

*There was a night level where there is a car crash and there were a lot of local NPCs trying to protect the barricades, fighting back the zombies with primitive weapons. Chris and his partner which at this stage was undecided between Jill or BARRY {!} would have to stop and help out for a predetermined amount of time.

*One level had a set of tacked drum cans which would fall and the zombies would try and crawl over them and one another to get to the player.

*There was once a massive fortress siege scene. The majini were firing bows and arrows. Chris would be assisted by 12 allies in this scene.

*Like the scene where you have to protect Josh as he works the elevator, there was a similar one where you had to protect Jill from an El Gigante as she worked the power supply unit.

*You had to fight 10-15 El Gigantes at the same time.

*The zombies were changed to Majini because the developers believed another zombie-filled game might not be able to hold it's own through to the very end. Group attacks and organized assaults would not have been possible with zombies.

*{RE3.5 ALERT} One unused enemy design was a creature that attacked by creating hallucinations to confuse their pray. They would emit a fine mist of gaseous substance from their body, and if Chris were to inhale any of it, the screen would switch to a distorted thermal view. Upon review, this whole process didn't fit into the game very well, so it was dropped.

*The Tyrant was cut out because the staff felt it messed with the whole Wesker - Uroboros angle.

*When Uroboros was just a standard BOW, they were called U-9 and U-11. One was to get so large it would consume a whole train and chase Chris as he ran along the top of the carriages.

*Spencer is Saddler. His final battle with Leon is why he is now in a wheelchair.

Info courtesy of the Art of Resident Evil 5 book.

{And yeah, I made the last one up.}

Just read it all.... and i swear to god... i want to kill the son of a bitch that changed this game to co-op, im deadly serious.

Wow thats some interesting stuff. Man it sounds like the game was even more BA at one point. I really wish they hadn't changed it. I would have liked to have seen what the original RE5 would have been like... Oh well this is just how things are hah

Man they really should have put in the tyrant, that would have been awesome.

Well, this also confirms that Sheva did in fact play an essential role in the game. She appears to have been RE5's Steve/Carlos/Billy/Louis (without being killed).. But they only strengthened her involvement as a playable character once co-op was added.

I'm for all those ideas, except the "Wesker with the glass eye weakness" one. That would have made him look wierd, and totally ruin his character in RE5 IMO. Plus the guy who thought it up was probably the same guy who thought up the Glass eye puzzle in the Doctors Office in Code Veronica X..

As much as I liked RE5, I as well have to say it sounded so much better before they cut it all out to focus more on it being a clone of RE4 with co-op enabled.

And at least this should shut up all those idiots who said Sheva was created because of racism allegations. At least we know for a fact she always existed since the beginning.

Thats what I use to think before I read this lol.

I'm really getting to despise this kind of thing, because now I feel I was cheated out of the game that I should have gotten. Mind you I like the final product, but after reading all that, re5 could've been 1000 percent better. Makes me angry.

Yeah, it is very sad. We knew this when the final product was released though. I still can't get over how horrible the story was. All I can do is sigh.