For the 25th anniversary of Resident Evil, Deli295 has released Resident Evil: True Director's Cut, a patch that adds all cut content back to the original game. This expands on all previous releases of the game and adds in content from the original Japanese release, the demo for the game, as well as the beta.
Released both in Japan and the West in 1996, Resident Evil's western release was censored and had content cut in comparison to its Japanese version. Capcom attempted to rectify these differences with the Resident Evil: Director's Cut and add back in the previously censored Full Motion Video (FMV) clips from the Japanese edition but, due to a localization error, they have remained out of the game.
This fan-made release came out on April 16th and was created to rectify this and add back in content from all versions of Resident Evil for Western players. Included in this patch are the original uncut FMV clips from the Japanese version, a wall message in blood written on the second floor, and a music track from the Beta version of the game among other pieces of content. Deli295 notes on the hack page that even more content is on the way but that most of the work that remains is the "restoration of the backgrounds from the memos that were present in the Japanese releases." And that this patch is aimed at the Greatest Hits DualShock version of the game.
This seems to be the only available option for players who want to play a version of the original Resident Evil that has everything ever released for that game. Pieces from the original Beta, the Japanese release, as well as the Demo are all in this edition of the game. Now that the anniversary has come and gone it seems unlikely that Capcom will be tackling a similar project any time soon.
There is enough that didn't make it into the Western release of Resident Evil that an updated version would likely be appreciated by players today, and with Capcom's penchant to re-release as many of its games as possible as much as possible, it's a bit odd that something like this hasn't been released in an official capacity.
Noting that, however, Resident Evil: True Director's Cut might not feel like a whole new experience for fans of the original western release. There are no major objectives that were missing and it doesn't appear as though the arc of the story was changed. Likely Capcom thought its own version of a Director's Cut caught as much of the market as it could and it has moved on.
Resident Evil is available for PC, PS1, and Sega Saturn.
Source: Kotaku
