In a recent discussion with the franchise’s current producer, the director of Resident Evil 4 spoke about the camera used in this section. By his admission, the angle chosen was not intended to be revolutionary.
Not long ago, we reported that Shinji Mikami wanted to make another game after Ghostwire: Tokyo. A revelation made during a video where our man spoke with Jun Takeuchi, current producer of the video game franchise Resident Evil.
With a document lasting more than fifteen minutes, it was obvious that other confidences had been slipped into it. And among them, behind the scenes of the handheld camera system used in Resident Evil 4.
Resident Evil 4 camera system: praise from the creator of Smash Bros.
Shinji Mikami explained that during the development of Resident Evil 4, it was decided to opt for a third-person view with a mobile camera placed above the avatar. Not just to change and mark a break from previous episodes, but simply for the sake of making the experience better.
“It seemed natural to us, oddly. We had no intention of doing anything innovative, but in the end everyone kept saying we did it.”
“For us personally, we just thought that angle was better. We weren’t trying to do anything new or revolutionary, there was none of that.”
The game’s director says that Masahiro Sakurai, the man behind Smash Bros., was the first person to praise him for this camera.
“He came to see the game being developed and asked, ‘Who invented this camera system?’ I replied: ‘Yes, that’s me. ‘It’s great,’ he said. I said, ‘Woah, really?’.
Jun Takeuchi recalls that at E3, while Lost Planet was developed, the team of Gears of War revealed to him that he was inspired by Resident Evil 4 for his camera.
But for Shinji Mikami, none of this would have given him a big head:
“It’s weird. It doesn’t really affect you, even with all that praise. You don’t say ‘I did it’, you say ‘I guess it should work’.”
“It’s like in a fight, when you punch in the guts, even though you’re holding back, when you see the other person collapsing in pain, you’re like ‘woah, that’s had it, it worked. But really.”
Source: biohazard YouTube channel (via VGC)