Resident Evil is marking its 30th year, and Capcom has been gathering birthday messages from people across the games industry. One of the more interesting memories came from former Sony Computer Entertainment executive Shuhei Yoshida, who shared a small but very telling detail about the first game.
In his short tribute video, Yoshida said the original Resident Evil came close to launching with green blood instead of red blood in Japan. It sounds strange now, especially for a series built on tension, messy horror, and zombie panic, but the idea came from a real concern at the time.
Yoshida explained that Japan did not yet have an industry-standard age-rating system when the game was being prepared. Because of that, he worried that younger players might pick up the game, see the red blood, and be upset by what they found. Green blood was tested as a possible way to soften that impact.
Capcom tried it, but the change did not fit. According to Yoshida, the game no longer had the right atmosphere with green blood on screen. Instead, Capcom kept the stronger horror mood and added a warning to the box, telling buyers that Resident Evil contained violence and gore.
Outside Japan, the game also arrived with age guidance attached. In North America, Resident Evil became one of the first games to receive a Mature rating from the ESRB. In the UK, it launched with a 15 rating. The Western version also censored the introduction sequence, removing some of its gorier moments. Looking back, the almost-green-blood version is a neat reminder of how carefully Capcom was already weighing horror, tone, and audience in 1996.
