A Lost Resident Evil Comes Back From the Dead on Game Boy Color

Around 26 years ago, HotGen, a small British company, took on one of the industry’s most difficult challenges: porting the original Resident Evil to the Game Boy Color. Capcom assigned them the task in 1999, with the goal of creating a 2MB cartridge that could somehow fit the full-fledged 3D survival horror of the PlayStation classic onto Nintendo’s portable and release it in time for Christmas that year.

Going from scratch, HotGen essentially rebuilt the entire thing. The sprites were all reduced down, camera angles were fixed to guide players through the Spencer Mansion, and the majority of the riddles remained true to the original. Zombies shambled around in full colour, guns blazing, and Chris Redfield delivered his lines as if he were right in front of you. Meanwhile, Fluid Studios focused on the visuals, attempting to pull convincing 32-bit images from the 8-bit technology.

Publisher Virgin had alternative plans, since they wanted many more original chambers than the original 35 percent of content. Nigel Speight, HotGen’s programmer, became increasingly irritated and eventually quit when he estimated the game was between 75 and 85 percent complete. Assistant programmer Pete Frith stayed a little longer. He recalls countless rounds of testing with Capcom’s QA staff, and by the end, the build was supposedly 98 percent perfect.

Of course, that’s when the delays began, as the projected 1999 release date slid and slipped, and by 2000, the game was still unfinished. Then, just when all hope was lost, Capcom abruptly pulled the plug, revealing that Resident Evil’s creator, most likely Shinji Mikami or Tokuro Fujiwara, simply wasn’t certain the Game Boy color was worthy of the series. Then, to make matters worse, the primary artist died. Capcom instead chose M4 for an all-new, top-down original named Resident Evil Gaiden, which was designed particularly for the handheld.

Fast forward to 2011, when a few early prototypes began leaking online. One was apparently around 90% complete, but neither could quite finish. There were still debug screens circulating around, and a huge chunk of information, such as the climactic fight, remained out of reach, so enthusiasts worked on them for years, hoping to figure out what HotGen had nearly accomplished.

Everything changed recently, when Games That Weren’t (a preservation site) stated on December 17, 2025, that they had finally found the last build, the last version of the game before development was axed. You know what? Pete Frith had actually handed them the ROM himself. The amazing thing was that they had managed to get it to function; Jill Valentine’s campaign played from beginning to end. The ultimate fight with the Tyrant was successful, and the finale scenario began to unfold. They even devised a brief shortcut to assist anyone who were stranded toward the finish, but it was undoubtedly imperfect.

Still, some minor issues persisted, such as screen transitions stopping after a fight and a few softlocks appearing. The build included some new features that were not present in the 2011 leaks, such as opening titles and additional sound effects. The whole original soundtrack, with all of the eerie house themes and zombie groans you could want, was also included.
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