Video Game Preservationist Saves Resident Evil Mobile Spin-Off Once Considered “Lost To Time”

Feature phones were pre-smartphone devices primarily sold in Japan during the Y2K era of the 2000s, and featured a group of providers that all had their own specific mobile gaming platforms. During this era, many famous video game franchises received games designed for Japanese keitai phones. Capcom’s Resident Evil, which is known as Biohazard in Japan, was among these franchises. 

Capcom released four scenario-based titles for these mobile platforms: Biohazard: The Missions, Biohazard: The Stories, Biohazard: The Episodes, and Biohazard: The Operations. Of these four titles, only one (Biohazard: The Missions) was ever ported and released outside of Japan, with the other remaining titles being considered completely “lost to time” until feature phone preservationists began slowly rescuing these games a few years ago. This now means that at least a partial version of all four titles have been successfully preserved. 

Biohazard: The Episodes was originally released in 2007 on i-mode compatible phones, and was downloadable at the time through the now-shuttered Capcom Park website. The Episodes featured Resident Evil character Jill Valentine as the protagonist, and had 3D gameplay similar to that seen in the PS1 title Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. The version of The Episodes preserved by Yuvi includes the full game, but doesn’t currently include the additional characters that players could unlock. 

As technology advances, video game preservation and archiving continues to be a difficult and thankless job with little to no support from major game companies themselves. Those who are interested in learning more about the grassroots effort to preserve games and media made for Japanese feature phones can visit keitaiarchive.org.