Hideki Kamiya, who currently is one of the leaders of PlatinumGames, was the director of the original Resident Evil 2 21 years ago, which is why it was an excellent idea to invite him.

Kazunori Kanoi (director), Yasuhiro Anpo (director), and Jun Takeuchi (the executive producer of the franchise) had a good chat with Hideki Kamiya (who, after Resident Evil 2, started/created Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, and Okami at Capcom, followed by the creation/supervision of Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101).

One of the subjects was Ivy, the plant enemy – everyone agreed how it was impossible in the original version to make it look and move realistically. However, the Resident Evil 2 Remake got it right, and even skipping the spider in the remake wasn’t an issue. The Leon-Ada kiss, which happens earlier in the remake than the original, was also brought up – we question Ada Wong’s motives (for a good reason: she’s a spy), only to get this scene.

Kamiya was asked about Leon’s backstory – in the manual, it’s mentioned that the rookie policeman had a bit of hangover, which is why he reported to duty a day late. He revealed that it’s based on an event that happened to him: his girlfriend has dumped him just before Christmas, and instead of going to work at Christmas (where everyone would have figured out what happened to him), he decided to take a day off instead…

He also had another story: another day, he got to Capcom a bit late, and when he got to the studio, the developers were wrapping up discussions about a Resident Evil-based minigame. Despite Kamiya’s refusal, the producer shut him down for being late to work. Thus, he and his team started using the leftover and unused assets to create Tofu Survivor. This was the game mode where you had to control a walking big block of tofu to escape via the sewers and the police station to get out of Raccoon City. (It surfaced in the Resident Evil 2 remake as well.)

The unusual events/stories could be really inspiring to create quality products, and Hideki Kamiya’s stories are a prime example of them…

Source: DualShockers