Resident Evil is often credited with inventing the survival horror genre. While that particular accolade may not be entirely factual, the game is worthy of recognition for cementing horror as a viable, mass-market console genre. Critics are quick to point out that Resident Evil’s basic game system, consisting of static backgrounds, 3D characters, and character-centric pivot-and-move controls, were lifted almost entirely from Alone in the Dark. Resident Evil, some will argue, might have taken the Dark formula and spruced it up for prime time, but it can hardly be credited with any great game design innovation.
Though it’s true that Resident Evil used Alone in the Dark as its template, I think that critics who write the game off as a copycat are not paying enough attention. There is a wealth of interesting game design ideas in Resident Evil, and in this article I want to tackle one of them in particular: the design of the mansion map.
It’s been a while since we all played Resident Evil, so let me refresh your memory. At the beginning of the game the protagonists find themselves locked in the sinister Spencer Mansion, which is also home to lots of zombies and (as we eventually find) a large underground secret laboratory. As the game starts there are only a few rooms that are accessible–access to most of the mansion is sealed behind locked doors, secret panels, and powered-down elevators. As the player progresses through the mansion he finds keys that unlock doors in areas he’s already visited, and must eventually return to those areas to find more keys to unlock new areas of the structure. Thus the player travels through the map in a very non-linear fashion, moving back and forth between rooms as items are collected and puzzles are solved, and eventually passing into areas with entirely new rooms. The map opens itself up like a spiral shell. I call this design Recursive Unlocking.
This approach has interested me for a long time. The genius part of the Resident Evil level design is that in the course of playing through the game two things happen: the player unlocks shortcuts and the player runs out of ammo. At some point the game becomes entirely about traversing efficiently through the mansion; it’s a run from the safe room (where we can save) through the shortest possible set of rooms until we reach another safe room or a new puzzle to solve. There’s simply not enough ammo to dispatch all of the zombies in the game, so route planning and deftly maneuvering through the Victorian building is eventually the key source of challenge.
Though the Recursive Unlocking pattern is interesting, I’ve struggled with how to study it. The actual order in which rooms are accessed has a lot to do with the player himself; most of the time there are two or three puzzles that are in the process of being solved simultaneously, and the level of traversal efficiency can depend on the order in which these puzzles are attempted. That said, there’s clearly a method behind the design of Spencer Mansion and its surrounding areas. The brains behind this game carefully architected the map so that the player’s traversal through the mansion would occur at a pace that they could control. To understand how the Recursive Unlocking methodology works, it would help to understand how the space was designed in the first place. Since we can’t just call up Shinji Mikami, Hideki Kamiya, and the rest of the (large) design team, I turned to the next best thing: data mining and visualization.
Methodology
When designing a game we can assume that the level designer thinks in terms of the fastest path through the space. If several goals must be completed before the next space is unlocked, the level designer knows the most efficient order in which to complete them. He’s likely to lay the main path out first, then go back and flesh it out with extra details, secondary goals, or side-paths. Therefore, if we look at a highly efficient traversal of the space that doesn’t rely on bugs or tricks, we should be able to get a rough approximation of how the level was put together originally.
What I did is take a video of a speed run of Resident Evil: Director’s Cut (using Jill, on Arrange Mode, with 100% completion) and trace the player’s path through the game. I recorded each room transition in order, along with a time stamp, to produce a mapping of the speed runner’s entire path through the game. Then I wrote some code to render this path over a 2D map of the whole game using Processing. Finally, I took all the data I had, threw it into a spreadsheet, and made some graphs.
The results are pretty interesting. The speed runner takes the most efficient path possible through the game; no time is wasted with story or items. The only rooms visited are those that are necessary to progress to the end of the game. Since this is Arrange Mode, the actual details of the traversal might differ slightly from the original Resident Evil, but even so the main arc of the game, the way that the player moves from one part of the mansion to another, is clearly visible and worthy of analysis.
Resident Evil 1 WalkthroughVisualizing Recursive Unlocking
Here’s a visualization of the most efficient path through Resident Evil 1.
You can download a full-res movie file (Quicktime format, 30 MB) of this if you want. There’s also a Java applet version, but it doesn’t work well in some browsers and needs a lot of memory.
This speed run is by UltimateSpeedRuns. The maps were produced by Daniel Engel and posted on Gamefaqs. Resident Evil: Director’s Cut: Unauthorized Game Secrets had a useful numbering system for the rooms (which is unfortunately ignored by the actual walkthrough text) that I used to keep track of the speed run data.
What you are seeing here is the path from room to room that UltimateSpeedRuns took to finish the game in a little under an hour and a half (you should also check out his hilarious 44 second speed run of Clue). The game starts with Jill entering the dining room on the first floor of the mansion and ends with her running down a hall in the laboratory to catch an elevator to the helipad. There are 213 room transitions here, which I’ve sped up to show in about a minute (if you want to see them in real time, try the Java applet).
Analysis
So that looks pretty cool and all, but what does it really tell us? Minecraft army base map download. Let’s start with some of the raw data collected for this research.
There are 116 unique rooms in Resident Evil, split between four major areas: the mansion, the courtyard, the guardhouse, and the laboratory. A room is any space the player can occupy: a hallway, passage, closet, or room. To finish the game, UltimateSpeedRuns visited 213 rooms total, which means that most rooms were visited only twice. Does it strike you as odd that a game known for requiring a lot of backtracking can be completed without passing through most rooms more than two times? Remember, this includes all hallways and passages, as well as proper rooms, in the game.
In fact, the data shows that we can be far more efficient than that. Of the 116 rooms in the game, 19 of them were not visited at all in this run. These are rooms that contain story pieces, or access to guns or other items that are not strictly necessary for progression. The majority (44, 38%) of rooms were only visited once. The most visited room in the entire game is a small hallway in the upper-right part of the mansion’s first floor. This room connects the mansion to the courtyard, to the second floor, and it is also right in the middle of several shortcut paths. It was visited a total of eight times.
This means that while there is some backtracking involved in Resident Evil, the path is from beginning to end is mostly linear. In fact, looking at the video above, we can see that there is a common pattern to the traversal: the player enters an area and then spends a lot of time in that immediate vicinity, visiting adjacent rooms several times before moving forward or heading back the way they came. You can see how an area will light up with activity for a few seconds, then the player travels on to some other part of the mansion. There’s a little bit of micro-backtracking within these “hot” areas, but very little retracing of steps across the larger map. At a macro level, Resident Evil is pretty much a linear string of these hot spots.
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The presence of these high-activity areas reveals a key trait of the level design in Resident Evil: items and puzzles are organized together spatially and on the game timeline. When a puzzle in a room becomes solvable, it’s likely that the next item required after it, or the previous item required to access it, is in an adjacent room. The hot spots we see in the video are areas where a bunch of related items are stored in close proximity, but the unlocking of these hot spots is sequenced, so we also know that related items are revealed to the player when they become relevant. The message to the player is this: the items you have now are useful soon, and you won’t have to travel far to use them. Looking at the fastest-path traversal of this game, we can see how a skilled player only collects items when they are relevant and close, which leads to hot areas of the map and helps him avoid back tracking. That he can schedule item collection and traversal like this at all indicates that the levels were designed with this sort of progression in mind.
Of course, regular players might not realize that there’s an optimal order to collecting items and solving puzzles. They may backtrack to previous areas unnecessarily, or miss a key item and be unable to progress. But because the items and puzzles are staged both spatially and on a timeline, the player who wanders around looking for the next step should find himself returning to the same areas over and over. If there’s something left to be done in one room, there’s probably an item or puzzle in a room close by as well. This design serves to shrink the search space for the player, to localize the area which requires extra focus. I’m sure many players do this unconsciously without realizing that they are being guided by the game design.
Recursive Unlocking in Practice
There’s one specific moment where the player suddenly makes a long arc back through the first floor of the mansion, revisiting the areas where the game began. You can see this in the video at about 35 seconds in, which puts it at roughly 60% of the way through the game (it occurs 51 minutes into the speed run). This is a great example of the Recursive Unlocking pattern because it shows how the designers use this map layout to control tension and pacing.
At this point in the game the player has been all over the mansion. Then they left the mansion and spent some significant time (about 15 minutes of speed run time; 16% of the total game time) in the guardhouse. They then returned to the mansion and fought a boss (the giant snake, second appearance). This lead to a new area of the mansion that the player has seen but been unable to access (the library on the second floor), and eventually deposits the player back in the long hall next to the dining room where the game begins. The next destination for the player is the courtyard, which is accessed from the top-right corner of the map, and to get there the player passes back through the main hall and a bunch of other rooms that appeared early in the game.
We can see in the traversal visualization that this is one of the few times the player actually has to cross the whole mansion map without doing anything on the way. This trip serves a couple of purposes. On some level, it is comforting for the player to revisit these early areas, as they are familiar and the location of nearby saves and health has been long since memorized. On the other hand, the passage also serves to ratchet tension up as the player approaches a new area (the courtyard basement): the zombies that the player originally faced in these halls have now been replaced with giant spiders and hunters, both of which are pretty hard to kill. And finally, this section serves as a reminder of where we are; it brings us back to the beginning of the game and reestablishes the mansion in our memory. This is the last time the player will see the mansion; after traveling through the courtyard basement the he continues to the laboratory, which is the last environment in the game. So the last bit of the mansion that we see is the area that introduced us to the mansion to begin with. It is these rooms that we’ll remember the best when the game is over.
Using Traversal to Fight Fatigue
Another interesting aspect of this visualization is the way that the player moves between the four main environments: the mansion, the courtyard, the guardhouse, and finally the laboratory. These areas all look very different; the mansion has huge ceilings, Victorian stylings, and lots of zombies. The courtyard is outdoors, and has zombie dogs, snakes, and eventually hunters. The guardhouse is a wooden structure, old and dilapidated compared to the mansion, and it’s overrun by spiders. The lab is all metal hallways and complex piping, with sliding doors and glowing screens–another big departure from the previous areas.
The mansion accounts for the biggest chunk of the game, but it’s less than half (43%). One fourth of the whole game takes place in the laboratory, and the guardhouse and courtyard combined account for the remaining 30%. In terms of rooms, the mansion itself is the most dense (59 rooms visited), followed by the lab (21 rooms), with the guardhouse and courtyard about tying for third (with 18 and 17 rooms respectively). These areas are not reused much; the player generally enters one of these areas, solves a bunch of puzzles (another hot spot in the traversal), and then leaves, never to return again (the courtyard is sort of an exception–it gets traversed twice).
The four major locations in Resident Evil look distinct and play differently to prevent player fatigue. After solving a bunch of statue puzzles and placing gems into stone eye sockets for a few hours, the player is ready for a change. Leaving the mansion gives the designers an opportunity to change up the pace of the game, introduce new enemies, and just give the player a break from the areas he’s already seen over and over again. Given that the entire design of the Resident Evil map is based on recursion over the same key areas, these secondary spots are an attempt to prevent monotony.
It’s also interesting to note that by looking at how much time the player spends in each room, we can sort of get a sense of how the design changes from area to area. The speed runner in our video goes through the mansion rooms at an average of 37 seconds per room. The mansion is primarily a traversal puzzle. Time spent examining the environment isn’t recorded by this data, as the speed runner did not bother. The guardhouse is similar: 36 seconds per room. But the courtyard and laboratory areas are much longer: 53 seconds per room and 59 seconds per room respectively. Perhaps the difference in speed is related to an intentional change of pace between these areas, or perhaps it is a side-effect of the development process. Either way, it seems clear that the rooms in the mansion and guardhouse feel different than those in the courtyard and laboratory because they are passed through so much more quickly.
Other Fun Facts
Here’s a couple of other interesting tidbits I gleaned from this data.
Conclusion
Visualization of player data can give us interesting insights into how games like Resident Evil work on the macro level. Using a speed run for this sort of visualization is ideal because it removes any bias and confusion that might stem from individual player sensibilities and shows us something close to the path that the level designers intended. In Resident Evil’s case, the Recursive Unlocking pattern is used to control the pace of the game, the flow of the narrative, the progression of enemies and weapons, and even to force a change of scenery on the player, all while maintaining a non-linear feel. This sort of analysis reveals how much thought actually went into the construction of the layout of this game. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find another Adventure game from the Resident Evil era that pulls off such a tight and formal traversal; this level design is clearly the product of serious planning. The data here shows that the layout of Spencer Mansion and its surrounding areas was probably the single most difficult part of the Resident Evil design, but the work that Capcom’s designers put into it made the game the masterpiece that it is.
For many of us, Resident Evil was our first taste of true horror. The PlayStation was young, our parents were oblivious and our pants were clean. It’s a game that has come full circle however, with a brand new remake of the Gamecube remake, that happens to be rather damn good It’s also horribly fiendish, and as unforgiving today as it was in 1996. And if you’re popping your Resident Evil cherry for the first time, you might need a little help. But we’ve got your delicious brains covered.
Unlockable Gameplay Modes
There’s plenty of gear to grab in the game, as well as a few alternate outfits. Here’s how you can snag ‘em:
Unlockable weapons
Unlockable Costumes
Mansion Keys
Here’s a handy video guide on where to find all of those damn keys. For quick reference however:
Maps
GameFaqs has a great selection of maps available, via Mr Big Boss. Print these out, and keep ‘em close by:
The game is out right now. If you’re brave enough that is.
Last Updated: January 22, 2015
Where to find every weapon in Resident Evil HD Remaster, and what you need to do to get them.Where is the Pistol in Resident Evil HD Remaster?
Jill is already equipped with this when the game starts. Chris finds Wesker's pistol on the floor of the main hall after the first zombie encounter. Good for dealing with zombies, bad for almost anything else.
Where is the Shotgun in Resident Evil HD Remaster?
Found in the first floor east wing drawing room on the far wall. Ensure you go here first after finding the Sword Key (found after entering the crypt out the back door of the mansion) or Barry will not save you, meaning you'll have to waste time going to the west wing to recover the Broken Shotgun (Chris has to do this by default). Excellent crowd control weapon, especially against groups of dogs (although it has been known for these enemies to sometimes shrug off Shotgun damage, so beware).
where is the Lighter in Resident Evil HD Remaster?
Found on a desk in the small library in the east wing, second floor when playing as Jill (Chris starts with it in place of the Lockpick). Mission critical, and can be used to light downed enemies on fire when combined with the Canteen (found in the east wing save room) and kerosene.
Where is the Grenade Launcher in Resident Evil HD Remaster?
Found on Forest's corpse on the east wing second floor balcony. The door requires the Armour Key to unlock. Three different shell types - grenade, incendiary, and acid - each have different uses. Flame rounds can burn zombies instantly and are good against Plant 42, grenades can stun Hunters and are good against dogs, and acid rounds are also effective against Hunters and spiders.
Where is the Assault Shotgun in Resident Evil HD Remaster?
Recovered in the east wing attic during the Yawn boss fight IF you saved Richard with the Serum (for tips on how to save Richard, check out our Beginner's Guide.
For Chris, if you save Richard the same way this weapon will be found in the Residence's Aqua Ring B2, by the first, smaller flopping shark. Same basic properties as the Shotgun, but with higher damage, making it a great all-rounder. Added bonus: carries more shells.
Where is the Magnum Revolver in Resident Evil HD Remaster?
Found by completing the cemetery puzzle on the way to Lisa Trevor's cabin. Requires the Wind Crest, which is located in the Researcher's Room in the mansion's east wing second floor. Extremely effective on most enemies, this should be saved for when the Hunters turn up. Ammo is at a premium.
Where is the Self Defense Gun in Resident Evil HD Remaster?
Found on a desk in Residence room 001. Extremely powerful, and best used on bosses such as Yawn 2 or the Black Tiger. Only one round for the entire game, however. Use it wisely.
Where is the Flamethrower in Resident Evil HD Remaster? - Chris only
Only found in Chris' game, in the Courtyard B1 just before the Black Tiger fight. Effective at putting the spiders down, but in reality it's a last resort. Also used to unlock doors (by setting it on a special switch), it can only be used in the Courtyard.
Where is Barry's Magnum in Resident Evil HD Remaster? - Jill only
Ultra-powerful revolver, capable of putting the Tyrant down in one shot during the first encounter. Only available if you refuse to give Barry the gun back immediately prior to the Lisa Trevor boss fight under the mansion, doing so prevents players from getting the best possible ending. Only 6 shots, as well - it cannot be loaded with normal revolver ammo.
Where is the Rocket Launcher in Resident Evil HD Remaster?
Thrown by Brad during the final fight. Most powerful weapon in the game. Four shots: don't miss.
Where are the Bonus Weapons in Resident Evil HD Remaster?
Samurai Edge
Acquired by completing the game in under 5 hours, the Samurai Edge has infinite ammo and fires in a three round burst.
Rocket Launcher
Complete the game in under 3 hours to get this weapon, the strongest in the game. Infinite ammo.
The first episode of Resident Evil Revelations 2 is out now on all platforms, and you'll be able to pick up the remaining three episodes over the next few weeks. It's certainly a bold new approach for the series, and whether the game suffers from being separated into two-hour doses is something we won't be able to judge until we have our hands on March's concluding episode.
Between now and then though, we're putting together a walkthrough to help you navigate the puzzles and perplexities of each episode on a week by week basis. We'll make sure this guide is fully updated to match the release dates of each chapter, so don't forget to check back as the staggered release plays out.
On this page
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Ep. 1: Escape the cell, find Moira and survive the mutant attack
The first part of our walkthrough explains how to track down your friend, then survive an encounter with the rather less friendly mutant.
Other pages:
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Ep 1: Find the Experiment Block Key, handgun and ammunition
Our guide continues with an explanation of how to track down that elusive Experiment Block Key, get your hands on a very welcome handgun, and deal with a nasty ambush.
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Ep 1: Explore the prison and find the Detention Centre Map
The next part of our walkthrough leads you deeper into the facility, where a machine waits to be brought back to life.
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Ep 1: Upgrade your guns, dodge the blades and find the Rusty Key
Our walkthrough continues with a step-by-step guide to tracking down the Rusty Key, fighting some intimidating monsters and making those blades more useful than deadly.
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Ep 1: Find the Gear Kog, escape the prison and learn how to open locked boxes
The next part of the game has you tracking down the Gear kog item and making your way to freedom.
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Ep 1: Access the prison, deal with the zombie threat and learn how to use stealth
The story picks up with Barry and Natalia's side of the story, and an introduction to stealth attacks.
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Ep 1: Find the control room, disable the power and escape from danger
The next part of our guide explains how to turn off those deadly blades and clear out the prison cells.
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Ep 1: Locate the radio tower, deal with a new enemy and survive the forest
Tips for dealing with the massive mutant in the penultimate part of our Episode One walkthrough.
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Ep 1: Unlock the gate, bring the crane back to life, then head to the Radio Tower
How to finish off the very last part of the first episode of Resident Evil Revelations 2.
Other episodes:
Resident Evil Revelations 2 walkthrough
As the first episode begins, you're treated to a dramatic opening cinematic featuring a lavish dinner party, some new-old friends and the mother of all gatecrashers. Sadly, that's the last you're going to see of the high-life for some time, and things take a turn for the deadly just as soon as you - stepping into Claire Redfield's shoes - awaken in a dank prison cell, far from home.
Find Moira Burton
Head out of the cell and begin following the broken rail track down the tunnel to the right. Soon, you're greeted by the frantic cries of your good friend Moira Burton, coming from somewhere up ahead. Keep on moving toward the source of the noise.
Once you round the bed, approach Moira in the first cell to the left and interact with her - the door opens and Moira joins your party.
Now slightly less lonely, head through the newly-opened gate at the end of the passage and continue forward until you reach the door bathed in an ominous red glow. Interact with it to move into the large chamber festooned with creaking chains and dangling bodies.
Continue following the rail tracks as they wind around the room's perimeter to the left and interact with the hole in the ground to leap over it. Directly ahead, there's a metal ladder to climb so make your way up, shuffle along the ledge nearby, then drop back down onto the tracks below.
The next broken track is impassable so take the passage to the left and turn left again up the steep incline a little further along. At the top, you're greeted by the sound of terrified screams and foreboding splashes of blood on the walls as you follow the path around to the right.
Get your hands on the knife
Make a note of the blue door to the left, then continue along the corridor. As the path bends to the right, there's a small alcove immediately to the left. Duck inside and examine the nearby table to retrieve a convenient knife - a feeble but no less welcome form of defence against the horrors to come. There's also a flashlight, which Moira will grab for herself.
![]() Resident Evil Mansion Layout
Wind back and pass through the blue door you noted a little earlier. Once you've surveyed the carnage beyond, make your way to the broken glass window at the end of the room and use a melee attack to shatter the pane, creating a handy thoroughfare to the next area.
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Leap over the divide and swipe the 'Rules for Monitoring Test Subjects' document from the shelves nearby. There's little else of interest to see here, so exit the room via the closed blue door next to the desk. Out in the corridor, take a left along the passage, then - once you reach the locked gate - take another left and head through the door at the end.
Now the horror cliches are really starting to pile on. A blinking fluorescent light illuminates an abandoned hospital gurney nearby and flickering shadows dance through the gloom. Proceed along the corridor and navigate the debris blocking the route ahead. Next, follow the on-screen prompts and begin pushing the empty shelving out of the way.
Surviving your first fight with a mutant
Brace yourself for a shock though: as you attempt to clear a path, a crazed mutant launches itself directly at you. Thankfully, you're protected by the shelving in your grip so swing your knife wildly until the creatures runs away. Resume your shunting and, once the corridor is accessible, follow it (and the escalating shrieks) along.
You'll get another glimpse of the gnarled mutant immediately upon entering the next room. Give chase through the door to the left and follow the linear route around.
There's a health-restoring Green Herb sitting on the floor beyond the security gate ahead, so grab it and work your way through the inventory tutorial. With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, push along the corridor, heading past the belching steam pipes, and continue into the next room.
A little way inside, you discover another tangle of shelving, this time framing an ominous trail of blood. Duck under it to proceed, then head out the doorway to the left.
Back outside, approach the illuminated steel shutters at the end of the corridor and interact with them to pass on through. It seems that the source of the screams has met a sticky end here and it's sad faces all round.
Feeling just a tad glummer, push forward and take note of the steel door illuminated by a red light ahead. Sadly, it's locked so its time to buckle down and start hunting the Experiment Block Key.
- Read on for the next part of our guide which explains how to find the Experiment Block Key.
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