An Itchy, Tasty History of Resident Evil by Alex Aniel chronicles the development of Capcom’s popular Resident Evil series, beginning from before the 1996 release of the original through to the end of 2006.

Aniel spent two years interviewing key members of former Capcom staff, allowing him to tell the inside story of how Capcom’s survival horror game franchise was envisioned as early as the late 1980s, how its unexpected and unprecedented success saved Capcom from financial trouble, how it struggled at the turn of the century and how it was reborn with the 2005 release of Resident Evil 4. It concludes with the large organizational changes that occurred at Capcom in late 2006 that saw the series production shift to a new generation of creators (a topic to be converted in a sequel book).

Aniel narrates the development of each Resident Evil game released between 1996 and 2006, interspersing commentary from the developers themselves. Aniel offers new information that takes into account Capcom’s situation as a company throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, the video game industry as a whole and how being from Japan influenced the viewpoints of the creators.

Well-versed in both English and Japanese, Aniel has spoken directly to many key players from the first decade of the Resident Evil series, including:

Tokuro Fujiwara, Director of Sweet Home, Executive Producer of Resident Evil (1996)

Yoshiki Okamoto, Executive Producer of Resident Evil series through 2003

Noritaka Funamizu, General Producer of Resident Evil series, Producer of Resident Evil: Outbreak

Shinji Mikami, Director of Resident Evil (1996 and 2002), Resident Evil 4

Hideki Kamiya, Director of Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cryand OKAMI

Kazuhiro Aoyama, Director of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

Hiroki Kato, Director of Resident Evil CODE: Veronica

An extract from the book appeared earlier this year Polygon, you can read it here