Abandoned Resident Evil TV show Arklay appears to have resurfaced in video form

Once-in-development but long-abandoned Resident Evil TV show Arklay appears to have resurfaced in proof-of-concept video form.

I say appears because neither the words "Resident Evil" or "Arklay" are to be found anyway near the newly released footage. As such, it might be worth a brief history lesson to link all the pieces back together.

The Arklay TV show - named after Resident Evil's Arklay Mountains region, located north-west of Raccoon City - was first revealed back in 2014. It was reportedly still early in development at the time, with writer/director Shawn Christopher Lebert at the helm.

Arklay was pitched as a sort of supernatural detective series based around the Resident Evil games - although, truthfully, it was never entirely clear just how 'official' the series actually was. Horror website Bloody Disgusting managed to get its hands on an early synopsis:

"When Detective James Reinhardt is thrust into a series of bizarre homicides, he unravels the city is hiding a dark conspiracy. Learning a fatal virus is connected to it all, Reinhardt discovers it's already coursing through him. With time no longer on his side, he must solve the conspiracy to save his own life."

Needless to say, nothing much ever came of Arklay; its anticipated 2015 release date arrived and few seemed too concerned when the series failed to emerge.

This week however, Arklay creator Shawn Lebert (as spotted by PCGamesN) released a "proof-of-concept" short film on Vimeo, titled Dave. And while the words "Resident Evil" and "Arklay" are nowhere to be seen, some elements are certainly familiar.

Lebert's short film follows Detective James Reinhardt (remember him from three paragraphs ago?) and partner Samantha Trace as they investigate the death of Reinhardt's brother, Dave - and make a discovery that "may just in fact haunt them for the rest of their lives".

Given how the short film concludes, it's certainly not a stretch to connect it to the abandoned Arklay project. Whether Dave was produced as part of Arklay's original development, however, or is a later reworking of Lebert's Arklay scripts, is unclear.

It's a reasonably intriguing watch, all told, and for the curious, the film appears to be tied to some sort of extended-universe ARG - which you might like to investigate further if you have the patience for those sorts of things.