100 Things You Never Knew About Resident Evil
16. Loading Screen Minigames
In the mid-90s, Namco got a tip of the hat for being clever enough to put some of their classic arcade games into their big PS1 titles - noticeably Ridge Racer and Tekken - for people to play whilst the real main event booted. It was a good way to entertain players whilst they waited, and Namco thought it was such a great idea that they decided to copyright "loading screen minigames". This is why it never became a more common occurrence.
In 2015, this patent ceased and it was suddenly something every developer could do without fear legal recompense. However, it never really took off.
A pair of games that did take advantage of this though were the Nintendo Switch ports of Resident Evil Revelations 1 and 2 in 2017.
Revelations features "Ghost Ship Panic", a simple shooter that uses cute pixellated versions of the game's beasties marching down the screen. Revelations 2's is perhaps the most charming however, as "Ghouls N' Homunculi" is a reskin of Capcom classic Ghosts N' Goblins featuring Barry in the lead role.
It's a shame we don't more weird additions like this when games get ported.