Alternate versions

The US version of Director's Cut was marketed as containing the same uncensored FMV footage as the original Japanese version of the game, but only contained the same censored footage as the previous US version. Reportedly, this was a localization error done by the developers in which the uncensored footage was erronously replaced by the edited footage according to Capcom USA. Despite this, Capcom never recalled the game to fix the alleged mistake, nor did they include uncensored footage in the US release of the Dual Shock version (despite having the opportunity of doing so).

The PlayStation and Saturn versions released outside of Japan (including the Director's Cut edition, which was erronously marketed as being uncensored by Capcom's US division) of the game had three of the game's FMV sequences altered from the original Japanese release. Most notable of all is the live-action opening intro, in which shots of corpses during Chris' narration is replaced by newspaper pages, the decapitated hand found by Joseph is only shown briefly and Joseph's death scene (in which he fights shoots a zombie dog in the eye before being mutilated) was shortened. In addition, Chris was originally shown lighting a cigarette during the cast's introduction (this was replaced by superimposed colored footage of early shots of Chris from the intro). The second FMV movie altered was with the encounter with the first Zombie, in which showed Kenneth's half-eaten head is drop into the floor before the zombie himself faces the player. The third and final FMV that was change was Chris' "bad" ending, which was reshot so that Chris is no longer shown smoking (SCEA reportedly forbids any "glorification" of tobacco use in their games, despite the fact that SCEI has no problem with them). Virgin's PC port is the only version in the US to contain all the FMV intact with the opening intro being shown in color (the original Japanese was in black & white).

The initial Japanese (NTSC/J) version of Biohazard played an ending song with Japanese lyrics during the closing credits. This ending theme is exclusive to that specific version of the game and has been replaced in all subsequent versions of the game (including the Japanese Director's Cut) by an instrumental theme.

A few months before the release of the sequel, Capcom issued a new version of the game known as the "Director's Cut", which contained an "Arrange" mode in addition to the original game. The Arranged Mode allowed the player to experience the game with different camera angles in some areas, new costumes for the main characters (including Rebecca), different item and enemy placement and a new monster in the game. A later version of Director's Cut, known as the "Dual Shock version", contained vibration and analog support for Sony's Dual Shock controller, as well as a new soundtrack composed by Mamoru Samuragoch. The Japanese release included a bonus disc known as the "Complete Disc" (in the place of the Biohazard 2 demo), which contained downloadable save data and gameplay footage from the scrapped version of Biohazard 2.

A Saturn port of the game was released a few months before Director's Cut. While this version had inferior graphics due to the Saturn's substandard 3D capabilities, it did contained a different set of alternate costumes for Chris and Jill, as well as an unlockable Survival Mode containing three new monsters (including a zombiefied Wesker).