The game Biohazard Fire Zone was announced by Capcom in February 2001 as part of a deal with NAMCO in developing an Arcade game tie-in to the Resident Evil series. Back in 1998, Capcom had toyed with the notion of developing an arcade game after the proper-establishment of the franchise; this was either the precursor to Fire Zone or an unrelated project "deep in development" for the SEGA NAOMI that was merged with the then-Dreamcast-exclusive Resident Evil CODE:Veronica (the NAOMI and Dreamcast were designed with the same hardware components).