A beam destroys the Seyfert and then the shuttle, killing nearly everyone except for Patrick Tyler, Sonya Hart, Commander Jacob Ranshaw, and McCoy.
Sonya discovers that MTHR - the ship's control system - is creating the dinosaur-like creatures from the DNA of animals in storage as a replacement for the human crew.
Patrick returns to the Energy Core to restart it, but the room is severely damaged when a mutant Spinosaurus crashes through the wall, filling the area with water coolant.
Upon defeating the creature, Patrick tries to stop MTHR sending the dinosaurs to Earth and fights her, eventually destroying her system, which has disastrous effects on the ship, causing it to activate the self-destruct sequence.
As Patrick runs, the Cebalrai slams its left head into him and tosses him into the wall, making him unable to reach his gun.
Midway through the battle, the Cebalrai grows a third head, and Patrick is forced to use a "Final Wasp", which weakens the creature and sends it flying into space.
[5] In reaction to the September 11 attacks in the United States, Capcom Production Studio 4 moved away from the city environment, and it was instead decided the game would be set on board a space ship far into the future.
Originally the HUD was to be positioned on the bottom-left corner of the screen, and show health and jetpack fuel stats as lines, as well as the number of WASPs available to the player.
A shop feature was created for the game where, like in Dino Crisis 2 the player could purchase supplies based on points accumulated from killing dinosaurs.
[8] In developing the camera, the team decided to take full advantage of the Xbox's power and make it 3D rather than using 2D pre-rendered backgrounds like Dino Crisis 2 had done.
[8] The storyboard editor, Shinji Higuchi, made the decision that the main environment, the Ozymandias, would be capable of transforming, being a long-time fan of mecha.
[10] Due to this fascination with mecha, 3CGI paid particular attention to making the cutscenes of Ozymandias' transformation seem more realistic, with moving parts being locked in place.
Distinct from the space suits of the other cast members, Caren's mini-dress was designed to echo Japanese "race queen" idols, and Shinji Mikami had her purple tights removed to better match that concept.
An early story proposal centred on the emergence of dinosaurs in the present day world, possibly the very time distortion Dino Crisis 2 alluded to with the Noah's Ark Plan.
With offers from the Flagship team, led by Noboru Sugimura, Hiromichi Nakamoto, Shin Yoshida and Hiroaki Kanazawa, it was agreed the game story be shifted to a futuristic environment in space which would allow for new ideas.
Makoto Kamiya, a professional film director, was hired to direct the work so that elements such as camera angles would look movie-like.
Because of the large size of zones and the long-range auto-aim system, IGN expected that players would spend 80% of their game to be firing at enemies that are out of their view and dodging attacks from off-screen.
[16] IGN was supportive of Capcom's decision to turn the Ozymandias into a giant puzzle, with the ship being able to routinely change formation.
[21] IGN also admired the uniqueness of the 50+ rooms within the Ozymandias, but questioned the decision to avoid such environments as a cafeteria or a mess hall, which would have made the ship feel more like it actually had a crew to begin with.
[21] GameSpot saw little 'uniqueness' in the designs, noting the same shiny metallic look of the ship's interiors being everywhere and, without using the 3D map feature, it would be hard to get lost when moving around (partly because of the camera system).