When Resident Evil 7 was announced at E3, it’s fair to say that it took everyone by surprise.
We knew Capcom were taking the franchise back to its survival horror roots, sure, but this was a slow paced first person experience, more in line with P.T than anything we’ve ever seen in Resident Evil before.
Going solely from the trailer and subsequent demo (which can be downloaded by anyone with a PS Plus subscription), hardcore fans didn’t seem too thrilled – they wanted a return to something akin to classic Resident Evil, and what they got was something entirely different.
Fortunately, Resident Evil 7 producer Masachika Kawata recently sat down with GameSpot to explain a little bit about what we can expect from the final game.
The first thing to remember (as we recently reported) is that the demo is not a clear representation of Resident Evil 7. It’s a teaser, which is why we didn’t see any kind of combat or health system.
Kawata explained:
The demo we have on the PlayStation Network right now was specially created to focus on the atmosphere that Resident Evil 7 will provide. It doesn’t include a lot of other elements that are in the game. Rather, we wanted to convey just what type of feeling you would get from the game. In the actual game, one thing that you’ll notice first and foremost is that the scale and scope of the game is much bigger than demonstrations.
When pushed to talk a little more about some of the full game’s mechanics, Kawata mentioned combat. Specifically, there will be combat, and perhaps even some light gunplay.
However, it was stressed that Resident Evil 7 is not a game about going in “all guns blazing”. Good. Neither was the original Resident Evil, and running out of ammo in that game became a truly scary experience.
One revelation that might rub fans up the wrong way is that the whole game will be in the first-person perspective.
Still, try and remember that Resident Evil 4 shifted the perspective, and that game was fucking awesome (even if the two that followed it were turds).
Kawata explained why he thinks first-person works in the context of a horror game:
When confronting the enemy, there’s no barrier between you and the enemy. This also applies to exploration and gimmicks and traps and things like that. They felt that it really gets you up close and personal with everything, which adds to that horror element.
Fans should also be glad to hear that scarcity of resources will play a factor, and that we shouldn’t count on finding some kind of magical item that suddenly makes everything easier.
Kawata described it as simply “how do I make it through this terrifying situation”, which is classic Resident Evil in a nutshell.
For anyone who’s been following the insane and convoluted plot of that past six Resi games, number seven will indeed tie into the larger universe, and will be peppered with references – but we shouldn’t expect to see the likes of Leon or Chris popping up.
Kawata argued that featuring those iconic characters who we’ve seen save the day so many times would take away from horror – and Resident Evil 7 is all about the horror.
When asked who the hero of this game was, Kawata told GameSpot that it was simply “the player”. For the full (and very interesting) interview, head over to GameSpot.
Resident Evil 7 will be coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on January 24, 2017.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.