Lots of details revealed for Resident Evil 7 ahead of its E3 debut
The reception to Resident Evil VII’s reveal at E3 was somewhat mixed. Some loved the return to horror while others thought the game was a far departure of the franchise. However, fans be assured as the demo will not be representative of the full game.
While the Beginning Hour demo content won’t be featured in the finished game, Resident Evil 7 will follow its approach to horror. “The teaser is kind of a tonal preview instead of a content preview,” director Koushi Nakanishi told a website. “It’s also not showing off all the gameplay pillars we’re going to have. It’s focusing on up front to the key pillars, which are fear, horror, and exploration of an environment. The other key pillars of Resident Evil – puzzle solving, resource management, and combat – they’re coming down the line. They’re all in there, but we’re focusing on horror has come home as a kind of theme for the teaser demo. So if you thought the games were going away from horror in previous years, this is just a statement of intent, purpose, to say it’s back.”
Capcom has been taking RE6 criticism into account, restructuring gameplay to provide a stronger horror experience. Specially, that means a first-person perspective, more influences from the original games, and the complete removal of quick-time events. Resident Evil 7 will be first-person – to better emphasize a horror focus. “First-person camera was part of the original concept of this game,” Nakanishi elaborates. “It wasn’t something that was decided on part-way through. What’s the most appropriate way to bring the type of horror experience we’re trying to bring to players. The answer to us straightaway was that first-person perspective – it was the solution to what we were trying to do.”
Even better, these gameplay revisions include the return of health-restoring herbs and a less-than-fond farewell to maligned quick-time events. If all goes well, that means we’ll be falling in love with Resident Evil 7 when it launches on January 24, 2017 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
