Resident Evil 7 Preview & Impressions

Resident Evil 7 is unlike any other installment in the series. Based on the VR demo I played at E3, which you can experience now if you’re a PS Plus member on PS4, Capcom has really gone back to basics with the seventh main entry. Gone are the action movie setpieces and the zombies. Instead, Resident Evil 7: The Beginning Hour, as the demo is called, focuses on dread and exploration.

A first for Resident Evil, you play in first-person and as a character who is absolutely weaponless. Comparisons will definitely be made to survival horror franchises like Amnesia or Outlast, although the overall feel of the demo was definitely more akin to Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro’s P.T. demo. In fact, that demo is The Beginning Hour’s most obvious influence, which would normally put it in sort of an awkward position if it weren’t for the fact that both Silent Hills and Allison Roadhave been canceled. Resident Evil 7, on the other hand, has the best chance of finally delivering the experience teased in P.T.

I must note that the demo isn’t an actual part of the game. The Beginning Hour is meant to deliver the overall bullet points of Resident Evil 7 -- dread, mystery, and exploration -- while the finished game will bring back classic puzzle-solving and weapons. The demo feels like more of a promise from Capcom to return to what made the original trilogy of Resident Evil games so great -- much like P.T. was a proof of concept for the deceased Silent Hills.

This was my first game on VR, and a fitting one since survival horror seems like one of the genres most compatible with the new tech. The slow pace of The Beginning Hour definitely complements virtual reality quite well, as you slowly investigate the decaying hallways of an abandoned house that’s way too conveniently creepy. (It’s common knowledge that the family that lived there disappeared, which would suggest the police investigated, yet the house is full of rotting goops of food in rusted pots and body bags in the fridge.) The extra immersion provided by the PS VR headset definitely upped the scare factor quite a bit, and it’s impressive how far along the tech is, but I can’t say that VR is a viable replacement for a dark living room and simple headphones just yet. Especially not at a $400-$600 price point. Still, Resident Evil 7, one of the first full-length games made with virtual reality in mind, is a remarkable argument for VR as the future of gaming. Maybe in a couple years time, a controller will be a thing of the past.

I’m pleasantly surprised by the change in direction Capcom has taken for Resident Evil 7. There has been no shortage of commentary since RE6’s tepid response about what the franchise can do to regain its survival horror throne, a prize it’s absolutely lost in the wake of games like Dead Space, Amnesia, and Outlast. Many expected Resident Evil to get a reboot that went back to the core elements, much in the way Bethesda has been reviving its classic IPs, but Capcom’s ghost story-esque demo offers something much more interesting: the possibility that maybe Resident Evil will no longer be tied to zombies or an offshoot of the creeping undead.

That’s definitely the most exciting option for the company, which has been trying to shed the zombies for years now, anyway. Since Resident Evil 4, Capcom has almost completely abandoned the straightforward zombies for Los Ganados, Majini, and Afflicted. Attempts at recreating the zombie scenario in Leon’s RE6 campaign proved futile. So what does Resident Evil 7have to offer? The demo teases that we’ll meet “the family” in the game, with at least one madman running around a house and stuffing his victims in a fridge. But even that’s a bit typical, as the madman could be another type of parasitic vessel. The real draw of the demo for me was the heavy supernatural aspect.

At one point in the demo, I was following these two guys around the house, as they scouted the location for their TV show -- which, as far as I can tell, is a play on Ghost Hunters -- when I spotted a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ghost in the corner of my eye. It wasn’t so much a jumpy moment, since I was still walking around with the NPCs, but it did build the sense that something awful was about to happen. The ghost looked like the little girl teased in the trailer. My guess is that she’ll be in the actual game and so will the supernatural aspect, something Capcom has been fiddling with since its early concepts for Resident Evil 4. Not much else happened in the demo in terms of the supernatural, admittedly, but that single second of a ghostly sighting was enough to really put Resident Evil 7 on the path to greatness as an evolved franchise.

Resident Evil 7: The Beginning Hour can be faulted for depending on one too many jump scares, but the horror atmosphere it builds during the investigation is truly delightful. I probably wouldn’t play it on VR again, as that proved to be a bit distracting overall, but hand me a controller and a pair of headphones and I’ll be all set to meet the game’s mysterious family on Jan. 24, 2017.

Resident Evil 7will be out for XBO, PS4, and PC, and will be fully playable in VR.