Resident Evil 7 Demo

            Well everyone, E3 is well and over but sadly, as per usual, I wasn’t able to cover as many things as I wanted to.  This was due to a combination of personal obligations, work commitments, and laziness and procrastination.  But after the last article involving Mass Effect: Andromeda, I wanted to end things on a more positive note.  To that end, let’s talk about the teaser for Resident Evil 7.

            The Resident Evil series is one that I cannot help but have mixed feelings on.  I understand that they are a staple of the survival horror genera, but the vast majority of them don’t hold up all that well.  The first three in particular had god awful voice acting, camera restrictions and crappy controls that were more frustrating than anything else, frequently employed genera clichés to an infuriating degree and contained plots that just got more and more ridiculous as time went on.  Resident Evil 4 wisely discarded all the Umbrella Corporation/Zombie baggage and told a much more interesting, self-contained story with a likeable cast of characters, interesting monster designs and far more fluid controls.  Then Resident Evil 5 managed to piss away all the good will the previous game had bought, turning the whole thing into a generic action game and disposing of most of the horror elements.  And Resident Evil 6…. was just terrible on every level.  There were also a number of other spinoff games but to be honest I could never be bothered with them and from the looks of things none of that actually matters with this game anyway.

            What is both fantastic and possibly frustrating about this demo is that it doesn’t actually seem to have anything to do with its predecessors in plot or gameplay.  There doesn’t appear to be any zombies, no Leon, no Chris Redfield, no Jill Valentine and no Umbrella Corporation.  If anything the game is taking notes from P.T., Outlast and Amnesia: The Dark Decent in style and presentation.  The characters you play as are apparently unnamed people who get locked in a haunted house and try to escape as things prevent them and that’s about it.  You explore this house through two different perspectives at different times and the result is something that is truly unsettling and disturbing.  It doesn’t rely on jump scares or quickly moving monsters to scare you.  The horror here is a bit subtler and if you rush through the demo you might just miss it.  As you go through the house you’ll notice that a lot of things about it are a bit off and as you move around things change.  For example, the whole house looks as if it hasn’t been used in decades yet it has relatively freshly cut meet just sitting around hallways.  In the distance you will hear noises but it’s hard to tell where it’s coming from and what exactly it is.  At other times your character will turn his head and look back only to find that several objects in the room have moved in dramatic ways with no indication as to how or why they moved.  At other times you’ll catch a glimpse of something disturbing but will disappear before you have a chance to get a good look.  Above all else, this demo understands that it’s what you don’t see that is the most frightening and plays that card to full effect.

            As far as the general gameplay goes, if this demo is any indication then it will be a game that forces you to use a small number of items to move around wherever your characters is and find your way out of whatever situation you happen to get into.  The over the top arsenal that you had in previous games seems to be gone and shooting your way out is no longer be an option.  But for more on any of this we’ll have to wait until the game comes out and the game explicitly says that what is in this demo may not be a representation of the final game. 

            Overall, the Resident Evil 7 Demo is a pretty good way to spend an hour and easily the best thing that the franchise has put out in a long time.  It was suspenseful, scary, and, above all, did its job and makes me want to buy the game.  It was a great way to end my look at E3 and I can’t wait to see more of this game. 

            So until next time, please follow the site, like the Facebook page and follow me on twitter and let’s hope that these games prove to be as good, (or in some cases better), as the trailers and demos promoting them.