Anniversary Advent 2022 | How Resident Evil 7 Saved A Franchise
Back in the grand old year of 1996 (Twenty-Six years ago!), a third-person claustrophobic shooter/survival game came out called Resident Evil (or Biohazard in Japan). This one game set off a chain of events that sent ripples throughout the world that can still be felt to this day. The reason I bring this up? Well, we need to go back, then forward to 2012 and from there to 2017.
We would be remise to not mention the first games truly amazing FMV.
The reason I started way back in the beginning was rather simple, when a series is almost 30 years old, it is bound to change. When the RE series first started there was a core cast of characters that quickly became known to us all, mainly Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine and Albert Wesker. When the sequel (Resident Evil 2) was released, we met rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy, Claire Redfield (sister to Chris) & Ada Wong (Industrial Spy).
Both games had many similarities; two playable characters with their own scenarios trying to survive the same creepy gothic buildings, full of the undead, secret doors and weirdly elaborate puzzles. While both characters in each game had their own goals and motives, the games’ narrative would end roughly the same to keep on simple cannon. Essentially, you bought one game, with one story but you got two character perspectives. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis was the combo breaker though. Once again you get to play as Jill “Master of Unlocking” Valentine from the initial entry, but this time instead of a single abode, the location is a whole city and there is only one campaign.
Despite these few design differences between the three games, everything pretty much remained the same. Fixed cameras, zombies, survival and a chain of events that culminated in the destruction of the fictional Racoon City in which all three games were set. That was it for your mainline story, between ‘96 and ‘99. The turn of the millennium brought us some side stories and deepened the lore but even with the new Playstation 2 console, not much changed.
Leon S. Kennedy. Ex-rookie cop. Super spy to the US President . Massive himbo.
That was until 2005 and Resident Evil 4. A change in scope, a change in gameplay, the return of fan favourite Leon S. Kennedy. A series once known for its slow and investigative gameplay got ramped up to action movie levels of stupid fueled by a new virus, Spain and a world-ending plot involving the president’s daughter. This wasn't your dad's Resident Evil, and despite, basically shredding the RE rulebook, this game is still a fan favourite to this day.
Not long after this though, the Xbox 360 and PS3 graced the world and the action movie-ness of Resident Evil 4 got cranked to 11 with Resident Evil 5. Chris Redfield returned our screens again, now with biceps the size of most small countries. This time in a fictional African country tracking down the trade of Bio-Orangic weapons (which are totally not Zombies). With plot twists you never saw coming, the return of Jill Valentine & Albert Wesker and boulder punching, the franchise was riding high, 1980s macho high.
You know, zombie stuff.
It was, however, not meant to be. In 2012 we got the culmination of seven years of action movie stupidity. Resident Evil 6 had the audacity to grace store shelves. I personally enjoyed it but even the most ardent apologist will tell you the game is a bit of a mess. Unlike the previous entries, this game had FOUR separate co-op campaigns that all wove in and out of each other like the London circular Motorway System over the course of 30-odd hours. There were only a few problems: Why was Chris depressed? Why is the President Dead? Who is Jake? What’s with the insects!? What is going on?!
I mean, even the box art is over crowded.
Resident Evil 6 assumed you followed all previous releases including side stories, an animated movie or two and had been paying keen attention to the lore. If you hadn’t… Well, it had no interest in filling you in. The action set-pieces were as ridiculous as The Fast and The Furious franchise. This meant you turn your brain off and enjoy the spectacle, but then you’d lose track of the story that the game was so insistent on interrupting the gameplay every five minutes in long cutscenes. Resident Evil had upped pace and stupidity with each instalment and as a result, collapsed under their own weight.
Now I have spoken for over a page about six previous games and not once have I touched upon the game that’s anniversary I want to celebrate. Why is that? Well, it’s simple. After five years of development, everything the series had morphed into was wiped away… gone. Poof, up in smoke. Resident Evil 7 had no interest in bombast, it was here to do something different.
It reinvented the wheel.
This dramatic change in direction, not only re-aligned the franchise but it changed many things for the industry. To start with, Capcom created a new in-house engine called RE Engine (Reach for the Moon Engine). This engine allowed for a smoother development cycle and also for Resident Evil 7 to be released in VR. This will be important later.
Resident Evil 7 was first announced at E3 2016 and fans were at a loss. The game seemed to be inspired by games like Outlast and movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A tight, claustrophobic game where you will grow familiar with one location, but not what's around the corner. The trailer looked enticing but different. A familiar yet strange feeling.
As you can see Ethan isn’t much of a firearms expert.
Soon after, a demo was announced, Resident Evil Teaser: Beginning Hour. This demo did one thing and one thing only. It cemented the tone. Stuck behind a camera the entire time, left to explore the abandoned house before it all goes wrong. This was the worm and we were the fish, we hooked ourselves. The worst part, this was bait and switch.
Soon after, we got the full release. We start off watching a video of a girl named Mia telling the protagonist Ethan not to come to find her. Soon after though, Ethan gets cause to actually try and find his girlfriend Mia, and from there the game begins. You spend this entire opening cutscene locked to a first-person perspective and you think nothing of it. Once you arrive at your destination and get out of your car though, the first major gameplay change makes itself known.
For the first time since the lightgun spin-off games, the game is set entirely in a first-person perspective. This was a major departure from fixed cameras and over the shoulder views. What really rocked the world though, the VR Experience. You were really there. The excellent, sound design and the frankly stomach-turning texture of the Baker’s house was enough to make you sick at some points and the VR version of the game had all this inches from your eyes!
To pull a prime example, I have a good 18 hours in the game, that’s over two playthroughs (then a few start and stops), but every time at the dinner table, Jack Baker grabs your head, takes his knife and starts grating your teeth. Head to the left, eyes closed, headset off. Masterpiece.
One of the other ongoing traditions of these games is creepy little girls.
Though the game still kept much of the Resident Evil DNA, things like managing inventory space, colour-coded keys to rooms and puzzles no human would ever put in their home, it also brought a newfound sense of dread. In the house you find yourself trapped in, you are the prey, not the predator. Guns do nothing to the Baker family and they’ve already taken your arm. Your only friend is their daughter and even she seems to have an ulterior motive.
All locations in the Baker home have their own dread. In the main house, the patriarch Jack is in constant pursuit. He is an unstoppable force and even the distinct sound of his heavy boots on the wooden floor causes all common sense to leave the player's head as you scramble to hide like you’re playing Alien Isolation.
NO. NOPE. CERTAINLY NOT. NO THANK YOU!
The mother, Marguerite, and her greenhouse are both full of bugs. Just bugs. Honestly, as someone who does not like bugs and creepy crawlies and spiders and all that - the Marguerite section of Resident Evil 7 can fuck right off. This section caters to people like us perfectly. It’s unsettling at every turn, you don’t want to look around her area, you just want to throw up and get out of there.
In the Lucas section of the Baker residence… though he isn't present for most of it, is where the game changes pace as it plays similar to a SAW movie. Complete tasks with vague descriptors and numerous endpoints as quickly as possible, it can only be done correctly once. To my knowledge, even the DLC for Lucas plays like this. There are true-crime Netflix series about people like Lucas.
I see someone wanted to play a game.
For the brief respite you get when you leave the crushing walls, the game still does enough with the world to make you feel uneasy. Leaving the main house to go to the side cabin you are met by an unsettling swamp which just sounds sweaty to wade through before you are met with more bugs and bug nests.
When you leave there to go to the Lucas section, where you are met with the signature claustrophobia as well as anxiety-inducing timers and open-ended puzzles. In short, if you are easily stressed, avoid this game entirely.
All RE games are legally required to have an underground secret lab by the way.
The final section of the game on the ship is much easier and resembles previous instalments. But by this point, you don’t care. You have been wined and dined and treated to the greatest horror experience in your life. What they did with Resident Evil 7 was the greatest redemption story in gaming.
Capcom had the bravery to slow down, re-evaluate everything from the past, take what worked, remove that which didn't and give a lost franchise a new game with a new story and a new jump-off point. The issue with long-running series like this is finding a “where to start” point for new people over the course of 26 years. Here it is. With no ties to previous games (Bar Chris Redfield coming in clutch at the end), the story serves as a new chapter.
So what’s next?
Granted, it was pulled down a bit by Resident Evil Village (RE8) and the future is looking rather obscure. I feel we will get another fixing of the Ethan storyline soon. That being said, the work put in by the team on Resident Evil 7 is nothing short of miraculous. The game shared enough with all previous instalments to appease old and and bring in new fans and to think, it’s only five years old.
