Resident Evil 7

Resident Evil 7 does a fantastic job at presenting long-time fans something familiar yet integrates new elements to create an enthralling experience. We get a highly detailed and engrossing game world, set on a large plantation where players will explore for resources, solve puzzles, fight off all manner of terrors and survive long enough to discover the root of a sinister mystery.

You star as Ethan Winters, a fairly generic white guy who’s looking for his beloved wife Mia who’s been missing for three years. Ethan receives a message from Mia and heads out to the Southern state of Louisiana to discover an old house in the middle of nowhere. After a short and brutal reunion with Mia, Ethan is knocked out and brought to a sinister looking Plantation and soon he meets the real nightmare of Resident Evil 7, The Baker family. After a gruesome dinner scene (made more gruesome through VR) Ethan receives a phone call from a supposed ally who informs him he must escape the house and deal with the Bakers and other abominations in the process. Like traditional Resident Evil fashion, it’s down to a one person, with little means to fight back and the task at hand is to escape this hell hole.



On the surface, Resident Evil 7 could seem to be massively different from the original games back on the Playstation, yet this instalment is the closest thing to honour the older games. The big difference to consider is the first-person perspective which lends beautifully to capturing the intensity of the situations at hand which. The first person view limits your vision to greaten the tension as did the fix cameras of the original games. This is great for chases, immense combat situations and even opening a door is terrifying.
Resident Evil 7 at its core functions just like any older Resident Evil game. Players will explore a vastly detailed location to find keys, acquire resources, solve puzzles and survive a variation of dangers from monsters to death traps. In many respects it’s a sophisticated trial and error format of pushing forward, learning from your progression and doing what it takes to survive. Mechanically the game is simply to understand and how you survive is down too how well you adapt to the game. You’ll never fell truly powerless as you can scavenge for resources that you can combine for health and ammo and obtain weapons but there are other things you must remember. Running and hiding is at times needed and to be honest, stealth is clunky but function well enough for you to get by.

But players are pushed more to fight back when they can as guns can be found and crafting plays an important part in survival. You can mix raw materials with Chem-fluid, creating vital resources such as health and ammo which become very important, more so in Madhouse mode.

Apart from some clunky stealth elements, the game works wonderfully well mechanically and is a huge deal of fun to engage with. The atmosphere is intense and brooding with every noise and flicker of shadow putting you on edge. The Bakers and the Moulded await you around every corner of this decaying world and they are relentless in their pursuits. Being hunted down by the likes of Jack Baker is a captivating and brutal ordeal as you run away from him down tight, winding corridors and deals a huge amount of damage once he gets you. As mentioned the stealth aspect of Resident Evil 7 is clunky and these chases you have with Jack or Marguerite can be immensely terrifying or could simply end once you run out of the room they’re in and hide behind a chair.



But we do get some brilliant boss battles in the first two acts, from a gruelling garage fight to a deadly encounter in a claustrophobic greenhouse. The pacing through the main house and old house are engaging and here is where the game really shines for offering great combat and enjoyable puzzles. Even if many puzzles are pretty one dimensional, lacking any real lateral engagement. You find yourself most often having to make tough choices whether to make health, ammo or wait until you can make advanced version of either. Then there’s the rush of joy reaching a save room in piece, this game does so well to create dread and making you feel so relieved to reach a single room. I loved the complexity of the Baker Estate and felt the progression when finding a key to unlock more rooms to be more enthralling. Along with finding new weapons and puzzles they bring to acquire them.

My main issue with Resident Evil 7 is the third act which simply loses focus and it’s impact compared to the former acts. Elements like the Moulded just outstay their welcome and become tedious to engage with, dealing with Lucas just feels slightly underwhelming compared to his folks and the last few segments become repetitive corridor shoot outs. Not to mention the lacklustre climax and final boss battle. Thankfully we do get some neat unlockable content and the game itself does hold a high replay value even with the weak third act, due to the simply brilliant first half. Not to forget Madhouse mode which is vastly difficult but offers an interesting few changes in gameplay, including a limited save system by using cassette tapes. Great stuff.

Overall, Resident Evil 7 is a fine return to the series’ roots and marks Capcom’s capability in making fine survival horror classics. This will appease any long-time fan or those looking to get into the series’ horror focus approach. Apart from the sloppy third act and the overly simplistic puzzles, we get very engaging tension, brutal combat and great pacing in the first two acts to make a very enjoyable survival horror classic.

++ Great survival horror gameplay
++ Some great boss battles and set pieces
+Great unlocks and Madhouse mode

- Lackluster third act and final boss
- The Molded become tedious as a main enemy
- Puzzles are a little too simple