Three years after its release, I’ve finally played Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
(I’d actually intended for this to be my first spooky game of the season, but due to some computer issues and other factors, it ended up being pushed to near the end.)
When I started the game, I had my doubts. It didn’t feel much like a Resident Evil game at all.
Fortunately, it does end up feeling like Resident Evil once you get through the beginning, at least in terms of gameplay.
Although you play from a first-person perspective and it begins with a section that emphasizes stealth and sneaking around a persistent stalker enemy, it isn’t too long before you reach an area with several locks doors, keys to find, and puzzles to solve – all the things I look for in a survival horror game.
Resident Evil 7 definitely brought the series back to survival horror, and having played the Resident Evil 2 remake, I can see just how much the two have in common despite initially feeling very different.
So when it comes to survival horror, Resident Evil 7 left me satisfied. Keys, puzzles, inventory management, it has it all… and some pretty deadly enemies to face off against, too.
On the other hand, the tone is very different than the rest of the series (although I’d argue Resident Evil lost a consistent tone around Resident Evil 4, if not earlier). You play Ethan, a man who receives a message from his missing wife asking him to come get her. Once he arrives, he finds himself trapped by a family of murderous psychopaths who have decided to make him the latest addition to their little group.
There are monsters and infections, but the major antagonists are infected humans who stalk you around the game’s locations and taunt you. It just doesn’t feel like Resident Evil.
For most of the game, that is. While you might spend most of it wondering why this is Resident Evil and not a new survival horror IP, the connection is established late in the game, and I actually really liked how it finally established itself as part of the series.
Overall, I enjoyed Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and I see why people saw it as Resident Evil’s triumphant return to survival horror. If Resident Evil Village ends up feeling like this, I wouldn’t mind that. I haven’t played the DLC yet, but I intend to look into them. What did you think of Resident Evil 7?
