*** Some aspects of this review may be considered spoilers. ***
Before I get to the game, I should preffix the review with a short piece on the 'Beginning Hour' demo. It's worth noting how fantastic the lead up to this release has been with the Beginning Hour setting the atmosphere from the very get-go. In the demo you play as Clancy Jarvis, a camera man for a hit internet show, Sewer Gators, which primarily looks at haunted houses and locations. They stumble across the Baker Family estate and from there things only get worse. Although we don't know the name of the protagonist of the demo, most of the demo is played through the eyes of Clancy. One by one, the Sewer Gators team is killed off, with Clancy being seemingly captured by Jack Backer, the father of the family. At the end of the demo, depending on your actions, you either get captured by Jack or escape to then get arrested on drug charges.
Following these events, the Kitchen demo went online, which was our first VR Experience in RE7 (Resident Evil 7). The Kitchen is a short five minute experience following Clancy, awoken tied to a chair, with one of his colleagues on the floor. His colleague struggles to free Clancy but unfortunately gets killed by a very rather distressing image of a girl. She then sneakily runs around you (using VRs fantastic 3D Audio output) and surprise surprise, kills Clancy... Seemingly...
So RE7 is finally here, Survival Horror comes Home has been what the marketing said. Where Resident Evil 6 failed to capture a spooky atmosphere and take on more of an action shooter approach, RE7 aims to buck the trend of the industry and offer a more grounded narrative. Instead of offering more superficial content, the games main story clocks in around 9hrs. Which is not a bad thing considering almost every minute of the game has a meaning.
At first, you'd be right for thinking this wasn't a Resident Evil game. Ethan Winters recieves a message from his wife who is three years gone, presuming she is alive, Ethan comes to the location stated in the message. A somber walk through the woods and stumbling across a large manor estate. Playing a videotape to fill you in on the story so far (Beginning Hour) but from there things get very Resident Evil. After a very surreal opening action scenes, where Ethan really has no control over what he has to do. From here, we get access to of course guns, limited ammo, herbs and reading notes that you find located within the Baker estate. A question could be asked as to why the Bakers have a grenade launcher, but whatever.
So who are the Bakers? Jack Baker, a family man, who is seemingly the leader of the group being the father figure. Marguerite Baker, the mother figure living in Jack's shadow, always trying hard to maintain order. Lucas Baker, the rebellious teenager who tries hard to please his parentage and of course Granny. Granny arguably is the creepiest character in the game, she can turn up at random locations in the house and stare at you although seemingly never moving, she gets around. Within the complex aswell, you will find information on other interesting such as Clancy, Eveline of course Ethans wife Mia Winters.
As said before, previous RE games have struggled to really create a scary atmosphere compared to the original game. Even RE2 and 3, were larger in scope but didn't quite catch that claustrophobic feeling of the Wesker Family Estate. The Baker estate comprises of multiple locations in the game, with the Main House in the front and the old dilapidated house in the back with a dock behind that too. Although locations don't vary that much in graphical fidelity, the sense of progressing is as strong as ever as you'll solve puzzles to unlock doors to get to these new locations.
If I had a concern about the game, it's that there is one specific chapter that is very action orientated, obviously I'm doing my best to not spoil any major plot points, but RE7's atmosphere is very coherent through the whole story and this chapter opens the same way but ends up with a bit of an action emphasis by the end. Although this isn't a bad thing to break up the pace a little bit, I feel that a total commitment to the survival horror feel would have been more rewarding instead of an action piece that felt a little out of place.
To conclude, Resident Evil 7 brings survival horror home. Claustrophobic environments bring more atmosphere than the last two RE games combined and rush of finding weapons, ammo and health items really nails that survival part really well.
Appendix:
On PlayStation 4 Pro, the game runs a solid 60 frames per second (FPS) at a 4K resolution (3840 x 2160) with High Dynamic Range (HDR) support. At time of writing it may be the only game to have all of these features at once. Along with Pro support, it also supports PlayStation VR (PSVR). So PSVR is the ultimate immersion method for RE7, I've never been in a situation where I was more terrified that playing the introduction in VR, but not just the introduction, the entire game is playable in VR at a locked 60FPS at a 1280x720 (720p resolution).
Before I get to the game, I should preffix the review with a short piece on the 'Beginning Hour' demo. It's worth noting how fantastic the lead up to this release has been with the Beginning Hour setting the atmosphere from the very get-go. In the demo you play as Clancy Jarvis, a camera man for a hit internet show, Sewer Gators, which primarily looks at haunted houses and locations. They stumble across the Baker Family estate and from there things only get worse. Although we don't know the name of the protagonist of the demo, most of the demo is played through the eyes of Clancy. One by one, the Sewer Gators team is killed off, with Clancy being seemingly captured by Jack Backer, the father of the family. At the end of the demo, depending on your actions, you either get captured by Jack or escape to then get arrested on drug charges.
Following these events, the Kitchen demo went online, which was our first VR Experience in RE7 (Resident Evil 7). The Kitchen is a short five minute experience following Clancy, awoken tied to a chair, with one of his colleagues on the floor. His colleague struggles to free Clancy but unfortunately gets killed by a very rather distressing image of a girl. She then sneakily runs around you (using VRs fantastic 3D Audio output) and surprise surprise, kills Clancy... Seemingly...
So RE7 is finally here, Survival Horror comes Home has been what the marketing said. Where Resident Evil 6 failed to capture a spooky atmosphere and take on more of an action shooter approach, RE7 aims to buck the trend of the industry and offer a more grounded narrative. Instead of offering more superficial content, the games main story clocks in around 9hrs. Which is not a bad thing considering almost every minute of the game has a meaning.
At first, you'd be right for thinking this wasn't a Resident Evil game. Ethan Winters recieves a message from his wife who is three years gone, presuming she is alive, Ethan comes to the location stated in the message. A somber walk through the woods and stumbling across a large manor estate. Playing a videotape to fill you in on the story so far (Beginning Hour) but from there things get very Resident Evil. After a very surreal opening action scenes, where Ethan really has no control over what he has to do. From here, we get access to of course guns, limited ammo, herbs and reading notes that you find located within the Baker estate. A question could be asked as to why the Bakers have a grenade launcher, but whatever.
So who are the Bakers? Jack Baker, a family man, who is seemingly the leader of the group being the father figure. Marguerite Baker, the mother figure living in Jack's shadow, always trying hard to maintain order. Lucas Baker, the rebellious teenager who tries hard to please his parentage and of course Granny. Granny arguably is the creepiest character in the game, she can turn up at random locations in the house and stare at you although seemingly never moving, she gets around. Within the complex aswell, you will find information on other interesting such as Clancy, Eveline of course Ethans wife Mia Winters.
As said before, previous RE games have struggled to really create a scary atmosphere compared to the original game. Even RE2 and 3, were larger in scope but didn't quite catch that claustrophobic feeling of the Wesker Family Estate. The Baker estate comprises of multiple locations in the game, with the Main House in the front and the old dilapidated house in the back with a dock behind that too. Although locations don't vary that much in graphical fidelity, the sense of progressing is as strong as ever as you'll solve puzzles to unlock doors to get to these new locations.
If I had a concern about the game, it's that there is one specific chapter that is very action orientated, obviously I'm doing my best to not spoil any major plot points, but RE7's atmosphere is very coherent through the whole story and this chapter opens the same way but ends up with a bit of an action emphasis by the end. Although this isn't a bad thing to break up the pace a little bit, I feel that a total commitment to the survival horror feel would have been more rewarding instead of an action piece that felt a little out of place.
To conclude, Resident Evil 7 brings survival horror home. Claustrophobic environments bring more atmosphere than the last two RE games combined and rush of finding weapons, ammo and health items really nails that survival part really well.
Appendix:
On PlayStation 4 Pro, the game runs a solid 60 frames per second (FPS) at a 4K resolution (3840 x 2160) with High Dynamic Range (HDR) support. At time of writing it may be the only game to have all of these features at once. Along with Pro support, it also supports PlayStation VR (PSVR). So PSVR is the ultimate immersion method for RE7, I've never been in a situation where I was more terrified that playing the introduction in VR, but not just the introduction, the entire game is playable in VR at a locked 60FPS at a 1280x720 (720p resolution).
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