Resident Evil 7: The Series Most Confused Installment

With over two dozen entries, Resident Evil is one of the longest running and most storied franchises in video games. It is a series built on the foundation of third-person horror that slowly became more action-focused. After Resident Evil 6, a critical failure, sold about half Capcom’s expectations¹ the series was put on hiatus as the company attempted to determine what Resident Evil looked like going forward. The answer was a return to the series’ root.... somewhat.

After 20 years, the franchise abandoned its third-person perspective in favor of a first-person one. This was ostensibly to further player immersion². In addition, Resident Evil VII: Biohazard was told largely from the viewpoint of newcomer Ethan Winters who was a significant departure from previous Resident Evil protagonists.

In fact, every single main Resident Evil game has featured at least one standout playable character that is a fan favorite. Ethan is… nothing. He has no personality or past. He has no opinion on the events surrounding him aside from the occasional variant of, “That’s fucked up!” He is simply a pair of hands that hold the various weapons and puzzle items. Chris, Jill, Clair, and Leon have infinitely more interesting personalities and characters that allowed them to endure for decades. Even those that are not fans of Resident Evil know who Leon S. Kennedy and Jill Valentine are.

Ethan is a failure to live up to the franchise’s past in more ways than his story and personality, however. He is severely lacking in ability to deal with his surroundings. This is used as an explanation for the scaling back of events in RE7 as the stars of previous installments would handle this conflict fairly easily. This in turn is meant to facilitate a return to series’ horrific genesis.

Unfortunately, the creators of RE7 use the runtime of the game to display a fundamental misunderstanding of said origin and what made those early games exceptional. Early RE games are largely frightening because the characters (and thus players) could at any moment run into a foe they may be too strapped for resources to contend with. This meant players had to be accurate with their gunshots. They had to know when to run away from or by a zombie. The tension created by having a lack of resources is the central conflict, not whatever Albert Wesker or Ramon Saddler are plotting.

RE7 instead opts for something more akin to Outlast or Alien: Isolation. It is built around a feeling of powerlessness³. But it does so in the worst possible ways. The overly long opening sequence does not give Ethan a weapon until just before the first boss encounter. It then immediately takes said weapon away from him so that there can be assurances Ethan does not immediately shoot the Scary Hicks^TM and kill them or get himself killed.

This is a type of situation the game is constantly forcing the player into. Instead of allowing the player’s own mismanagement to lead to that fear that they may be underequipped, it ensures they are, removing player agency. Of course, players never have to fear they are underequipped in RE7. There are always more than enough green herbs, bags of chemicals, and boxes of ammo strewn about. This allows Ethan to become a one-man army. At the conclusion of my first Resident Evil 7 playthrough, I had hundreds of unused bullets. That is not a problem in Resident Evil 4, a game designed around that premise, but it is in this one where the central conflict requires the player feel hopeless.

About halfway through the game, Ethan has become too powerful and the game does not know how to handle it. So, it takes everything away from the player. Starting over as Ethan’s missing wife, the player spends an unbelievably drawn-out sequence looking for their former host. Like her husband, Mia spends the early areas unarmed. It is a hard reset. Unfortunately, this is when the game begins to lean heavily into its supernatural⁴ aspects. And the incredibly tired Creepy Little Girl trope. That needs to be retired. It is neither scary nor effective at setting a mood. The game simply wanted to have a scary little girl instead of something more monstrous.

Something strange occurs hallway through the Mia section though. Resident Evil VII: Biohazard becomes an action game. The game gives up on its premise. Mia amasses a (significantly smaller) arsenal, blows her way though the abandoned ship, and finds Ethan. Player control returns to Ethan and he blasts his way through the final area and boss of the game, a full 180-degree turn from the entire game.

RE7 wanted to be a return to the series’ roots. It somewhat accomplishes that by being set mostly in a mansion and the surrounding estate. Like many of the more subdued games, it becomes more action oriented towards the end. Unlike those, this game constantly removes any tension but letting the player know nothing is a threat unless the game is actively handicapping them.

What this means for the franchise moving forward is unclear. The subsequent remakes of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis took the series in an entirely differently direction. Like RE7 believes itself to be in the vein of the original game, Resident Evil Village appears to be emulating the fourth game and continuing Ethan Winters’ story. From the setting to the inventory system to the merchant. That is yet another direction for the series that is unlike the three games preceding it.

There appears to be no one at Capcom with a solid grasp on what Resident Evil should be going forward. Even Final Fantasy in its most disoriented era had an idea of where to go next, but not how to get there. There is no implication the same is true here. Every chapter is different, even if they all use the same bolt cutter model and animation. Those in charge need to find an answer or it will make more games (poorly) chasing the aesthetics of the series’ history like RE7 instead of capturing that experimental spirit that made it so successful.

 

¹The game would eventually meet those expectations eight years later. Better late than never.

²One day I will write about why this is a false assumption and why third person is actually more immersive. Today is not that day.

³And jump scares, the most boring form of horror.

⁴It’s all explained away by some wild pseudo-science that is quite a stretch, even for Resident Evil.