There’s a phrase regularly said by fans of my personal all-time favorite horror game, Silent Hill 2, when referring to the game’s visual design: “Silent Hill 2 is both beautiful and utterly disgusting.” When Silent Hill 2 released back in 2001, it was heralded for its gorgeous soundtrack, visual design and characters…but the beauty of Silent Hill is an interesting dichotomy. The beauty was there; Silent Hill’s design and architecture were a mark of brilliance but the game world was dead: everything was broken, rusting, falling to pieces and there was nothing you could do to stop it.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard reminds me a lot of the beauty of Silent Hill 2. While the gameplay is much more in tune with that of the original 1996 Resident Evil, the uncanny valley effect of character’s faces, the subtle off-ness of their personalities and the revulsive yet incredible-looking environments hit a note with me that I haven’t felt in a long time.
You are placed in the shoes of Ethan, a man searching for his wife (Mia) who has been missing for three years. After receiving a message telling you to stay away, your response is that of every insane horror movie character cliché and you go exactly where she tells you not to and look for her, travelling all the way to swamps of Louisiana.
At first, the start of RE7 will be noticeable for fans who played the Beginning Hour Demo—of which I played a lot—as, after a brief stroll through the surrounding woods, it has you exploring the Baker family’s guest house. Things have been switched around since the demo: items are missing, object placement has been changed around and, obviously, there’s now more to do.
It won’t be long until you discover your first enemy encounter and this is where Resident Evil 7 takes everything up to eleven. Capcom have created one of the most visceral first-person experiences that I’ve ever played. Knives slash against your wrist—opening up thin-but-long slices across your flesh—enemies crush your bones and tear off your limbs. While the move to a first-person perspective may be a controversial one, Capcom have embraced the POV camera to the max.
Environments are both open and claustrophobic at the same time, which isn’t helped much by your narrow field-of-view. Everything in RE7 feels as if it is closing up around you, pushing you further and further down corridors and staircases that only seem to get narrower as the decaying locations cover themselves with rust and mold. The first-person view with the gorgeously high-detailed textures and models—created by scanning real-life objects—make you feel like you’ve been shoved into this awfully gorgeous world.
The moment-to-moment gameplay is much more “Classic Resi” than it at first seems. The Metroidvania feature of finding keys to areas that you’ve already discovered does help the game feel a bit more open than it actually is. The game is open but only for small sections of time before it dives into more linear sections of avoiding one of the Bakers or hunting down quest items in order to progress the story. While it may not be as open as the original game, the modernisation of the original Resident Evil formula manages to feel like a very fresh experience.
Combat is at first intentionally janky, although every method of dispatching foes feels great. Guns have proper impact with the classic Resi shotgun tearing into flesh, sending viscera all over the walls and taking enemies out chunk by meaty chunk. Perfecting combat requires you to carefully manage resources, switch between weapons on the fly and master the series’ quick-turn to swiftly escape out of enemy range. Building up your arsenal over the course of your adventure is the staple of any proper Resident Evil game and you’ll be rewarded for exploration and puzzle solving. While you start off with just a simple survival knife, you’ll gain access to pistols, shotguns, machine guns and even an awesome weapon named after one of Resi’s greatest characters. If you were following the leaks you already know what it is.
The main stars of RE7 are undoubtedly the Baker family. While Jack and Marguerite Baker take up the majority of screen time, the other members of the Baker family all get their time to shine in their own quirky little ways. Each member of the Bakers has their own purpose and characteristic of which will become important when trying to dispose of them throughout the game, especially when it comes to the mother, Marguerite. The Bakers drive RE7 through its short but sweet nine-or-so-hour campaign—a far-cry from the dragged-out, twenty-hour-long Alien Isolation. Whether you’re sneaking around or facing them upfront, the charismatic, personality-filled family become instantly loveable as well as insanely terrifying.
The other enemies that populate the game are not as interesting as the main cast. In fact, your first encounter with one of the game’s “Molded” is one of the coolest and most terrifying introductions of any enemy in any media ever. In fact, out of everything Resi has going for it, enemy variety is way down in the list. The Molded look and sound incredible and are incredibly terrifying when you see their hulking bodies shuffling towards. However, with most of their variations looking and playing quite similar to each other, players may be unsatisfied with the lack of enemy types. Thankfully, this is held up by the absolutely brilliant and terrifying boss fights which take all of your expertise—and usually your health resources—to complete.
Capcom have finally crafted a meaningful, great story this time around with every action and character meaning something to the overall plot. While a lot of this is told through text documents found within the world—which I would very much advise hunting down and reading—everything links together in logical and entertaining ways. The first half of the game is more focused on setting up the location, family and enemies than providing useful plot details but as the pacing ramps up, the latter half includes some of the best pieces of story in Resident Evil history.
Ties to the precious games in the series are sparse and mostly occur in the latter, more story-orientated half of RE7. Mentions include the Raccoon City Incident, Umbrella and other small nods to the wider canon-universe. The minuscule amount of Resi lore may be disappointing to hardcore fans of the series, but as a new start and recovery for the company after the overtly-bombastic intertwined story of Resi 6, this reincarnation of what made Resident Evil great in the first place is a fantastic launching point for a new breed of survival horror.
Summary
Resident Evil 7 is not only one of the greatest and scariest modern survival horror games in recent memory, but a fantastic return to form for one of Capcom’s greatest series. With photorealistic, repulsively-disgusting environments, interesting and unique characters combined with impactful and visceral combat, Resident Evil 7 is the most fun I’ve had with a Capcom title since the original Dead Rising.
Lewis is a games journalist, freelance gaming and consumer-tech journalist. They contributed 344 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: has since served as Editor-in-Chief at StealthOptional and Gaming Editor at MSPoweruser, with bylines at Gfinity Esports and FRVR.