Despite taking a bold new direction in Resident Evil 7, Capcom hopes that users will experience the ‘same sensation’ as those who originally played the first Resident Evil in 1996.
Speaking to the Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK as part of a wide-ranging interview for its January 2017 edition, series executive producer Jun Takeuchi said that although he maintained Resident Evil 6 “was a great game”, many fans felt that it went “too far in the direction of action-blockbuster”. As a result, he said, the development team had therefore tried to return to the series’ “survival horror roots” for the upcoming Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
He added: “The timing was right because in the run-up to the series’ 20th anniversary the team at Capcom was revisiting what made Resident Evil so unique and special. We thought: ‘How can we make people in 2017 feel the same sensation that you would have felt in 1996 playing the first game?'”
Takeuchi was questioned on the decision to switch to a first-person perspective for Resident Evil VII: Biohazard, which is a significant departure from previous main series entries. He replied: “There were concerns raised internally… One thing that came up quite a lot was that Resident Evil is a game that’s often been based on hero characters: Leons and Claries and son on. If you’re going to a first-person and can’t see the character on-screen, is it really still the same kind of game? Is it still Resident Evil?
“But I was convinced it was the way to go because by going to first-person there are things you can do to make a game scary that you can’t do in third-person. We just had to give it a try, and when we got our first-ever playable version of the game up and running that was when it clicked with everyone, even those who had their doubts.”
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is scheduled to release on PS4, Xbox One and PC on January 24, 2017.
