Things we need to see in Resident Evil 7

Jon Ledford

Capcom shocked the world at E3 2016 with its debut trailer for Resident Evil 7. The company also released a new gameplay demo, Resident Evil 7 Teaser: Beginning Hour, on the PlayStation Network to show that they're serious about the frights this time around, which is a clear change from the underwhelming but action-packed RE6. While the content of this demo won't be in the final game, it helps show the vision director Koshi Nakanishi, who helmed Resident Evil: Revelations, has for the final product. Based on all this new, horrific content, let's break down what we want to see added to Resident Evil 7.

A little-third person gameplay

While Resident Evil 7 is going to be a first-person horror title, we're hoping that some third-person aspects make it into the final product. The franchise was due for a major overhaul, but the main series has always featured a third-person perspective, so we'd like to see just a little of that make it into the game. There are so many scary first-person games—including Layers of Fear, Outlast, Alien: Isolation, Slender: The Arrival, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and more—it's almost become the new genre standard. This format may help increase the frights, but we hope there's still some third-person action to help give gamers more of a fighting chance.

Some plot connections to the previous games

The RE7 demo featured almost no connections to the previous games in the series. The only thing even hinting that this takes place in the realm of Resident Evil was an old photograph of an Umbrella Corporation helicopter with a cryptic message written on the back, saying "Are they watching us from that helicopter?" It's been about 20 years since the events of the first Resident Evil game, and all kinds of undead and bio-organic weapons have appeared along the way. We want to see more of this world and how the abandoned (but not really) Texas Chainsaw-esque house glimpsed in the demo fits.

Zombies and other bio-organic weapons

Producer Masachika Kawata has explained there will be far less enemies this time around, in order to make the threats much more personal. The abandoned house in the demo felt like it was haunted—or maybe hiding some kind of crazy killer—which is a huge departure from the franchise's traditional undead monsters. The house's occupant appears to have some rotting growths on him (or he's just really grimy), but it's hard to tell if he was infected by Las Plagas, the C-Virus, or something entirely new. The house's "haunting" was probably just this sadistic hillbilly messing with you from the shadows, but we can't wait to see the other horrors that surely await.

Less action and more scares than RE6

Capcom seems to have heard the critical and fan response to Resident Evil 6, which basically asked for less run-and-gun gameplay and a greater emphasis on the scares. As expected, this first-person horror demo offered very few ways to fight back, and that defenseless feeling is terrifying. RE6's redeeming qualities were the atmosphere and horror provided during Leon's scenarios, and the demo definitely exceeds that standard. We're also digging how the environment felt a lot like exploring the Spencer Mansion for the first time in RE1.

A familiar face or two

We're not expecting another reunion between Chris Redfield, Ada Wong, and Leon Kennedy, but we'd like to see a familiar face return or be mentioned somewhere in RE7. We finally got to see former S.T.A.R.S. member Barry Burton return in Resident Evil Revelations 2 after being absent from the series for years, and we think it's about time we find out what happened to Billy Coen. Fans of the prequel game Resident Evil Zero should remember Coen as the innocent convict who helped Rebecca Chambers survive and make it to the Spencer Mansion before escaping. If there's one person from the previous games whose name reappears, we'd like it to be him.

A demo for the Resident Evil 2 remake

An observant Redditor found evidence suggesting Resident Evil 7 might feature a demo for Yoshiaki Hirabayashi's big RE2 remake, and we've definitely got our fingers crossed. Resident Evil 2 is recognized by many fans as the best entry in the series. Unfortunately, RE2 is being remade from the ground up, so it will take a significantly longer time to develop than the RE1 and RE0 recent remasters, which were based on their 2002 releases for the Nintendo GameCube. Nevertheless, a demo of the RE2 remake would be a perfect dose of old school zombie-slaying to add to the newfound horrors that await in RE7.