Resident Evil 7 Biohazard is a relieving departure from the direction previous RE games had gone. Focusing more on survival horror and ammo conservation than its action based ammo waster counterparts of the passed decade.

Starting off by realizing that isolation is the best way to make the player more engulfed in the game, Capcom decided to scale down their game from where Resident Evil 6 left off. This direction took out the global scale issues of large cities being infested with the undead, and instead implemented an intimate and horrific experience using claustrophobic environments and appropriate amounts of jump scares. Thankfully, not overly used.

The graphics in this game are fantastic, even when run on the console which always runs the risk of stifling the intended frame rate. While playing textures would sometimes tend to have a 5 second delay before being fully rendered during the load of a game save, but if you’re using a computer that shouldn’t be an issue. The textures are also run on a new gaming engine called Re Engine, designed specifically for Resident Evil 7. The lighting in the game coupled with the textures afford the game its creepy horror status.

The audio in this game does its job well as it can not only unnerve the player, but help them navigate to safety without having to deal with every single enemy in the game. You are thrown into a world of survival horror through the eyes of a man named Ethan Winters. Using first person camera angles, constant background noise (such as doors slamming shut) and various shuffling sounds that are intended to constantly chip away at the comfortability of the environment.

The diversity of the boss fights can be considered a tad divisive due to having only a handful of boss fights, and having the same enemy, Jack Baker or “Daddy”, as a the boss in 3 of them. The interesting part is that one of the boss fights is a pseudo boss fight that makes it impossible to kill Jack, as he tries to follow you around the house and kill you at every turn by breaking down walls, and even going so far as to give off that Deliverance vibe by screaming “here piggy piggy!”

Marguerite Baker is a completely different boss fight as she changes into a spider-like insectoid boss that hides in the walls and can strike you at random if you take the wrong step. The son Lucas isn’t quite a boss fight as it is experiencing events that are reminiscent of Saw, through the sadistic games that the genius engineer that is Lucas creates. This diversity touches three horror tropes that can reach out to most people who play whether it is through fear of a killer in the house Jack, an inhuman monster like Maruerite, and a psychological fear which is Lucas.

The gameplay is a little light on the puzzle aspect, however that doesn’t break the game for most as while there are easy puzzles to solve in game, the spirit of the original Resident Evil games can be found in this title.

Resident Evil has gone from zombies in the first three games, to parasites controlling the hosts in the following games, and has now evolved to an enemy called the Molded. These Molded are more fungal in nature and similar to the other zombie viruses in the game, tend to reanimate corpses into their own image. While it is never explained in full detail, it is shown that they can be created by anyone infected with the spores/virus.

About a month has passed since the initial release of Resident Evil 7 Biohazard and Metacritic gave the game a score of 86, while IGN rated it 7.7 with fans collectively rating the game an 8.6. Steam also favorably ranked its reception as very positive, and Destructoid 10 out of 10 saying the game was “the best Resident Evil game in ten years.”

AngryJoe also gave an 8 out of 10, while he included that if you had the VR (virtual reality) experience then it would be a 9 out of 10. Many Youtubers have also done Let’s Plays of the game and have mostly given positive feedback to the game, such as three of the biggest Pewdiepie, Jacksepticeye, and Markiplier.

Resident Evil 7 Biohazard was released on January 23, and has sold over 3 million copies as February 10, according to a financial Q&A that Capcom held, meaning that they have made back production costs and can be considered commercially successful.