Resident Evil 7: Biohazardacted as somewhat of a soft reboot for the iconic franchise, according to a lot of fans. The survival-horror game returnedResidentEvilto its terrifying roots, showing the journey of Ethan Winters as he tries to find his missing wife and fend off the Baker family as they have become infected with a strange virus. Ditching the more action-oriented gameplay ofResident Evil 5and6, many praised the steady unfolding of the mystery inResident Evil 7.
However, despite the game receiving positive reviews from fans and critics, according toResident Evil 7’sExecutive Producer Jun Takeuchi, the survival-horror title could’ve initially looked very different. According to Takeuchi, who recently spoke in an interview on the Biohazard YouTube channel, Capcom was originally pushing forResident Evil 7to be more of a live-service title, with microtransactions added in. Takeuchi stated that the developers were being told to make “the games players are asking for.”
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To Capcom, this meant thatResident Evil 7would have online multiplayer, downloadable content, and other features that the team was struggling to add. Takeuchi stated that this resulted in a meeting with Capcom’s Chairman Kenzo Tsujimoto. Tsujimoto allegedly said thatResident Evil 7was in “bad shape,” leading to Takeuchi being brought on to help the project. This led to the removal of things like online multiplayer, and may have been the best thing forResident Evil 7to make it what the franchise neededat the time.
Online multiplayer was considered for a time forResident Evil 7, but according to Takeuchi, this idea was scrapped following the team not seeing a clear path to maintaining the horror experience while playing with friends. Some other concepts that Capcom was allegedly pushing for, such as DLC, did make their way to the recentResident Eviltitles, withResident Evil: Villagerecently revealing its upcoming DLC. Still, this downloadable content doesn’t border on what one would expect from a live-service title, and serves to expand the single player experience of theResident Evilgames.
Many fans will be glad to hear that theResident Evil 7team ended up with what Takeuchi terms “marketing’s worst nightmare” in a single player, survival-horror title. The game has proven to be immensely popular with old and new players, even receiving anext-gen upgrade alongsideResident Evil 2and3. It seems that what Capcom may have initially feared as a poor marketing move turned out to be a successful soft reboot for one of gaming’s most recognized horror franchises.
Resident Evil 7is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One.
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