Resident Evil 7: Biohazard UK release date, price, news and trailers
Everything you need to know about Resident Evil 7
Resident Evil 7 is set to be a very different game than previous entries in the long-running horror series. While Resident Evils 1 through 6 put players through a third-person gauntlet of shuffling zombies, Resident Evil 7 is shifting perspective to first-person, and emphasising psychological horror over the guns-n-ghouls formula of recent iterations.
Players have been able to get a grip of Resident Evil 7’s revamped mechanics thanks to a playable taster: Resident Evil 7 Teaser: Beginning Hour. Since then, information has been drip-fed through trailers and story clues. With Resident Evil 7’s release date around the corner, here’s everything we know so far.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard – UK release date, platforms and price
Resident Evil 7 is set to launch on 24 January 2017, and will be coming to Xbox One, PS4 and Microsoft Windows. If you end up getting the game for PS4, you’ll also have the option to experience it with PSVR.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard – What to expect
Protagonists of Resident Evil games tend to be well-armed soldiers, but Resident Evil 7 will instead see the player on the back foot, as a civilian trapped in what Capcom describes as “a foreboding, derelict plantation mansion in rural America”.
At first glance, the lack of classic Resident Evil characters suggest the newest entry is disconnected from the previous escapades of the Umbrella Corporation, but Resident Evil 7 will apparently take place after the events of Resident Evil 6. Expect those connections to become more apparent as the story progresses. Capcom has also said the game’s plot will explain why it has opted to combine the series’ two names together – “Resident Evil”, as it is known in the West, and “Biohazard”, as it is known in Japan.
We’ve collected the game’s trailers and gameplay clips below, but from the looks of it Capcom has pulled heavily on everything from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to survival horror games such as 2010’s Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
The biggest taste of the game so far has come from Resident Evil 7 Teaser: Beginning Hour, which featured an unnamed male player character trying to escape from a dilapidated house. The demo, which isn’t part of the final game, features a mix of survival horror and puzzle solving – so expect this balance to feature in Resident Evil 7, albeit with a few more guns. There was also a separate demo in Gamescom 2016, known as Lantern, which cast the player as a young woman called Mia, hiding from an old lady holding the aforementioned lantern.
Overall, expect Resident Evil 7 to be much more grounded in horror than its predecessor, which for many represented the bloated endpoint of a series that has becoming increasingly detached from its haunted-house roots. Until the game’s release, you can get a feel for its atmosphere by watching the below gameplay clips.