Resident Evil 7 feels like a genuinely scary game because of its claustrophobic environments and the fear of whatever lies around the corner. Really, the horror of Resident Evil 7 works because it’s just so damn realistic. While many were possibly concerned about the series’ dramatic shift towards the first-person view, that perspective works for the game because it makes the player feel trapped. As much as I hate to use the word, there’s a sense of horrifying immersion that simply couldn’t be achieved with the out-of-body third-person view that would allow you to see everything in the vicinity of your player character. The simple act of opening a door wouldn’t be half as terrifying in third-person either.

The game’s eight-hour campaign may feel short, but it’s packed with memorable set pieces and stages, boss fights, and turning points. Resident Evil 7 is a fantastic horror experience the first time through, but subsequent runs of the game will see you hunting collectibles and beating the game in unique and challenging ways to uncover unlockable items. And if you’re brave enough, you could try your hand at the game’s Madhouse difficulty, which offers no checkpoints, no regenerating health, and offers up brand new enemy and item placements. The best part? You need to use cassette tapes to manually save your game. There’s a limited number of these, of course, so you could potentially ‘save’ yourself into a corner by running out of tapes. A true test of wit.

The only shame is that there’s not much else to do outside of the game’s single-player content. The fun and buck wild Mercenaries mode is gone, which is a pity, considering this could’ve been a prime opportunity for Capcom to reinvent and improve the fan-favorite horde mode on the current generation of consoles. Still, I suppose a no holds barred shooter fest mode with silly costumes wouldn’t really fit with the Southern gritty tone Resident Evil 7 has going on here.

As is the case with most Resident Evil games, you will eventually reach a point where the horror just starts to fade away. This is usually the point where you’ve gathered a good arsenal of weapons, including the iconic grenade launcher and magnum. This is where you’ve learned how to reliably defend yourself. It’d be a mistake to think of that as a fault, however. The game hasn’t necessarily gotten any less creepy or scary, but it’s at this point that it decides that the player has earned the right to feel strong. After all, you’ve braved through the horrors posed by the imposing Jack and insane Marguerite. You can only grow stronger from that.

As drastically different as Resident Evil 7 might seem at first, it hasn’t forgotten the original core message of the series. The protagonist’s predicament often appears bleak and dire at the start, but they’ll soon gain the strength to face and defeat the horrors of the situation they’ve been placed in. Regardless of the outcome, the Resident Evil games have always been about facing and overcoming fears, eventually giving way to a brighter and hopeful future (there’s usually a chopper and a beautiful sunrise involved, too). Capcom hasn’t forgotten that message, and handles it with appropriate amounts of bombast and finesse with this latest entry.

In closing the door on the action-packed direction of the past three main games, they’ve opened another that could possibly lead to a familiar yet exciting future for the series.

Score: 4/5 – Great