Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Review

RE7 saved the franchise by breaking it. After years of RE6's action spectacle and the slow creep away from what made the series work, Capcom went back to basics: one location, limited resources, a constant sense that something worse is about to happen. The Baker family estate. A man looking for his missing girlfriend. And Jack Baker, who will find you eventually no matter what you do. The first time Jack Baker breaks down a door you've locked, you feel it. The RE Engine makes it visceral in a way that's hard to describe to someone who hasn't played it. He's too big for normal physics. He doesn't stop when you shoot him. The mansion's corridors suddenly feel like they're made of paper. Marguerite is a different kind of threat, unpredictable, erratic, deeply unsettling in her domesticity. Her sections in the greenhouse are among the game's best, and her boss fight is one of RE's most creative. Lucas gets a sequence that's pure Saw and it works despite itself. The resource management is the best the series has done in the modern era. You never have quite enough of anything. Every bullet is a decision. The inventory is limited enough that you genuinely consider leaving items behind, which means every room you clear feels like a tactical problem you solved, not just a corridor you survived. Then you reach the wrecked ship. The Baker estate is terrifying because it's personal. The Bakers are specific, human-shaped threats who know the house better than you do. The Molded, RE7's standard enemy, don't have that quality. They're dark, fungal humanoids who emerge from walls and corridors. They're fine enemies. They're not scary. And the back third of the game, on the ship and in the salt mine, is built primarily around fighting them in linear corridors. The mystery is gone. The threat is gone. What remains is a perfectly competent survival shooter that wants to wrap up a story it hasn't quite earned the ending to. Play it anyway. What the Baker estate does cannot be replicated by many games, and the rest of it is still better than most horror.