sisslethecat
Released on YouTube today, Masachika Kawata (Resident Evil VII‘s producer) took some time to answer a couple of questions asked by the community via Facebook and Twitter. While his answers tend to be pretty vague, we do learn a couple of new things, at least, and not all of them from the answers themselves. You can watch the video for yourself, but I went through and tried to decipher some of Kawata San’s more vague answers.
The first question was “In previous games, we discovered various modes: Tofu, Mercenaries, Raids, etc. Will we see any of these coming back in RE7, or will we see something new?”. He’s clearly a little taken aback, stating “Wow, you guys haven’t even played the game yet, and you’re already asking about that!”. He goes on to explain that they’re currently hard at work on the main game, and that finishing that is the priority at the moment – but that they want to keep the same structure as they’ve had in the past. Every numbered RE game (and several unnumbered) have had bonus unlockable modes, minigames, weapons, etc., and I think we can more or less just assume that we’ll be getting some new, and returning ones.
If I were to speculate, I’m guessing we might be getting something similar to the older game’s minigames, like Resident Evil 2‘s Extreme Battle mode, where it wasn’t about gunning down hoards of enemies, but trying to race against the clock from the end of the game to the beginning without dying. Considering Invisible Enemy just made a return in Revelations 2, I wouldn’t be surprised by something like that as well.
The next vague answer came from a question regarding how many enemies we’ll be fighting at one time, and if it will be like the original games were even a single zombie could pose a threat if we were careless. Kawata side-steps the “zombie” part of that question while also teasing it at the same time, saying “Setting aside whether or not zombies appear”. Yeah, zombies confirmed. It’s one of those things, if the game didn’t have zombies, if those things that we saw during the CEDEC presentation weren’t zombies, I think they’d want to explain not to expect that, but they seem to only be adding more fuel to the fire.
The next one might get fans a little prickly (here we go again) but I think there’s probably a very good explanation. When asked if the title call voice, which has been featured in some form in nearly every Resident Evil to date (Dead Aim is the only one lacking it in some form, from what I recall- yes, even Resident Evil Gaiden has it), Kawata answers that it “isn’t currently, no”. Before you get all up in arms and start posting more of that “This isn’t Resident Evil!!1!1″ crap again, he explains that that could change, though. He also goes on to explain that they’ve designed a “new kind” of title screen for this game, and that right now, the voice isn’t a part of that. Personally, I think we might already have the answer to why this would be – there isn’t a title screen. Just like the Begining Hour demo, I really wouldn’t be surprised if the “title screen” wasn’t simply a black screen reading “Press any button”, and that it either takes you directly to the beginning of the game, or to your last save.
The rest of his answers are more straight-forward than those (mostly dealing with how they’re trying to keep the game scary, if we’ll be seeing a virus or something closer to Las Plagas returning, etc. One that intrigued me was a question regarding whether or not we’ll end up in a city location during the game, to which the answer mentions that we may be very surprised by where the game starts. I’m betting we might start in some place completely normal and ordinary, perhaps Ethan’s house, or apartment. I’d much prefer this to Resident Evil 6‘s opening, which literally starts with an explosion. I’m a big fan of rising tension, and it’s a philosophy I feel too many games sweep past. Things try to get described as a rollercoaster, but they always forget the long tick-tick-tick rising crank before the fun really begins. I’m betting we probably start in Ethan’s home, and the Lantern VHS tape appears on our doorstep. Watching (playing) it is what will spur us into action.
The next bit of interesting info we get is that we finally get to hear more of Marguriette Baker’s nutter talk. We did get to hear a few lines during a gameplay demo released by Eurogamer, but we can hear a few more in this one.
“I don’t understand you- at all. This… is a gift!”
“This house… has seen more than you can imagine. And it knows… You just don’t understand? Or is it that you just don’t care…?”
(Mia speaks a little more here, “No, no, don’t come over here!”)
“HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU, GODDAMNIT!”
“There’s no way outta there, missy!” (followed by what sounds like maybe something being pushed in front of the door Mia used to enter the basement).
Very interesting stuff. Las Plagas and the C-Virus have, so far, been the only infections that have still allowed the host to speak. The line “This is a gift” has me most intrigued, seeing as it probably means Mia has been infected, or is going to be the second Marguirette gets her hands on her.
Resident Evil VII: Biohazard is getting some new info dropped very soon at TGS, and hopefully a new demo, or… something. We’ll keep you updated. Of course, the final game releases January 24th, 2017 across PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
