Gamers logo

The Complexities of Resident Evil 7 & 8

A non-horror fan passionately discusses a notoriously horror-based video game franchise

By WynPublished 3 years ago 14 min read
Like
covers of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard & Resident Evil 8: Village

Introduction

As the subtitle suggests, I have never been able to handle horror. Jump scares make my anxiety sky rocket and with being so susceptible to night terrors, it's an entire category of game I would just prefer to stay far away from. Because of that, I have lost out on games and franchises that have made huge impacts on the gaming community, including Omori, Outlast, FNAF, and Silent Hill. However, I've often spent hours upon hours scouring wikipedia articles and reviews as only a plot-hungry goblin can, and through this as well as my cousin's passionate love of horror games, I stumbled into accidental love with the Resident Evil Franchise.

The first Resident Evil was released in 1996 and started growing in roots of survival horror, setting the benchmark for games of similar category and redefining the genre itself. Ammo was low and scarce, and your goal wasn't necessarily to show up guns-a-blazing, it was to survive the horrors of the Umbrella Corporation. It wasn't until Resident Evil 4 that CapCom decided to shift the narrative to a third person action adventure play style. The organization mentioned, the Umbrella Corporation, has a huge play in all 8 games, but for the sake of my newfound passion, I'll be mostly discussing the two latest games. For this sake, we know the Umbrella Corporation to be responsible for the engineering of bioweapons, and thus a major part of the plots of 7 and 8 despite lacking a direct presence themselves.

Due to the nature of the video games, I ended up perching beside my boyfriend while he played through both Biohazard and Village for the reasons mentioned briefly above, and so keep in mind this review is primarily about plot and not as much about game mechanics.

Major spoilers for the latest two Resident Evil games, as nothing is spared.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard gold edition cover

Biohazard

Biohazard begins its narrative by handing you a husband, Ethan Winters, who just received a video from his wife, Mia, who has been missing for three years. She tells him explicitly, "Don't come find me." However, this game would be very, very different if Ethan ever did what he was told, and so Ethan goes to Louisiana to find his wife.

He succeeds within the first few minutes of entering the guest house part of the Bakers' property, only to find Mia half possessed as she chainsaws his hand off after Ethan (unsuccessfully) attempts to kill her for being... possessed. Shortly after, Ethan picks up a gun and seemingly kills Mia, but before he makes sure she's really dead, the head of the house makes his appearance- the formidable Jack Baker- with a punch straight in the face.

The exposition of this game sets the mood for the entirety of Biohazard with fervor and excellence, introducing you to a lot of the mechanics you'll use frequently throughout the game. For instance, while searching for Mia, you find a video tape. if you decide to play it, you'll step into the shoes of Clancy, a videographer for two guys who explore haunted and notorious houses. None of them make it out alive, but through the video tape, Ethan's player is able to retrace their steps to solve more puzzles and find secret entranceways, which is essentially the staple of this game.

The game really begins when Ethan wakes up strapped to a chair in front of a dining table filled with filth, bugs, and decay. His hand has been reconnected by a character named Zoe, who is missing from this scene, and he's ready to meet the whole family: Jack Baker, Marguerite Baker, Lucas Baker, and fan-favorite Grannie Baker. Through this first part, you essentially want to find a way away from Jack, who seems to be completely immortal. The more you mess him up, the harder he hits back and the more mutilated he appears when you bump into him next.

For all intents and purposes, the game is utterly disturbing in only the best ways. The mechanics of puzzles mixed with grim shootouts and holding your breath trying to avoid being caught by different members of the family. Jack Baker challenges your aim and ability to fight for your life, Marguerite excels in making you hide n seek champion, and Lucas tests your ability to puzzle your way out of escape rooms galore.

Eventually, you make your way through the Baker's property and defeat each member of the family as a boss. Lucas is the only one not killed in the actual story, instead offering you closure of what happened to our favorite videographer: Clancy! Spoilers, Lucas burned him alive after making him play an escape room that I personally deem the scariest part of the game, for the single jump scare it offers.

The only fault of the story, besides not being able to shoot Grannie early on, is how much it neglects to make you love Mia. Our only time with her before the game begins to wrap up is the beginning, when we lost our hand and she tried to murder us repeatedly. So when there's a choice to save Mia or Zoe, who has been acting as our guide out of this horror fest, CapCom never actually makes us want to choose Mia. Unfortunately, they made her the canon choice, and so by not choosing her the first time you play, you miss out on the ending that correlates with the beginning of Village.

Outside of Mia, the developers do an amazing job of making you feel how Ethan feels navigating the story. You truly grow to hate Lucas and pity Jack, Marguerite, and Zoe for what their family has begun. On top of that, the game does a good job of delving into its bioweapon: Eveline. Eveline appears in the form of a little girl most often, and it is conveyed often that she is simply wanting her own family, resorting to violent means to achieve that. The game makes sure you don't like her- after all she is the main antagonist- but we felt a twinge of sadness for the little girl wanting to belong.

Besides the unlikable Mia, Biohazard wins as a game because CapCom wasn't sparingly using gore and its constant sense of unease. Ethan has access to guns, but being able to use them effectively and efficiently is critical to surviving. In points you don't have access to weapons, such as Lucas' Happy Birthday Tape and Donna's house in Resident Evil 8, it's much scarier and yet aids the plot in a way where you don't feel completely helpless against the game.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard really resorts to its survival horror roots and dumps as much fertilizer on them as possible- it's scary, but never for shock value in my own opinion, as each component plays an important and intriguing part to the puzzle that is Eveline's story. Hats off to CapCom.

Heisenberg's factory, Resident Evil 8: Village

Village: Overview

Resident Evil 8 feels like a retcon, and not an awful one. Navigating the game's plot had me wondering as a writer if this was truly planned, or if CapCom took the overwhelmingly positive reception of the preceding game and ran with it for Resident Evil 8. It certainly feels like it.

There are a million things I love about Biohazard that I wish Village had, and there are even more things I wish Biohazard did that Village excelled in. One of these things that specifically stood out to me, before I dive into the characters and overarching plot, is that Resident Evil 7 was a horror game through and through, focused on escaping a house and saving Ethan's wife. Resident Evil 8 doesn't feel quite like a horror game to me. It has elements, such as Angie, but it definitely doesn't have the survival aspect. Instead, Village is driven and plot oriented with a linear story far more in depth and explorative than I found Biohazard. Not to mention how constrictive Biohazard truly felt in comparison to Village, which let us explore not only a series of houses but castles, villages, various buildings, and so on.

Ethan is back as the main character, being introduced to us as not only a husband to Mia, but now as a father to one Rosemary Winters. Their family was moved to Europe after the events of Biohazard by Chris Redfield, one of the big characters from the Umbrella Corporation, and they seem to be settling in alright, besides Mia's creepy fascination with all things local, including my favorite element of this game- the Village of Shadows book.

The Village of Shadows tells a story about a girl who wanders away from her mother while picking berries, getting lost in the woods. Through her mission to get back home, she meets a bat who gives her something to drink, a woman who sews her a dress, a fish monster who feeds her, and a horse who is unwilling to give her anything, unlike the rest. Still, she plucks a golden gear from the horse's head, and to her horror a witch appears.

The book cuts off there for the beginning, and we are left with a puzzle that is quick to tie into the game: who are these characters?

Village proves to be similar to Biohazard eventually, as Ethan watches Mia die, Rosemary is taken, and he begins a quest to retrieve his daughter. The game mechanics boil down to there being five bosses, four lords who rule over the land and their head, Mother Miranda, who is the one who stole Rose. Thus begins Ethan's adventure of slaughtering each of the lords in order to make his way to Miranda and take back his daughter.

Let's talk about characters.

Lady Dimitrescu ; Resident Evil 8: Village

Alcina Dimitrescu & Donna Beneviento

Lady Dimitrescu is by far the most popular character of RE8, affectionately known as the "big lady" by fans and strangers to the franchise alike. She is our first, very obvious parallel to the Village of Shadows book, as the bat who offered the little girl a taste of blood. Alcina Dimitrescu is also the reason we can infer each of the four lords are victims of Mother Miranda's Cadou experiments, as she is the one mentioned in her notes in the laboratory. Similarly, her daughters are additional experiments, although they had very different responses to them and as a result are weak to the cold.

Her battle is easy and relatively quick, as following plunging a ceremonial knife into her side (which side note: capcom missed out on including the knife later on in the game) she turns into a dragon with a creepy expression and a determination to steal your blood. Overall, Dimitrescu serves as a an expositional character to Mother Miranda, as she is achingly loyal to the woman who essentially created her. We discover through her exponential dialogue as well, Karl Heisenberg (another lord I'll get to) is questionable with his loyalty, and explores the dynamic of the lords being a sibling one.

Donna Beneviento, a parallel to the dressmaker in the accompanying story, is the next lord you face, and she is additionally an intriguing character. Village's strengths are definitely design in the latest installment, as you discover in the cemetery before her home she is, in fact, dead. In the Beneviento house, Ethan loses his weapons, and the game picks up the only real horror elements it holds onto as you navigate a dark house filled with creepy dolls, a fetal baby monster who you have to hide from instead of fight, and Donna's doll Angie, who does all of the talking, and eventually, all of the dying as well.

The most interesting part of their design is the way Angie is in a wedding dress outfit, while Donna is in all black with a veil covering her face from sight. I have to wonder if CapCom meant to use her as a parallel between life and death, where the only way Donna is alive is through her doll, as she needs a vessel, and that is why she herself is "dead" or in mourning clothes.

Karl Heisenberg ; Resident Evil 8: Village

Karl Heisenberg

Between Donna and Heisenberg, you meet Salvatore Moreau who, in true fashion of his character, I'm going to glaze over. Essentially he vies for Mother Miranda's intention and craves to be her favorite despite how disformed and pathetic the game makes him. He is the fish monster from the story who offers the girl his fin.

Karl Heisenberg is an enigma of the game, as he is the only of the four lords not to bow to Miranda, and in fact attempts to enlist Ethan to kill her with him, as he didn't want to be subject to her experiments. Hence his parallel with the horse that did not offer the girl his gear, as she forcefully took it from him. Unfortunately, Ethan decided not to side with him (a decision I've found doesn't quite fit with Ethan's character arc- it is not like him to kill someone who wants peace, and I find it one of the fatal flaws of Village) and kills Heisenberg in a robot brawl.

Heisenberg is far from a fan favorite in my experience, as most people don't find him charismatic by any means, but perhaps the best part of his character is that he is more achingly human than any other monster not only in Village but in Biohazard. The cadou gave him the ability to grapple with metals, and he's far from innocent, but he seems to be the only antagonist in both games that expresses compassion for the main character and a desire to take out the head of it all.

I think of this as similar to Jack Baker asking Ethan to kill Eveline in Ethan's vision in the mold, as for a split second we don't hate Jack, we just see him as a victim of the mold the same way Heisenberg is a victim of Miranda.

Resident Evil 8: Village

Village: My Response

Unlike Biohazard, my image of this game is not nearly spotless or unwavering with the exception of a single character's overarching decision (that it, canonically choosing Mia). My issues are small, not really issues, besides the first.

The Heisenberg decision in the only thing I despise about Village. From its color palette straight out of Dark Souls to its explorative puzzle solving and all out shootings, Village excels in being what CapCom created it to be: a follow up of Resident Evil 7 with a plot that may actually lead somewhere in the future of the franchise. Once again, however, the developers fail to keep Ethan's realism in mind, and for that reason I find it hard to say that we really shouldn't be playing any character that's inclined to choose something over the other.

Heisenberg offered a chance to get revenge on Miranda, as all he ever wanted was to be free of her, and Ethan said no, which goes against every character trait of his. At this point it just feels too led on- I want to be able to make that decision for Ethan because he didn't choose the right one.

I also mentioned this in the beginning, but Village also feels like a retcon, not in an awful way, but it does still feel too much like a plot hole to me. Unless CapCom really intended for it to go this way, the main twist of this game is believable but... a stretch... and a patchy one. I'll believe it for the sake of the game, but I'm not going to enjoy it.

Finally, just a silly little complaint, the ceremonial knife! It feels like a waste letting that sweet silver knife fall to the ground and Ethan can't find it later? I think the developers missed a perfect opportunity to use it as an upgradable knife, instead of being stuck with the same one we've had since the beginning.

Overall, Village is amazing, and although it seems like I didn't sing it high praises like Biohazard, it's just due to there being so much to cover. It's packed with content, and the twists and turns it will take you on is worth the ride all the way. Despite lacking in horror, Village makes up for the scares in well designed boss fights, riveting dialogue, and giving you the chance to choose who you like and who you sympathize with. Hats off once more, CapCom.

Dagger of Death Flowers ; Resident Evil 8: Village

Conclusion

From your local no-horror-for-me gamer, I genuinely praise the Resident Evil franchise for defining this genre of the game as it truly is, and for going back to their roots for Biohazard. If there's anything that absolutely stands out in all their hard work throughout it, it has to be the extraordinary storytelling in place in both 7 & 8, driving a story and a narrative that is truly exciting and refreshing.

Once more, hats off to you CapCom.

product review
Like

About the Creator

Wyn

Wynter is a 19 year old who writes mostly in her free time when she’s not playing games or romping around with her pup!

forthewyn.carrd.co

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.