Nine years on, Resident Evil 7 still sets Capcom’s horror template

Sometimes, to save a monster, you have to strip it down to the bone. By 2012, Resident Evil had drifted far from its roots. Resident Evil 6 ran four co-op campaigns starring Leon Kennedy, Chris Redfield, Jake Muller, and Ada Wong, and one critic called it a Michael Bay-inspired action fest with almost no horror. Whatever it did at the till, it wasn’t scary, and the franchise’s soul was fading.

The Bayou pivot: Resident Evil 7: Biohazard landed on 24 January 2017, and Capcom took a risk. It benched its legacy characters for Ethan Winters, a civilian led to a derelict plantation in Dulvey, Louisiana in search of his missing wife. It also moved the camera into first person, a first for a mainline entry. The PlayStation VR mode snagged Best VR Game at the 2017 Golden Joystick Awards, though it left some players queasy.

How it plays: You explore the Baker family’s estate through Capcom’s claustrophobic “Isolated View,” solving puzzles, managing scarce resources, and fighting off the mold-infected Molded with a handgun and a makeshift flamethrower. There are no quick-time events to break the spell. The Bakers, seemingly immortal, hunt Ethan through the house, and critics did knock the boss fights and the limited enemy variety.

The birth of an era: The gamble paid off. Trapped with the psychotic, seemingly unkillable Bakers, players were scared again, thanks to slow-burn tension and grotesque body horror. Capcom shipped 2.5 mn copies within days, the demo was downloaded more than 7 mn times, and the game passed 10 mn in sales and shipments almost five years after launch. RE7 was also the first full-length game on Capcom’s RE Engine, which went on to power the RE2 Remake, Devil May Cry 5, Village, and this year’s Requiem.

The legacy: RE7 reset the series. Requiem, released on 27 February 2026, shows how far it reaches. Grace Ashcroft’s sections continue the survival horror of RE7 and Village, while Leon’s, his first major appearance since RE6, lean into action. RE7 proved survival horror still had teeth, and Capcom has been balancing it against firepower ever since.

💯 Rating: 86/100 (Metacritic)

⌛ Hours of gameplay: ~10-12 hours

🔁 Replay value: 8/10 - Multiple endings

👾 Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC, PSVR

💵 Price: Frequently under USD 10