After two Resident Evil 7 (RE7 from now on) demos, Capcom still did not showcase the game's combat system, which definitely confused some long time fans. As much as one can despise the excessive preponderance of the action element in Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6, it cannot be denied that action has been a core part of Resident Evil since the very first installment.
That's why RE7 producer Masachika Kawata stressed in an interview with Metro GameCentral that combat will definitely be in the final game.
Combat is obviously something that’s really important in a Resident Evil game, we’re just kind of showing a little bit at a time with different aspects. Beginning Hour was really just the feeling of atmosphere and exploration, which is another classic Resident Evil element, and now you’ve been able to see a little bit more of the fear of escape from an enemy. And also we’ve had a little bit of puzzle element in it.
So we’re taking it one step at a time here. Some people have got the impression that combat is missing from this game, because of the content we’ve shown so far, but actually combat is definitely in there. The main character is not one of these gun-toting heroes that we’ve sort of gone towards in the recent entries. It’s very much a normal person, a normal guy who’s put in an extreme situation and has to survive.
And we’re going to be showing off some more around that, but for the time being we haven’t got around to that yet. But rest assured we know what people want from Resident Evil: it’s exploration, puzzle-solving, managing limited resources, and combat in a horrifying situation. And you know, we’re gonna get there.
Elsewhere in the interview, Kawata also talked about the improvements made by the development team to the VR version of Resident Evil 7 (which has only been confirmed for PlayStation VR so far) after the E3 2016 demo.
We’ve learnt a lot from our E3 showing, of that content in VR. And actually the Gamescom version that we’re showing here on Sony’s booth is an improved version. It’s not the same one as E3. We’ve learned through that kind of experience what kind of adjustments and optimisations we need to make in order to make it as comfortable as possible for as many people as possible.
[...] we’ve made optimisations such as characters’ walking speed; restricting the camera turning to set angles you switch between, rather than totally smooth movement; and separating the horizontal axis movement, on the stick, to the vertical axis movement. All these little adjustments we’ve made since E3 have, I think, really added up to a lot more comfortable experience.
Resident Evil 7 is due on January 24 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. You can check Dave's hands-on of the Gamescom 2016 demo right here.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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