‘HAZARD AHEAD

The Resident Evil VII: Biohazard producer helped the series first regain its footing back with Resident Evil: Revelations – but what’s behind the latest transformation of PlayStation’s most famous horror?

OPM: How much soul-searching and debate went into making this new direction for Resident Evil happen? Masachika Kawata: We discussed a lot internally about the nature of survival horror, and what we could to do go back to the roots of the genre. In the course of those discussions, we knew that the Resident Evil series had, in recent years, become more action-focused in terms of gameplay, and featured increasingly superhero-like characters. What could we do to rein those aspects in and go back to basics?

The answer we arrived at was moving to a first-person camera perspective, as we felt it could bring the most direct, intense horror experience possible where the player sees things through the eyes of the main character. And by making that character more normal and relatable, the player themselves would, in a sense, become the main character. OPM: What’s the secret to good scares? MK: You need to create situations that combine aspects of shock and surprise with the instinctive fear we all feel for the “unknown.” Dark rooms that make you fear the possible enemies lurking within, shock scenes like creatures suddenly bursting through windows… Each little moment adds up to a really good, scary experience. OPM: Is it fun to do? How do you know when you’ve come up with an idea that will be particularly effective? MK: It’s a lot of fun! Not just for scaring people, but for game design in general. It’s a really fun and satisfying feeling to design something with a certain intention and desired experience for the player, and then to see players “falling into your trap,” as it were, and experiencing the game the way you planned. This goes even moreso for horror – because fear is a shared experience for us all, you know your idea will be effective when even at the design stage you can already empathise with the player who’s going to be getting scared witless. OPM: What scares you? MK: Death. I can’t imagine what happens after you die, and that’s scary to me. OPM: How concerned are you that REVII is too intense for some fans to play? MK: I’ve heard that concern raised here and there since we announced the game, but as players have come to expect from the series, REVII has a great storyline that will compel you to keep playing to see what happens next, even if you think you’re too frightened to go on. OPM: Why did you create a demo that’s not part of the main game? That seems like a lot of additional work! MK: We simply wanted players who play to have the freshest experience possible when they get the game. So even at the cost of, as you say, extra work for the team, we created an “experience demo” rather than a “content demo” which let players get a feel for the game without spoiling any part of it for them. It means they won’t end up playing the exact same part again and think, “oh, this is the part I’ve already played.” OPM: Some people at E3 experienced motion sickness while playing in VR – what have you done to combat that? MK: We’ve worked on fine-tuning the VR experience since the E3 demo, and the VR demos we’ve shown since Gamescom in August have included our extra adjustments, such as limiting the camera controls to moving in set incremental angles and changing the speed at which the character walks. OPM: What’s going to be the balance between combat and exploration? MK: There is definitely more exploration than combat, and I think it’s a good balance with enough combat to be enjoyable but without taking over the game. Of course, the Bakers are not the only enemies around in the game. There are some other, very Resident Evilesque enemies for you to face as well… but I’m not saying any more!