3) Resident Evil 7
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Release Date: January 24th
My first reaction to the news Resident Evil was going first person was… “huh?” My second was: “This is stupid.” But my oh my, having played the demo and watched game in action, Resident Evil 7 just makes sense.
Set inside a plantation owned by a crackpot family of hick cannibals, it’s your job to discover what’s going on and get the hell out of dodge. We’re promised a world of Metroidvania proportions, full of canny shortcuts and mysteries galore with herbs, ammo and typewriters to aid survival along the way.
What’s great about Resi 7 is that it feels like Resident Evil. All the time-honored sound effects are here, from the soothing jingle of the typewriter to the Pong-era cue of mixing herbs together. Better yet, Resi is back to being about true fear. I thought the move away from a the third-person camera would rob the game of its essential Resident Evil-ness. But it turns out this long-running, much-loved series is about more than awkward camera controls.
7 looks like a smart reinvention of a series that was rapidly veering into overblown Hollywood territory. And it’s never felt more right. Resident Evil 6 was a big hot mess, but I can’t see 7 being anything other than a contender for Game of the Year.