REBIRTH OF SURVIVAL HORROR GENRE: “Resident Evil Biohazard” Review (Spoilers ahead!)  

If you have been reading my reviews before, you should have already known that I am interested in the genre of horror, especially supernatural and sci-fi horror. There are two reasons why I love horror: in the aspect of storytelling and my observations in the terms of fear. In the sense of storytelling, horror or thriller genres may open a field for the author to put creative metaphors and allegories in order to explain various elements in the story such as the past of the character, the importance of locations, and the theme of the story. Previously, the monster designs of Silent Hill are shaped by the psychological conditions of its protagonist (You can check my review of “Silent Hill”) The second reason for my love towards horror genre is related to the real-life experience. I wonder what fear can affect people’s actions and decisions personally. It can drive someone into a mistake, life-changing decision, even worse…madness. Furthermore, fear might have positive influences on people and societies. Unless you fear dying or get harm, you can jump into a pit without any hesitation. Is it an irrational act? Of course not, for lots of people on the existence. This means that fear activates a motor in our survival instinct. As the title suggests this article is based on the genre of “survival horror”, then what is “survival horror”?  

 

The main point of the survival horror genre is about the survival of the character and focuses on the events which conflict with survival. Can we witness this genre in the novels, comics, and other platforms in the media? Yes, it is possible but survival horror is usually unique for the games. According to ING’s article “The History of Survival Horror Genre”, this genre is not just special due to the gameplay dynamics, but also is special because of the art designs, atmosphere, subject matter, and philosophy design. The philosophy design could be the thing that whole gamers find the survival horror games different from other mediums. The thing is the audience has to feel the emotions of the character as you were in his or her situation. By only watching or reading the journey of the character does not provoke the same reaction as the character feels. However, in video games audience also controls and decides the movements of the protagonist and the responsibility of the story is on your hands. In other words, the death of your character means you are a dead person as well. Now, what is the popularity of survival horror games? Above average, but I cannot say this for the quality of the games in recent years. The producers have forgotten the elements which make a good survival horror game. These elements are vulnerability, a dark brutal atmosphere, and interesting art designs. Rather than thinking as a whole, they have abandoned those elements for the sake of quick profit and gaining new customers for their projects. However, RS7 is a significant attempt to fix the broken chemistry of these games and reminding the core concepts. Before I start analyzing the strengths of the game, I would like to go back E3 2014 PT “Silent Hills” announcement because I will explain what really create the idea behind “Resident Evil Biohazard.”  

“Silent Hill, again?” you have the right to say that a million times, but as I mentioned before “Silent Hill” and “Resident Evil” are the two sides of a coin. When one side rises, the other follows, and when the other falls, the same fall happens to the other side of the coin. The games which the most gamers like in both series are “First, second, third and fourth games” whereas hated ones are “fifth and sixth games”. This is not a coincides. For me, those games are connected and they have similar reasons to being good and being bad. The good ones are oriented with vulnerable characters with mysterious past and interesting flowing storylines. While the bad ones are centered on powerful action figure characters and weak story structures containing lots of plot holes and clichés. In the 2010’s somebody must have stepped up and solved this damaging issue. Konami had an arrangement with the famous video game producer Hideo Kojima for a secret horror game project and famous movie director Guillermo del Toro would join his team. E3 2014, they have announced the game called “PT” which offering a first-person shooter gameplay and terrifying atmosphere. The character wanders around a narrow corridor and the player should examine the pictures and writings of the wall. The ambiguity in the location led us to be intense and makes it difficult to move freely. The vulnerability was established perfectly. Throughout the demo, there are also surrealist events is happening in this house (I will put a link for you to watch the full demo) 

PT:Silent Hills: 

 In the end, the soundtrack of Silent Hill was heard and everybody was excited to see how this first-person shooter shift would cost the gameplay and the future of the franchise. Then, everything went wrong because of the wrong actions Konami. First, they have fired Kojima for unknown reasons, probably because he wanted to make the games according to his rules. Second, Konami canceled the game and ruined a great potential for the series. Lastly, they had neglected any game offers for the Silent Hill franchise. I honestly want to ask you “what would you do if you were a producer of the upcoming Resident Evil game?”. Wouldn’t you use this potential? You would, right? In 2016, after the canceled Silent Hill game, Capcom announced Resident Evil 7 Biohazard which is about a new protagonist and first-person shooter game enters a resident which is full of threats and mysteries to solve. Perhaps, the inspiration is not a crime but Capcom should thank Konami for this free story idea. Anyway, now I can dive deeper into Resident Evil 7…

  

Resident Evil is a franchise that involves a virus that takes over the world and turns people into zombies. However, the games manage to explore stories with different settings and complex characters. Especially, Resident Evil 4 can be counted as a masterpiece for the post-apocalypse genre because of that castle and village theme and amazing story. However, Resident Evil 7 is not all killing the zombies and passing the next level. There is only one main level. It is the house. You should survive in this haunted house and you are really but really in a bad shape. Limited resources and health are the main trouble you should think about before you act. It is a nice fresh start for a franchise in the terms of characters, story, and art designs.   

The character we are controlling is Ethan Winters. He is an ordinary person, not like a trained soldier or a special forces member in previous games. His reactions and feelings can be the same with players. Thus, his dialogues are well written realistically, probably Japanese producers got help from native-speaking writers and solved cheesy dialogues in RS 4…Ethan gets a mail from his dead wife who is alive to not find her and stay away. Like every horror genre protagonist, Ethan drives to the location to which Mia has to send the message. It is a haunted mansion and it looks empty, but there are awkward pieces of stuff surrounded the house. The backstory of the house is given us by footages, documents, notes, and pictures. The player should find them if they are willing to learn what’s going on. Ethan finds Mia in a sort of dungeon, but Mia is not old Mia. The fear starts when Mia attacked you without any purpose and turned something different. The game shows you how vulnerable you are and how powerful your enemies are. Then, in another scene, you will meet with Jack and the game starts to introduce the biggest tragedies in video game history: the Baker family.  

Baker family has introduced players in a dining scene like in the Texas Massacrer series. Every enemy has its power and character design in the game. In addition, huge horror fans can notice that the main villains are inspired by cult horror movie villains. Jack Bakker who is the villain player should spend most of their time as a dominant figure in the family and his appearance and skills remind the character of Jason (13th Friday) and Michael Myers (Halloween). He is stronger than Ethan and comes up anytime in the game. The unique concept that the game has done to improve the vulnerability concept is that the villains are immortal. Jack will demonstrate it by himself in the game. The second villain is Margurite Baker whose virus changes her DNA and transforms into a half-bug lady. In her location, the player should sneak into a house and be faced with lots of bugs. If you are not a bug person like me, after the second boss fight with Margurite, you will get satisfaction to the maximum degree. Her abilities and appearance may be inspired by old horror movies in which mosquitos, ants, or different bugs strike people constantly. The third main villain is Lucas who is a copy of slasher horror movies character who likes to torture people for fun. Lucas also has his level design and gameplay design. In the boss fight of Jack and Margurite, the players should use weapons and equipment around the environment. In the boss fight of Lucas, you just need to solve the puzzle which is set up by Lucas, but it is a kind of mind game. The game intends to turn these characters into monsters in the eyes of the player. It assists producers to introduce the main monster of the game and add the plot twist into their story smoothly.  

Closer to the end, Ethan reveals the secrets of the house such as the origins of Molds, the things that happened to the Baker family, and the girl named Emily. Although Resident Evil 7 is a fresh page for the franchise, producers didn’t drop the main core story in the game. They just change their macro-perspective to the micro-perspective. Instead of telling the story of a pandemic in streets, villages, or continents, they chose the perspective of a family who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I still won’t spoil the main issue in the game, but I feel like I should have. If you still do not want to know, you should skip this part. When Ethan achieves the material for an antidote to kill the virus, he encountered the story of Emily who is a bio-weapon. The game alters Ethan to Mia for showing us what happened. Mia is a secret agent whose job is to transform Emily into a lab in Missouri. Emily manages to break out and uses her mold power to transform into the creatures. However, she does not hurt Mia as she sees Mia like her mother. Her motivation is having a family. Bakers find Emily in a storm and Emily brainwashed them violently. It is been Emily all along. The tragedy of Bakers is that they are stuck in their brains forever. In my playing journey, my hatred emotions towards sadness and empathy. The basic rule in storytelling is to evoke emotions and RS7 is awesome for that.   

Survival horror games are exciting, full of secrets, and acknowledging personal fears. Thanks to Resident Evil 7, these categories arise from its death and returned to the roots of survival horrors. But there are still critics who think the first-person shooter does not reflect the feeling of survival horror. Even though third-person shooter games are classics for this genre, the first-person shooter captures the true fears and we can feel more empathy with our character like In Amnesia series. Resident Evil changes the rule of this genre and Silent Hill remains silent (!) After the success of RS7, RS8 is coming up this year with protecting the perspective of the player and the art style of the former game. Ethan’s story continues, I hope…But lots of fans still wait for a new Silent Hill game. In the Cold War between Capcom and Konami, there is a lesson we should learn here: “Finish what you have started unless you want somebody to finish for you.” You can probably guess who is USSR in this war for now…  

Farewell,  

Y.O.K  

RS7 Biohazard trailer: 

Note: Next review will be the novel about vampires and pandemics. It is a very depressive but masterpiece novel. I will talk about the issue of otherness in that review.  

  

Work Cited:  

Fahs, Travis. The History of Survival Horror Games. IGN, 2009.Received in 2021:  

https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/10/30/ign-presents-the-history-of-survival-horror