LONDON, ENGLAND United Kingdom (Reuters) — An immersive horror experience has opened on London’s famous Brick Lane to mark the launch of video game Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
The experience, which ends on Monday (January 23), emulates one of the sequences of the new video game at a decrepit house. For 40 minutes, participants have to find clues while gathering tools to overcome obstacles and escape as quickly as possible.
Reuters spoke producer Masachika Kawata at the game launch on Thursday (January 19).
“We were totally blown away by how detailed and realistic the London Resident Evil experience is. It is just like stepping inside the game. It was really fun for us to try it out earlier today,” he said through a translator.
Director Koshi Nakanishi said the cult game, which recently celebrated 20 years, has returned to its survival horror roots, after negative response to the action-packed Resident Evil 6.
“The biggest change in this game from the previous ones is that we are using first person perspective camera. The reason we did that is because we want to bring the game back to the roots of the game series where it’s more of survival horror experience. We thought the first person perspective camera is the most effective way to do that,” said Kawata.
Nakanishi also explained the reason behind the decision to reduce the number of weapons available to the player.
“Resident Evil is at its heart survival horror and I think one of the key aspects of survival horror is limited resources. You have to be in disadvantage compared to the enemy. Certainly at the start of the game where you have fewer weapons and the satisfying aspect of survival horror is the process of exploring the environment, discovering more items and weapons, and being able to put them together and get stronger and then finally you can actually face and overcome the terrors you’ve been experiencing in the house,” he said.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard will be available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC when it launches across Europe and North America on Tuesday (January 24).
The movie “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” is also due to be released in the US this month.
The series of science fiction action horror movies is based on the original Capcom video games with the first film produced in 2002.