Hazard The House: Resident Evil 7 Beginning Hour Is A True
“Playable Teaser”
Article
Abstract: The Resident Evil franchise has had a rough past decade. Capcom looks to
reinvigorate the long running series with Resident
Evil 7: Biohazard. Announced and released at E3 2016, Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour is a standalone demo for the upcoming
game. Beginning Hour is clearly
inspired by 2014’s wildly influential Playable
Teaser (P.T.). P.T. remains one of the best horror
experiences I’ve ever played. Beginning
Hour learns from the lessons of P.T. to
deliver something familiar and something new, and in the processes establishes
its own identity. Beginning Hour is a
true playable teaser, in that what’s shown will translate to a large release,
unlike what was present in P.T. Beginning Hour and P.T. give separate looks into how to bring players into a new
horror world that makes me excited for the future of the genre.
E3 2016 has
come and gone, but not without its big surprises still leaving us reeling. One
of the most shocking, perhaps, was that a Capcom-produced PlayStation VR tech
demo Kitchen was actually a well-disguised
teaser for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
Kitchen
received high praise from fans
and games writers alike in its ability to create a terrifying atmosphere and
deliver high quality scares. The reveal
on Sony’s PlayStation stage was terrific, and one that got many longtime
fans of the franchise excited again.
For those
of you who don’t follow Resident Evil
closely, the series has had a substantial downturn over the past ten years. Resident Evil 4 was the last truly great
installment, and it released just over a decade ago. Since then, the franchise
has moved away from survival horror into a more action-packed zombie blasting
territory. The tone deaf Resident Evil 5
featured the living bicep Chris Redfield blowing away thousands of zombies from
one action setpiece to the next. Resident Evil 6
was a disappointing mix of old & new that ended up failing on all fronts.
Spin-offs and smaller Resident Evil
titles since Resident Evil 4 have
been plagued by hammy writing, bad controls, and cliché scares.
 |
| Punching boulders is not what I want from a Resident Evil game. |
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard promises to be a return to the
franchise’s survival horror roots. Capcom wants to deliver an experience that
terrifies in the same way the original did to a whole generation of gamers. I
was one such gamer. I didn’t even play the game myself, but watching the first Resident Evil over the shoulder of my
friend left me with gore-filled nightmares for weeks. How was Capcom going to
course correct a decade’s worth of mistakes? If Kitchen and the Beginning
Hour demo are any indication their answer is clear – draw from one of the
most influential horror titles of recent memory, P.T.
Hideo
Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro’s Playable
Teaser, or P.T., though only a
few years old has inspired a new generation of horror titles. Originally
intended, as the name would imply, to tease fans for the release of a new Silent Hill game (titled Silent Hills), P.T. transcends its
franchise bonds and exists as a standalone experience. Soon after its release P.T. would truly become a standalone
game, as Konami restructured and cancelled
the Silent Hills project. The
legacy of this roughly thirty-minute demo is extraordinary. We’ve seen elements
of P.T.’s world building and ambient
scares manifest in titles like Allison
Road (now
also cancelled) and Perception.
And now, P.T. looks to be a key
influence on one of the longest-running and well-known horror franchises of all
time, Resident Evil. But why did P.T. make such an impact?
 |
| P.T. still haunts the horror game discussion in a big way. |
P.T., for better or worse, delivered a
horror experience gamers had never seen before. The entire demo is set in one
small hallway. P.T. respects the way
people have learned to play games and subverts them to unnerve and establish
its world. Repetition, for instance, is a foundation of gaming. You do the same
thing over and over to get good at it – your input always resulting in the same
output. Not here. Performing the same act can give the player wildly different
results. Walking through the same hallway multiple times changes it, adding
layers of complexity and scares from the mundane. While so many other games
have emphasized size and scale, P.T. focused
on a dense microcosm. P.T.’s hallway
it replete with hints at the player character, hints and the world, and hints
at what to do. Nothing is told to the player, everything must be discovered.
Scares are well earned, as P.T.
builds tension through a subtle build up of sounds and sights. P.T. also acknowledges that one of the
most compelling elements to horror is its mystery—the less the player knows the
more terrifying its secrets. P.T. is
packed to the brim with hidden mysteries that I suspect players are still
trying to uncover. Now roughly a year later I find myself coming back to that
hallway, to P.T., still impressed
with what it delivered.
On the
other hand though, it was apparent that P.T.
would struggle to translate into a “full” horror game experience. Game systems
are at an absolute minimum, giving the player little tools to interact with its
fantastic world. The "throw you into the deep end" approach works brilliantly for
a 30 minute game, but blindly stumbling through a 10-12 hour horror game would
be abysmal. The play on repetition works for a chamber piece like P.T., but a bigger game requires forward
momentum to keep players engaged. In this way, P.T. is actually quite awful at being a “playable teaser.” It works
so much better as a standalone game. This is where it differs from Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour.
 |
| P.T., and its famous hallway, is a much better as a standalone game than a teaser for a larger project. |
Launched on
the same night as PlayStation’s E3 2016 press conference, Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour is a roughly 30 minute demo for
Capcom’s upcoming release. The demo takes place immediately following the
events that transpired in Kitchen.
The player awakes alone in a derelict house, blood on the floor and filled with
memories of what has just transpired. You must navigate your way through the
creepy rundown house to not only find your way out, but also piece together why
you’re here in the first place. Playing Beginning
Hour instantaneously brought me back to my time with P.T. You’re alone, walking through a hallway or two, in the
creepiest house ever. The hallways are packed with secrets and hints at the
larger narrative. A mysterious phone call, moving mannequins, split-second
ghost woman appearances, Beginning Hour
succeeds in creating a terrifying world to explore. Looking at the paintings
hanging on the wall, listening to the creaks and cracks and growls of the house
taps into the deeply ingrained fear of being unsafe in a traditionally safe
space. The slow movement, the limited light source, the sense of impending
dread all elicited that same spine-tingling unease I got while playing P.T.
 |
| Very different hallway, very similar scares. In a good way. |
What I soon
realized, however, was that playing Beginning
Hour was a fundamentally different experience than playing P.T.. And that’s because Beginning Hour is a true playable teaser. The differences became
evident quite quickly. For starters, Beginning
Hour is a goal-oriented demo. You’re given the prompt “Exit the House”
right as you start the demo. A quick scan of the first room you find yourself
in informs the player of some of the game mechanics we’ll likely see in the
full release of Resident Evil 7:
Biohazard. You can find a VHS that’s missing a tape, with a clear “Press X
to enter cassette” “You don’t have a tape” prompts. You find an electrical
breaker box that’s missing a fuse with a “You must find a fuse.” As you explore
you can find some bolt cutters conveniently placed just after you come across a
chained up cabinet. Picking up the bolt cutters gives the player their first
look at an inventory screen, which is classic Resident Evil through and through. These elements and more combine
to tell the player a story that transcends narrative and atmosphere, but begins
to inform on what they will be doing in an expanded version of this game. Beginning Hour lays a clear foundation
for a 10-12 hour horror game in a way P.T.
never did. But both are exceptional.
 |
| Beginning Hour gives players a great idea of what we'll be doing in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Like looking for lock picks. |
Being a
true playable teaser isn’t objectively good or bad, however. I can appreciate
the glimpse into gameplay and the work being done to establish Resident Evil 7: Biohazard’s world. I
can also appreciate its clear lineage with P.T.
in creating a standalone horror experience (it’s been confirmed the main
character and events of Beginning Hour
will not be a part of the final game). I love that Beginning Hour is a smart realization of where fans want horror
games to be now and I love that Beginning
Hour does a great job at being a great demo. On the other hand, I love that
P.T. isn’t tasked with being a
preview of what’s to come—in fact, I’d argue P.T. is better for it. It can be more experimental, more
mysterious. It can do things 10-12 hour long games never could. Beginning Hour took me back to when I
played P.T., but also established its
own identity in the process. Experiences like P.T. and now Beginning Hour
get me excited for where horror games are going. I’m glad I hazarded the house –
there was a lot there to enjoy.
