Resident Evil 7 is following the events of Resident Evil 6 a few years later, taking place primaringly on a plantation in Dulvey, Louisiana (a fictional town). In the town, there are urban legends about the Dulvey Haunted House, an abandoned plantation with reported ghost sightings, as reported by the The Dulvey Daily newspaper. Over the years, multiple people have gone to the house for whatever reason, and gone missing. Among the residents of the plantation house (which seems to have been there since the 1700s, according to the newspaper), they eventually cut off all contact with the outside world. Jack and Marguerite Baker were two people who owned the house, and it seems Marguerite Baker is the person we see holding the lantern in this trailer, and Jack is the 'Family Man' we saw in the teaser demo, they're husband and wife.
The character we play as seems to come to this location deliberately, though for an unknown reason, but he clearly drives to this location to investigate something. There also seems to be a girl named Mia that we follow the exploits of through videos she left behind (who seems to want to tell a man named Ethan something, whether we're Ethan or its someone else is not known), as well as others. Mia is said to be 'mysterious' and is kidnapped by Marguerite Baker, but the reason they're kidnapping people is currently a mystery (they also seem to abduct the people who are recording a ghosthunter TV show, and the character who we play as in the demo (who is confirmed not to be the same character we play as in the main game). It has been confirmed the character we play as isn't a character we've met before, but it was teased the character may have something to do with the series history, but don't want to talk about the character or their 'motives' yet.
Though the game takes place in a plantation, it has been confirmed there's multiple locations in the game. So far we have seen the plantation, a forest, a factory, and a highway/city in these trailers, though many outside of the plantation only briefly. So far for gameplay, we have seen the following styles, but mostly briefly:
-The one that's been most shown off is exploration/hide'n'seek horror, HOWEVER.
-We have also seen gunplay in the original E3 reveal briefly when we see the player facing a zombie-like enemy and shooting at them. In the key art for the game which is said to have a lot of clues, we also see a shotgun, grenade launcher, knife, axe, pitchfork, and sickle.
-There is an axe in the demo for melee play, have a regular swing, charge up powerful swing, and a block move is notable.
-We also see in the E3 trailer a segment where we're driving a car as it seems some flying enemies are attacking and breaking the windshield and we're avoiding incoming hectic traffic.
The Key Art:
The game is also shown to have a big element of 'past and present'. Through the game we play through 'found footage' segments where we play as someone else in the past, and can make changes to the future based on things we do in the video tapes (and it might be more than just video tapes we experience these segments in). We have seen two of these so far, the 'Sewer Gator' crew in the Beginning Hour Teaser, and the 'Mia' tape in the newest trailer. In the Teaser Demo, you could do something in the tape by finding a lockpick and unlocking a drawer that unlocked it in the current time (which got you the axe in the current time), and could replay video tapes and stop them at any time.
This element seems it'll play out into the full game. Here's a couple of quotes to lead into what I mean:
In the final game, there are many gimmicks or design choices that play on the player's desire to try to collect everything. Perhaps there's a carrot that's just out of reach, like an item that there is a way to get but maybe they don't get it the first time.
There's also story elements, narrative elements, where they constantly keep the player guessing about what's happening. And perhaps if you play it a certain way you might not find the answer the first time. I feel that these also facilitate replayability.
Question: Players who decide to replay the game will still be able to relive the horror as well as find new parts they previously never ran into in their first play through, correct?
Nakanishi: We wanted people to think "So.. where do I use this thing?" among other things that cleverly puzzle the player.
Kawada: There will be some gimmicks that people may not even run into at all. You may have a friend or partner etc who will notice something and say something like "Wait... what was that?...". We wanted a preview of the sensation that you will be able to experience in the main game when it releases.
Basically, there seems to be hidden secrets/items/uses for items, and it's implied the game may have multiple endings and more story revealed by partaking in certain things. The demo demonstrates this a couple times too, and this Lantern trailer showed it off a bit as well. There's a room with a projector in it with a pedestal where you can clearly place something inside of it:
As well as you can see an area where you may backtrack to in order to get a pulley or something to access a shed in the Lantern demo, and the areas seem to be more open with multiple pathways for you to explore.
(typing up more, but first wanted to write some of these observation/gameplay things).
SECOND POST HERE
