As it stands, I'm yet to play Resident Evil 7 with the lights off. I keep promising myself I will, but whenever I sit in front of my PC, I just can't bring myself to flick the switch because I'm such a wuss. It's really rather good, though. If you haven't picked it up already, know that it's going cheaper than anywhere else we've spotted at CDKeys. 

For £24.99/$39.99 you too can sing the praises of electricity and kid yourself on that one day you might, just might, stumble around the dilapidated Baker residence in the dark. I don't believe you, though. 

In other Resi 7 news, the first of two 'Banned Footage' DLCs arrives on PlayStation 4 consoles today—priced £11.99/$14.99—with its follow-up now due February 14. PC players, on the other hand, will be able to access both Banned Footage Vol. 1 and 2 on February 21, with the game's free 'Not a Hero' add-on expected at some point in spring.      

Here's another look at the base game's launch trailer: 

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info. 

While I had a pretty good idea where Marguerite’s boss fight was going, mutated Jack caught me completely off guard. I thought he was done in the first boss battle, but the dude is resilient. There’s no warning whatsoever, just a massive, clearly distressed Tentacle-Jack in a boat house with a few too many eyeballs and a hankering for human flesh. The good news is that the eyes are clearly weak spots, glowing bright and begging to pop like videogames of yore. The bad news is Jack hits hard, so without smart movement and timing, it’s easy to get cornered and murdered with a few swipes. Keep these things in mind for a simpler time getting this pompous jerk to quiet down. 

Don’t forget to block

If you’re like me, you run from enemies before they can even get close enough to hit you, and if they do get in a swipe, it’s a surprise. Resi 7 on Normal doesn’t incentivize use of the block mechanic often enough for it to stay fresh in the player’s memory, but it can save your life in the Jack fight. Right when the fight begins, Jack gets in a free swipe, so have your arms up at the ready. If he ever backs you into a corner or stuns you, block. It’s obvious advice, but so easy to forget.

Bring the grenade launcher

If you found the grenade launcher, now is the time to use it. Right before the boss fight begins, you’ll find a few free rounds. Consider it a strong nudge. They fire off rounds that burst into flames and do damage over time. With so many tiny eyes hidden all over his body, they make quick work of Jack's tougher weak spots. Save them for later in the fight, when reaching the eyes on his top or bottom proves troublesome. 

Spend your resources on ammunition

Or at least prioritize creating ammo before first aid vials. Jack is going to absorb a ton of ammo before going down, and getting caught with an empty supply will nearly guarantee your death—thought I’d love to see a knife-only run. His movement and behaviors are easy to predict within a few minutes, so no more than one or two health vials should be necessary.

Use the ladder to ‘move’ Jack

It’s much easier for Jack to hit you if you’re on the same floor as him, and the only way between those floors is a ladder. If he’s not too close to the ladder, and you need to shoot eyes on a specific side of his body, use the ladder to push or pull him up or down. There’s a fulcrum somewhere in the middle that triggers Jack to recognize the player as moving up or down. Find the sweet spot and move just beyond it, then wait for his movement animation to trigger. Quickly drop down or climb up and get some shots in on those beautiful, wet orbs.

Reload when he’s stunned

Don’t get too greedy when you pop an eyeball. See if you can get off another shot or two, but use the time Jack is stunned and busy making his way to you to reload every weapon in your arsenal. There’s nothing worse than being inches from the final eye only to trigger the shotgun reload animation when you fire. It’s especially important during the final part of the fight, where he slams a black tendril and plops the final glowing weak point right in front of you.

It doesn’t take long for Ethan to scrounge up some bullet-shaped protection in Resident Evil 7, but to truly make evil bleed, you’ll want to swap out your dinky starting pistol for something less flimsy and more Evil Dead. In true survival horror fashion, the Baker residence hosts an arsenal steadily ramping up in potency as you continue your search for Mia. You can easily miss these handheld cannons in your travels, so use this guide to make sure your armory is fully stocked before escaping the Bakers for good. 

Be warned, spoilers ahead!

Burner 

You can acquire the Burner as soon as you step into the Yard area outside the Main House after collecting the three dog head door pieces (one of which involves a mostly straightforward boss fight).

Head to the Old House. From the Yard’s central trailer save room, move northeast and take the path to a rusted gate. Cross the cheerfully decorated wooden bridge beyond to get to the house’s front door.

A few oversized bugs will fly into your face and buzz their welcome to this new section of the Baker compound. Don’t bother expending precious ammo. A single slash from your pocket knife will splatter them.

If you’ve viewed the “Mia” video tape, this should be recognizable ground by now. Turn left and move along the walkway lining the room’s watery center. Head through the door to the north.

Glance at the warning hastily sprayed on the wall, but don’t linger—an insect nest in this room will continually spew bugs to peck away at your health. You can destroy the nest with the weaponry you already have, but it’s best to just sprint past and through the door on the opposite side of the room. Quickly close the door behind you to shut out any pursuing pests. If a swarm followed you in, just slash away with the knife until it disperses.

Use the right door in this corridor to enter the Dining Room. Exit via the northern door on the left wall past the sink. Be sure to check around for supplies, including both a strong and regular Chem Fluid in the spider-infested cabinet. (Inch close and slash away with the knife to clear the crawlies out.)

Outside, quickly sprint ahead and take the rightward walkway just before the insect nest to get to the Water Station jutting out of the swampy bog. Close the door after squeezing into the station’s cramped interior. The reward for your nimbleness is the Burner Nozzle, the first half of your new toy. It sits in plain view. Swipe it.

Backtrack to the Dining Room, and return to the corridor you first entered from. Continue straight to the door at the far end. Some bugs will crash through the windows on the corridor’s right side, but the narrow space makes it easy to take care of them with your knife.

Through the door is the Gallery room where you’ll soon solve another shadow puzzle to progress. Walk past it for now, and throw open the double doors leading to another exterior walkway.

Turn left after stepping outside, and you’ll spot the clearly visible Burner Grip carelessly discarded atop a trash bin. Haven’t any of these people seen MacGyver? You know what comes next: Combine both Grip and Nozzle in your inventory to create the Burner. Soon, it'll come in handy for an encounter with another Baker family member.

Grenade Launcher 

The mighty Grenade Launcher can be yours for the low price of a short jog through familiar territory after nabbing the Crow Key from the Old House. Retrace your steps back to the Yard and the Main House. You’re heading for the Drawing Room, which you can get to either via sliding through the back wall past the Main Hall projector or taking the long route through the Monitoring Room.

The Crow Door awaits at the Drawing Room’s far end. Open it with the Crow Key, and reap your new fun-tube off the crates right in front of you. Grenade ammo will be quite scarce when you first pick up the launcher, so keep it tucked away until needed against strong foes such as the Greenhouse boss fight or the beefier Molded variants later in the game.

M21 Shotgun

With a wink and a nod to a classic Resident Evil puzzle, getting the M21 Shotgun entails a bit of a convoluted sequence of swaps and item sleuthing, but it’s well worth it in the end. 

Your first step is to get the Scorpion Key from the Processing Area section of the Main House’s basement. It sticks out from a bag of flesh resting on a table in the center of the large room accessed past the corridor with the metal divider after the encounter in the Incinerator Room.

Return to the Main Hall and climb upstairs to the second floor. Head west and enter the Recreation Room via the first door along the exterior walkway to the right, but keep an eye out for a roaming Jack who might be blocking your way. Once inside, use the Scorpion Key on the door adorned with—surprise—a large scorpion to enter Grandma Baker’s room. 

Grab the Broken Shotgun that’s propped up against the door frame inside and to the left. Take it back down to the Main Hall and swap it for the working shotgun held by the statue in the well-lit room on the south end. (If you don’t have something to replace the shotgun, the room’s door will slam shut until you put it back.)

After the Dissection Room encounter and getting access to the Yard, head to the dark patch of vegetation in between the two sets of stairs leading up to the Main House porch. (It’s ahead and slightly left looking from the trailer door.) Crouch down and spot the loose metal panel covering up a crawlspace beneath the porch. Move it aside and grab the Repair Kit from the crate stored within. It’s best to store the kit in a safe room item box for now. You won’t need it quite yet.

Your M21 hunt is on hiatus until you brave the Old House and collect Marguerite’s lantern. That, in turn, serves as the first step to finding the Snake Key which you’ll need to get back on the M21’s trail.

To get it, return to the Processing Area in the Main House using the northeast steps beside the safe room to descend into the basement. Travel through the Boiler Room (if you’re lost, this is the same path you took to get the red dog head piece earlier on), continue down to the Morgue, head up the stairs on the room’s east side, and enter the first door on the right to reach the other half of the Dissection Room.

Here rests the deputy’s gruesome remains. Don’t be shy! Shove your arm down his throat to extract the Snake Key.

With Snake Key in gore-soaked hand, you can now unlock the second-floor Kid’s Room in the Main House. Journey back to the Main Hall, head upstairs, and take the west door. Turn south in the corridor, and unlock the room before you with the Snake Key.

Pick up the lamp from the cluttered table at the room’s right side and rotate it to spot a red button obscured by the shade. Press it to drop down a ladder in the corner.

Climb up into an attic area. Check the corner to the right of the ladder for a Model Shotgun resting on a shelf. Grab it. You’re now ready to get your hands on the M21 which, if you haven’t guessed by now, is the Broken Shotgun you used to get yourself a working boomstick from the statue’s cold, dead hands downstairs. Make sure you have your Repair Kit, too.

Backtrack downstairs to the Main Hall south room. Once again, swap the Model Shotgun for the Broken Shotgun to keep the door from sealing your fate. Combine the Repair Kit with the gun, and bask in the glory of your deluxe double-barrel beauty. It’ll pack a way stronger wallop per shell than the standard shotgun, but you’ll need extra precision to make both shots count before needing to reload.

P19 Machine Gun

You might’ve spotted the Machine Gun taunting you from a locked cabinet in the Captain’s Cabin during your travels on the wrecked ship. Luckily, pilfering the powerful weapon involves a relievingly short procedure with less headaches than the M21. To begin with, you need a key.

Drop down the elevator shaft on the Bridge’s southern side (or go straight and look right if you’re leaving the Captain’s Cabin). Use the Lug Wrench to yank open the hatch atop the elevator’s roof. Drop down to be presented with the choice of either climbing up to floor 2F or dropping further to 1F. You want 2F.

Climb up and turn right, heading down the corridor to the Guest Room ahead and slightly around the turn. If the Molded guarding the wall somehow detects you, simply step into the Guest Room and close the door—it’s a safe room, so the silly thing will instantly dissolve once you’re inside.

Pick up the Corrosive lying beneath the small end table straight in front of you. Return back down the corridor (saving at the nearby cassette player is a good idea), and walk past the elevator shaft to the sealed Bunk Room door at the other end. If you’re quick, you can use the Corrosive on the door’s lock and dash inside before the Molded shamble close; if not, scamper back to the Guest Room to clear out some breathing space.

Some Remote Bombs eagerly await your inventory’s embrace inside. More importantly, snag the Captain’s Cabin Locker Key beneath the lamp on the desk. Get back to the Bridge: hop back into the elevator from the corridor, and climb the ladder into the shaft. Climb the longer ladder to drop into the Bridge once more using the hole in the floor.

Be swift but silent, as Molded are now patrolling the Bridge area in search of you. Swing around to the Captain’s Cabin, and use the key to swing open the locker and claim the P19 Machine Gun to finally arm yourself with some real firepower.

There's still one powerful weapon left to obtain, the .44 magnum, but it's locked away behind a hefty coin ransom, nine of them, in the RV. Make sure to check every room for antique coins throughout the game so you don't miss out.

When stat tracking is implemented into video games the right way, there isn't much that beats it. I'll always be interested in seeing how many people did some asinine, completely unnecessary thing in any game that pulls me in, and Resident Evil 7 is the latest of those adventures.

If you were wondering what that prompt for Resident Evil.net was at the beginning of Resident Evil 7, then you might be surprised to hear that Capcom has been tracking every player that's accepted it. No, not the scary, dystopian tracking that you see in episodes of Black Mirror or any number of sci-fi movies (we hope). Capcom is instead using the data to visualize some interesting data. For example, at the time of publishing, Resident Evil 7 players have racked up more than 570 years of playtime. And that's not even counting any player that chose not to be tracked.

What's great about the stat-tracking page is that it connects to your account, so it knows how much progress you've made through the story. This means that Capcom hides certain information from you to avoid spoilers; once you've completed certain sections of the game, more stats are revealed to you.

It's funny to see that the vast majority of people aim for a Molded's head when confronted by the gruesome, regenerating monster—at this point, everyone knows exactly how to best take care of Resident Evil's creatures. But not everyone is successful. The Molded is the number one cause of death, claiming responsibility for more than 22 percent of player fatalities.

Capcom has also been tracking how many times the game's lone bra was examined. Players have looked at it more than 600,000 times, but only 43 percent of players have actually done so. With a tracked player count of about 800,000, that means many players have examined the useless bra more than once. You filthy animals.

Of the roughly 800,000 tracked players, about 10 percent of them have played in VR. That makes us particularly sad as no one on PC will get to experience that for themselves until next year. 

The last stat I want to share is the number of billiard balls pocketed. If you didn't know you could play billiards, don't worry: you're not alone. I certainly didn't know, and it turns out 99.53 percent of players didn't either. As of publishing time, only 4,424 players played billiards. Now I know exactly what I'm doing next time I load up the game.

There are plenty more stats available on the page, and you can check them all out here.

Resident Evil 7 received a score of 90/100 in PC Gamer's review. Critic Andy Kelly called it "the best Resident Evil in years."

"It takes an industrial pressure washer to the series, blasting off years of accumulated filth and grime," he said. "And you’re left with a lean, polished survival horror that borrows from its legacy, but isn’t afraid to look to modern horror games for inspiration too."

Marguerite isn’t having a great day. You busted into her house, burned her bug-children, stole her dead (sort of) kid’s serum-producing arm, and dissolved her into a pile of black goo. Who’s the bad guy here? Anyway, she gets mad and her legs and arms grow longer, her undercarriage erupts into a bug-birthing abscess, and she makes it her mission to murder you in the greenhouse. It’s not as obtuse a battle as Jack Baker's boss fight, but can really put a drain on your supplies if you don’t use them correctly. Use these tips to spend your precious bullets wisely and make Marge's day the worst she’s ever had, you jerk. 

Find a safe sentry point on the second floor 

Running around is valid tactic, but it can be easy to turn a corner and bump into Marguerite unexpectedly, where the ensuing panic might mean bullets wasted and unnecessary damage taken. I found a decent place on the second floor where I could keep track of her pretty well and get away if she got too close. The key her is patience, and making her come to you rather than seeking her out. 

Save your flamethrower fuel for swarms 

Sometimes Marge will hide to birth swarms and the larger flying insects. You can chase her down and get a pistol shot in or two to interrupt the process, but if you can’t find her, make sure you save flamethrower fuel to take care of the incoming swarms. If you can, just knife the big suckers, but the swarms are quick and a huge distraction. Taking them out as soon as possible is key.

Use the pistol to knock her down 

Marge will climb all over the walls and ceiling and can be knocked down with a few well placed pistol shots. Once she hits the floor, she’ll land on her back and struggle to upright herself, which is a perfect time to get some damage in. When she disappears to birth bugs, she'll lay eggs too, which continually spawn bugs throughout the match. A shot or two from a distance will knock her down. Listen for her moaning, birthing noises and try to interrupt her before she can finish. 

Save the shotgun for damage 

If it wasn’t obvious already, shooting Marge in her festering bug wound does the most damage. Do your best to save your most powerful weapons for such an opening because she doesn’t stay still for long, even after a good stun. If you're desperate to do some damage, but can't get a bead on her bug bits, then headshots are a decent alternative. 

If she gets too close, drop down for a supply run 

There are a ton of supplies hidden all around the greenhouse, and once you get a good hit in on Marge after she approaches you (ideally from a second floor sentry point), she’s hard to get back down immediately. Use the opportunity to drop down to the first floor for a quick supply run. There’s ammo tucked away in a few drawers and a box, chemicals on the lawnmower and in the spider-covered locker, and a health tonic near this tipped ceramic. They’re not too difficult to spot once you’re close enough—just look out for the little arrow UI icon. Once you finish your quick sweep, head back upstairs to your sentry spot. 

If you want some extra help before the fight, look left before the first set of stairs where she pops out of the window. There are some psychosimulants on a couch. They'll speed up your ability to item snaffle while running around as it marks them all on screen temporarily.

Take a peek at the gallery below for a few item locations. 

Before Resident Evil 7 came out, there wasn’t much incentive to care about whether or not I could play with an HTC Vive or an Oculus Rift on our PCs. After the disaster we call Resident Evil 6, I think we all just wanted it to be good. Now it’s out and not just good, but intensely great. Andy called it ”tense and refined survival horror with a brilliantly bleak, grimy atmosphere” in his review. So for those with access to VR headsets, the inability to step into that grimy world ‘for one year’ thanks to an exclusivity deal feels more like a hard kick in the shin than a simple missing feature. 

I replayed the first three hours on a borrowed PSVR headset to see what PC players are missing out on, and even on lesser hardware, Resident Evil 7 is the first fully-featured game that doesn’t feel compromised by VR design. If not for the low res textures and jagged edges, I’d step away from the PC version and play the rest of RE7 with a headset blotting out the rest of the world. Best of all, despite directional movement detached from my body, I didn’t get motion sick once like I normally do, and I’m incredibly sensitive to VR games.

Spoiler warning: I mention events from the few hours of the game beyond this point.

Why it works

The first 30 minutes of Resident Evil 7 feel built for VR. From the garish, low-res foliage on your initial walk into the house to the numerous up-close skirmishes with your mangled, bloodthirsty girlfriend, you’re driven forward through a series of haunted house surprises feel too contained and slow on the PC. But in VR, watching her rip through your wrist with a chainsaw or old man Baker try to pry your mouth open with a knife—well, it’s extremely disturbing. Giving scale and dimension to otherwise flat (literally, as in on a screen), goonish characters takes a bit of instinctual and emotional recalibration. They stop feeling like videogame enemies the moment your brain interprets that hunched man power-walking your way as a genuine threat.

Wearing the headset, I naturally became one of those stupid teens from a horror movie, constantly looking over my shoulder, crouching around a corner to catch my breath, and peeking around to check for danger before—here’s the part where you’d yell at the screen—heading directly into it.

The controls work well too, even though I prefer to not play first-person games with analogue sticks. Lucky for us mouse-and-keyboard trained, weapon aiming is tied to where you look. It feels as accurate as any mouse, but does require a bit more effort to move around. And if someone is behind you, there’s a quickturn option that dulls the edges of your screen with darkness so you don’t get dizzy spinning around to take on enemies behind you.

All sorts of other accommodations have been made to stave off VR sickness, and the most jarring might be the incremental turn controls. By default, turning happens in degrees. One tap of the analogue stick left or right snaps your character 10 to 20 degrees in that direction. There are options to change the increments in which he moves, and you can turn it off for a smooth movement, which typically makes most people sick, including myself. But it doesn't in Resident Evil 7.

Sprinting, hectic combat encounters, and UI juggling has yet to make me feel even the slightest bit sick. According to our friends at GamesRadar, some reviewers still felt ill while playing, so the PSVR version isn't a completely safe bet yet. A PC version could stave off sickness further with a higher refresh rate and better resolution, but the PSVR version is still impressive. I’m usually clutching my stomach and done for the day after 10 minutes in similar VR games. I’d be impressed that the PS4 can maintain such a high refresh rate if not for the obvious hit RE7's graphics take to sustain it.

Graphic content 

That scene where Mia saws off your hand? On the PC, the depth of focus shifts in and out to a stump spurting out quarts of blood by the minute. In PSVR, it’s just a dull, bloodless nub. Shadows meant to have smooth edges cast in serrated zigzag patterns, and intricate wall and floor textures, are so blurry they only imply what they are. Wood. Wallpaper. Blood maybe?

Note: the video captures footage as the hardware renders it, not the image as you'd see it in a headset, which would be much closer to the eye. Aliasing and texture resolution are worse than they appear as a result. 

When you're moving around, the low-res textures are easier to dismiss than normal due to the sense of space in VR, but because the Baker plantation is such an interesting, detailed setting its overall power is wasted in PSVR. As soon as you stop to examine a room the disgusting props and the story they’re trying to tell blend into a noisy backdrop of muddy textures and thorny aliasing. The PS4 just isn’t capable of giving Resident Evil 7 its due in VR, and knowing that capable PCs and headsets could is a huge disappointment.

By the time VR support does arrive on the PC for Resident Evil 7, the majority of fans will have played it by then. And while any excuse to give it another go is welcome, I’d rather have the opportunity to remember the Baker house as a novel, unknown place rather than a videogame level. As is usually the case, modders are working on ways to implement VR functionality with or without Capcom’s support. Progress is slow—the limited FOV and stereoscopic vision is still an issue, but modders always find a way.

For the VR enthusiasts that can weather a year of waiting, much respect. That’s real survival horror.

While most of us are still tip-toeing our way around the Baker estate, speedrunners are blitzing through Resident Evil 7 in mere hours. Twitch streamer 'Stirliing' currently holds the world record at 1:51:02, but runners will likely trim that time significantly as the competition and strategies begin to solidify. Right now, I'm just enjoying watching a new speedrunning scene emerge.

Stirliing's world record run is interesting to watch for several reasons, like how humorous it is to see him effortlessly sprint through areas that caused me a great deal of anxiety in my own playthrough. A lot of this has to do with the fact that he is playing on new game plus, which starts him off with an Albert-01 pistol—a veritable hand cannon that trivializes some of the early fights. Jack Baker, for example, usually takes almost an entire magazine of pistol ammo to stun for a few minutes.

Much of Resident Evil 7's length comes from poring over documents littered about and solving extra puzzles, which Stirliing avoids entirely. His core strategy at this point seems to be "run the hell away from everything that moves"—which I also do except he doesn't end up whimpering in a corner. It's amazing how well he's been able to map out the house in his mind in just a couple of days, as some areas are confusing as hell. Throughout the run, Stirliing remarks that he's been streaming nearly constantly since Resident Evil 7 launched, over 14 hours or so at the time of his run. That's dedication.

There's no denying that at this stage RE7 speedruns are messy and full of little mistakes that cost seconds. I'm looking forward to seeing how things tighten up in a few months once runners begin to figure out the best routes through each level. If skips and glitches are found (and who are we kidding, of course they will be) we could see even bigger cuts to time. Remember, this is a game that took Andy around nine hours to beat when he reviewed it.

If you want to give speedrunning Resident Evil 7 a try for yourself, there's an achievement for beating the game in under four hours, which is a sensible place to start. Intrepid wife-saver James Davenport also has a guide for tackling the butcher room boss fight, which should help you shave some seconds off of your time. You can also join the community at speedruns.com to get the latest updates and tips. 

Already done with Jack, but having trouble with the second boss? We have a guide for that.

Resident Evil 7 is an incredible game that will likely stand among the best in the series once the initial relief that it's not another Resi 6 settles. But it’s not without flaws, and the boss battles are among them. Because of the first-person perspective, the one-on-one butcher room chainsaw duel with Jack Baker might look cool as hell, but it’s not very fun encounter.

You might be confused or frustrated, and rightfully so—the battle doesn’t telegraph itself too well and goes on for a bit too long—but by keeping a few things in mind, it becomes a cinch.

Get the shotgun

The more tools at your disposal the better. While the shotgun won’t exactly make the fight a breeze, but having more methods for knocking Jack to ground is definitely a good thing. First, you’ll need the Scorpion Key, which is located beyond a blue gate in the Processing Area of the house in the basement. Once you get it, head back upstairs to where you likely found the Mia tape earlier. Face west, and you’ll see a door with a scorpion on it. Take a guess at what unlocks that. Inside is a broken shotgun. Grab that, head down to the main entrance hall and replace the statue’s working shotgun with the broken one. Boom. There’s your boomstick.

Shoot his knees with the pistol 

Like Resident Evil 4, if you shoot Jack in the knees you can stagger him, which is especially helpful if he’s charging you or wielding massive chainsaw scissors that block his face. Once staggered, he’ll kneel down and present his shiny bald dome to you. If you have the chainsaw, you know what to do. Otherwise, get our your knife and slash. If you’re feeling confident and have deep ammo reserves, keep the pistol out or bring out the shotgun for more damage.

The chainsaw can block most damage 

Don’t forget about your block ability, especially once you’re able to grab the chainsaw. With good timing, you can blot out most of the damage from Jack’s swings, the exception being his charge attack. This doesn’t mean you should stay in his face the whole time though. Block only if you have no other choice. Otherwise, back up and wait for an opening.

There’s an extra health tonic hidden in the corner 

Be sure to explore every nook and cranny before the fight and craft as many tonics as possible, but if you end up running out anyway, don’t fret quite yet. There’s another tonic hidden in the corner of the arena. Just make sure to pick it up during a safe window of time.

Most importantly, be patient

Like a Dark Souls boss, rushing in to take a jab before Jack has finished up a moveset means you’ll die quickly. He has a few moves he always telegraphs beforehand. The battle goes on for a long time too, so even if you're on a fifth attempt and need to go to the bathroom, don't rush the process. Exploding a man takes time. 

Since Leon first got his head chainsawed off Resident Evil 4, I’ve been more afraid to die in survival horror games than ever. But with such gruesome defeat comes the terrible catharsis of a well-produced and dramatic end for your character, something any fan of grisly horror will seek out. And so now videogame death montages have become a tradition of sorts, a way to bear witness to violent ends without experiencing them first hand—unless you’re awful at horror games like I am. 

The excellent Resident Evil 7 ups the ante with a ton of death scenes, but this time, you get to partake. The Bakers are a mushy bunch, capable of regenerating from the smallest puddle of goo, and so you’ll reduce them to such time and time again with chainsaws, shotguns, fire, and whatever else you can muster. Still, they’ll do the same, and with a gorgeous, detailed new first-person engine, the scenes are more messed up than ever. I mean, check out this intimate chainsaw evisceration sequence. Hope you already ate. 

Some are even interactive sequences where the characters toy with you for a while. In my favorite so far, if Jack catches you while wielding the shovel early on he might cut off your leg. You can then pick it up as an inventory item before eventually bleeding out on the floor (around 6:55 in the video). I don’t know, maybe it unlocks a door somewhere. Not likely. While your vision slowly fades to black, he goads you towards him, crouched, promising to help. It’s a twisted, funny sequence that further characterizes Jack as a sadistic madman—and it’s totally possible you’ll never see it.The game only just came out which means players are still discovering different ways to die, so we’ll be sure to update with a more complete array of videos as they drip out. 

Like any long-running series, Resident Evil has had impressive highs and a few embarrassing lows. Every game has its defenders—except maybe Operation Raccoon City—but I think most people will agree that, recently, there have been more lows than highs. I mostly enjoyed Resident Evil 5, but it was obvious that it paled in comparison to 4. And this slow decline in quality led, inevitably, to the indulgent mess that was 6. Years of bewilderingly complex mythology and an increased focus on action over survival horror left the series bloated and confused, and a new approach was desperately needed.

And salvation arrived in the form of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, the best game since Shinji Mikami and his team boldly reinvented the series in 2005 with Resident Evil 4. I went into it blind, having religiously avoided previews and trailers, and emerged from the darkness delighted that Resident Evil was good again. Before I played it, the switch to a first-person perspective led me to believe it would be a total reinvention of the series, mimicking fashionable modern horror games like Amnesia and Outlast. And while there are traces of that in there, it really has more in common with the early Resident Evil games: from the arcane puzzles that steadily unlock more of the house, to the soothing music that plays in the safety of a save room.

For me, the mythology has always been the least interesting thing about Resident Evil. I was invested in it once, long ago, but over the years it became so swollen and complex that I tuned out. Which is something Resident Evil 7 swiftly corrects by making it simple again. You aren’t a super-agent trying to save the world from the threat of bio-terrorism: you’re a man looking for his wife in a swamp. It gets more complicated later, but having that simple, human motivation at its core makes for a more focused, engaging, and emotional story. And as an added bonus, playing as a normal person makes it scarier too. You feel more vulnerable as Ethan than you ever did as the cocky, capable Leon Kennedy or the ludicrously muscled Chris Redfield.

It’s the puzzle-solving, atmospheric exploration, item management, and occasional burst of action that I love about Resident Evil—and those are all things the new game does incredibly well. The pace is almost always slow and steady, with plenty of quiet, tense exploration between enemy encounters. Spacing out the action like this not only heightens the tension, but gives you time to familiarise yourself with the environment too. Of course, it also uses this familiarity to play tricks on you, like enemies suddenly appearing in a hallway you’ve passed through safely a dozen times before.

Resident Evil 7 isn’t constantly bombarding you with enemies, set-pieces, and cut-scenes. The developers know when to just shut up and let your imagination do the work for them. Nervously wondering what lies around the next corner, and imagining what it could be, is more powerful than throwing an enemy at you. A trick borrowed from Silent Hill, which uses the fear of the unknown to quietly whittle away at your nerves. It doesn’t maintain this for the whole game—I sprinted through the last third, calmly shooting any enemies that got in my way—but this is by design. A cathartic reward for eight hours of patience and item economy. The game expertly balances power and powerlessness, lulling you into a false sense of security then brutally punishing you.

My heart still belongs to the pre-rendered backgrounds and fixed cameras of the early Resident Evil games, but the shift to first-person in 7 works a lot better than I thought it would. Ethan’s intentionally slow movement means you can’t strafe around like you’re in Quake, and there’s a satisfying weight and creepy intimacy to the combat. Resident Evil 4 remains the highlight of the series in terms of combat, enemy design, and pure style, but I’m surprised by how Resi-like the combat in 7 feels despite the change of perspective. My only criticism is the lack of enemy variety. I would have liked a few more interesting things to shoot at, not just variously shaped blobs of evil black jam.

I did enjoy some of the cheesy melodrama and over-the-top action in the last few games. But when your atmospheric survival horror series reaches the point where the hero is fighting a monster in a volcano, maybe it’s time to dial it down a bit. And that’s exactly what 7 does. But, crucially, it still feels like Resident Evil. The spirit of the series is still intact, even after the developers have aggressively trimmed a lot of the fat that was weighing it down. And you’re left with not only a fantastic, lean, well-designed horror game, but arguably the best numbered sequel since 2005. I can’t wait to see where they take the series next, but hopefully they’ve learned some lessons from past mistakes. I don’t want to see a muscular Ethan punching a rock a few games down the line.