Capcom revealed during its annual financial report this week that the theme behind Resident Evil 7: biohazard centres on ‘Fear that sticks with you,’ as well as going into detail on the technology that it’s using to accentuate the survival horror title’s spooky atmosphere.
According to Makoto Fukui, Capcom’s Technical Artist of Section 1, Resident Evil 7 utilises a photorealistic 3D scanning technology to bring to life the game’s characters and environments. Check out what he had to say on the tech below.
“The theme of Resident Evil 7 is ‘fear that sticks with you.’ Terror waits in the humid and stifling air—I want to create a realistic sense of that in 3DCG, so it clings to your body and memory. To pursue realism, we created one of the world’s largest scale 3D scanning systems, an important tool contributing to the meticulously crafted reality of our games. Leveraging the merits of possessing such a system in-house, we paid particular attention on this title to technologies that faithfully reproduce human expressions.
“This degree of reproduction is unlike anything that has come before, achieving realism that is truly human. Using this system, we are able to generate data on expressions from a variety of angles with just one shot, dramatically increasing development speed. However, we are not merely pursuing efficiency or photorealism. On top of overwhelming realism, we’ve added characters and other touches typical of Resident Evil, resulting in a game that appeals like only Capcom games can. To achieve this, the work flow was revised to complete casting, special-effects makeup and costume coordination in the steps prior to character design. In doing so, we further enhanced accuracy and were able to better reflect the feeling of the Resident Evil world in the 3D data, creating reality so convincing it is as if the characters actually exist.”
Resident Evil 7 release date set for early 2017 with PSVR support
Resident Evil 7 is due out on PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox One on January 24, 2017. The game takes place within the grounds of a plantation mansion in the Southern U.S., with players controlling a brand new protagonist, Ethan, as he searches for his missing wife. The plot appears to revolve around the mysterious Baker family, who stalk the player throughout the game and possess superhuman-like abilities.
Unlike previous mainline entries in the venerated horror series, Resident Evil 7 takes place from a first-person perspective, and has made a concerted effort to return to the franchise’s roots. The game is also fully playable in PSVR from start to finish, and can be play tested now via the Resident Evil 7 demo on the PlayStation Store.
Capcom recently updated the demo, so be sure to read our walkthrough to find out all the latest details—including how to use the mysterious Resident Evil 7 dummy finger that has had players perplexed for the past few months.