After the release of Resident Evil 6 back in October of 2012, many gamers began to feel both a fatigue on the series and were just generally unpleased with the direction it had been taking over the course of the last couple games. RE4 is easily one of the best games in the series and was able to strike a fantastic balance between horror, exploration and action. In an attempt to return the series to its roots and what made 4 so good, Capcom took RE7 in a new direction focusing almost solely on exploration, scares and immersion.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard released early last year on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC to solid reviews. And now we are just days away from its first appearance on the Nintendo Switch, although the game doesn’t appear to be just your average port.
Resident Evil 7 successfully returned the series to the slow-paced and methodical gameplay of yesteryear, while it is also the first title in the series to use a more immersive first person perspective. While that in particular was likely inspired by the success of that weird Silent Hills PT demo Hideo Kojima put out a while back, that’s not the only first the franchise will be experiencing with RE7.
A trailer hit the game’s official Japanese YouTube account recently in promotion of the May 24th release date on Switch. As far as we can tell (the trailer and its text is entirely in Japanese) the May 24th release is only referring to the Japanese launch and will only be in digital form. As of right now, there is only an eShop listing for the game in the Japanese storefront and it only has Japanese language support.
It will also be called Biohazard 7: Resident Evil Cloud Version on that side of the pond. As you likely imagined judging by the subtitle there, this isn’t your typical digital release. The game is only a 45MB install and otherwise runs completely from the cloud. Think PlayStation Now, but for Switch and directly from Capcom. While that’s certainly good news for your Switch hard drive, one can only assume a rock solid internet connection is required to play the thing.
According to additional reports, Resident Evil Cloud Version offers a 15-minute free-trial and an additional ¥2,000 (roughly $18) to play the full experience. Once you have paid your way in, you will receive the entire package including all previously released DLC: End of Zoe, Banned Footage Volume 1 and 2, and Not a Hero.
While it would be a shame (and sort of odd) for Capcom to keep RE7 from Switch gamers in the west, this is more likely a bit of test run on the cloud version of the game. Maybe Capcom will release a standard digital copy for $20 stateside as well, but only time will tell.
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