During Sony’s video game conference, Sony unveiled the new game in the Resident evil franchise Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. To celebrate the game release, Capcom, (developer of the Resident Evil series) has given the public a free demo to play until the game is set to come out in January of 2017. Needless to say, the demo is not a clear, hop, skip, and jump in the park, as fans are working together all over the world via internet and in person to crack this obvious P.T’esque and Outlast influenced game.

Fans clearly keep asking the developers about some kind of hint, while Capcom refuses to provide any answers. I am not the best gamer in the world, nor do I feel that I am better than the rest of the gamer's trying to crack this mysterious first person demo, but I feel that the answer is most likely too obvious and we are looking too hard into this or the answer is so obscure and is going to take some time to crack. The latter would be highly uncharacteristic of Capcom though. What will happen once the demo is figured out raises another puzzling question. But I guess we shall see as the coming months to the release come to a close. This article will have some spoilers, so if you are wanting to take a crack at the demo yourself, I suggest you don’t look at this.

The Demo starts you off in first person in a rather creepy, old, and overrun house in Louisiana that doesn’t leave a lot to be desired. A figure of what is believed to be a man wakes up on the floor to find himself trapped in the house. The house is riddled with secrets and changes often during multiple replays of the game. During these multiple replays one may find things one may have overlooked in previous tries such as the Dummy finger, (still working on what this is actually for) and the questionable axe. So I suggest we keep looking for other clues that may be hidden in plain sight, but the places in which they are located may not be so obvious.

The game consists of two endings. The endings change somewhat based on how you complete certain things in the game. One ending many have come across is the Backdoor Ending. You will reach this ending by retrieving the Bolt cutters by the back door, then using them on a cabinet that seems to be wrapped in chains. After you collect the Derelict House Footage tape, you make your way to the living room where the VHS player and television are located. During this “flashback” you a man named Pete to the room containing the video cassette player. I put quotations around "flashback" as I believe this could also be scripted and not based on true events. Since the director is into classic horror movies and is using some of these influences in this demo and most likely the actual game, it would seem plausible that this could be somewhat like the Blair Witch project, in which the producers staged the events to be real and was not based on true events. Pete looks around to find a switch hidden in the fireplace which opens the door to another secret passage, thus containing the backdoor key. After retrieving the key, go back to the backdoor where the bolt cutters once were and the game ends.

The second ending involves a phone call. After using the switch you had used in the previous ending to retrieve the key, there will be a missing fuse on the left. By this time you may have already passed the room with the fuse box that is attached to the wall that also contains the video cassette player from the previous ending. Use that fuse box then go upstairs. There will be instructions prompting you to call downstairs. Answer the phone in the attic and leave to finish the demo.Answering the phone again at other times prompts a different message to be received during the phone call sequence. I have different theories on who this phone call can be from. It could be Alex Wesker making another appearance outside of Revelations 2, or if this is indeed referring to events from Resident Evil 6, Ada Wong could be a prospective guess.

Capcom has confirmed that no original characters will be played in this game, but they have not specified if any characters will be making any guest appearances, at least to my knowledge at the release of this article. While some can conclude that the game has to be completed in different ways to get different calls, many have also stated that when just grabbing the fuse that the phrases will be different for each phone call. It’s all a huge toss up right now and any number of these things can hold merit since the demo was just released.

What I am realizing here is that people are placing too much in doing the same sequence of events over and over again and not really taking the time to explore their surroundings. There have been multiple times that I have seen Let’s Players play this demo and they seem to miss things that I keep seeing them miss over and over again. For example, the flashing light on the stairs after the one of the many “ghost” sightings or the shiny object that is contained in the attic that everyone seems to pass by. I don’t know if they hold any significance at this point, but those are just to name a few.

Some other things to take into account are the “ghost girl” sightings. While I am not saying that she can’t be a ghost, I can’t really say if that has to do with a virus per say either. I am saying this because of the glasp encounters we have had in revelations 2, and the ability to possess invisibility when they are in fact not ghost. It can also be stated that I feel that these “ghost apparitions” may be popping up if you are doing something right or wrong. I don’t see why Capcom would place something like this in the demo without having any remote significance to the demo itself. At least to my knowledge that is something that was never done in the series. Everything has had some kind of purpose whether ill-advised or not up this point, so I don’t see the reason for such changes now.

Another thing to shed some light on is the “family man” appearances. At some points and times during the demo usually followed by the “flashback” sequences. The family man makes an appearance making some actually jump as opposed to eerie ghost apparitions, though I can’t really comment on who this man is or if he is deemed important to the series at all, he does bring out quite the jump scare. Nonetheless, even if he doesn’t seem important now I guarantee there is probably an ending where we can avoid the family man from potential death blows to the face. Though it is possible to leave without getting ambushed by the family man, I can’t really consider this a true ending. It could be a glitch if anything. But because nothing is gained by doing this I am ruling this out as a potential ending for now.

Moving mannequins seems to also be something of significance in the demo. They seem to move, look at you, and some of them even break upon hitting them with an axe. This poses the question if the mannequins can be used with the dummy finger. If so, which one and does it unlock something else? Since this theory hasn’t really been proved fruitful as of yet, I’m going to write this off as a speculation for now.

There are items that seem to serve no purpose for the time being also hidden within the demo. I have decided to include them as again I am under the expectation of Capcom not usually leaving things around to serve no purpose. We have the piano in the opening VHS player room that seems to close upon contact. What this means I can’t really say, but it does bring a call back to the first Resident Evil when we had to use the piano to play Moonlight Sonata to open another area of the mansion. Could we guess that this could be doing the same? Probably. But since it doesn’t let you physically play the piano this is just another theory I’m proposing.

The overall atmosphere of the house is also pretty creepy. With some disgusting spoiled food and other things within the vicinity guaranteed to make anyone’s stomach turn, it begs the question of what really happened here. Since things were left as if someone had been living in the house previously, and the pictures that hang off what seems to be the family that lived there, how does this play into the events of Resident Evil 6 or the timeline as a whole? Capcom has insisted that this is a game that is indeed cannoned. But with no playable original characters and its far cry of actual use of the third person one might feel like it’s hard to see how these events correlate to the timeline. There is also a photo of the helicopter and a pictured umbrella logo that is the helicopters surface upstairs. This also seems like this is a very important item that may unlock some clues to this demo.

The last remaining things I can think of are the locked door to right of the opened door. I can only assume that this could be potential use for the mysterious dummy finger. And lastly, the headphones that can’t be picked up or removed during the “flashback” sequence. The number 7 seems to also be of importance, as there seems to be a repetition of the number expressed in different ways in the demo.

Whatever answers lie in this demo, one can definitely be sure that the director is going in a different direction from its other predecessors. It seems pretty clear that the ever popular Call of Duty franchise is what influenced and I’ll say changed the Resident Evil franchise in 5 and 6, and I don’t mean in a good way. Many saw that instead of fewer and tougher enemies, it was replaced with cannon fodder enemies. Puzzles were replaced by shooting your way through enemies to get to the next part of the game. Lack of guns changed to safe amounts of ammunition, leaving the player feeling too relaxed and comfortable in what is supposed to be a survival horror game. Massive amounts of health were also taken into account due to the influx of enemies. More environments were also added for a more visceral and real experience. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, we lost the attention to detail and claustrophobic feeling of being scared and alone in the process.

While it can be argued that most of these elements have always been a part of the Resident Evil, it was never this bad. The magic of fear and terror was lost due to these changes inspired by the wrong types of games in my opinion. Resident Evil 7 seems to be going back to its roots while obviously again embodying elements from other games such as PT and Outlast and old classic horror movies. But it can be said that at least they are looking at the right sources now. I don’t know where this game is heading since we still have to wait another 7 months before its release, all I can say is that I’m ready and excited for this next installment in the series.