Hey person, see the first Resident Evil in first-person
First evil, person
Resident Evil 7 shifting the core series into a first-person perspective is an interesting change, but what if it had been that way all along? One enterprising Evil Resident (as I imagine RE fans probably call themselves I guess) has whipped up a prototype of the first Resident Evil running in first-person, cutscenes and all. It is weird/cool to see something so very familiar from a new perspective. The prototype likely won't be completed or released publicly but here, have a look in these videos.
Here's Resident Evil's intro in first person:
And a bit more, following on from that:
That's the work of Rod Lima, who took models and the mansion from on-rails shooter Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles and animations from 2014's Resident Evil Remaster, then smooshed it all together with some custom code within Unreal Engine 4. Et voila, first-person Resident Evil. That's an impressive piece of work.
It doesn't look right, of course. That's not what Resident Evil is. Switching the camera jars with how it's a game whose bad shooting, unhelpful camera angles, and awkward movement make you a mook struggling with undead horrors. From what I've seen of RE7, it makes different moves to recreate that sense in a way that works first-person. This is all a good reminder that camera perspectives aren't simply cosmetic.
Our Adam is currently horroring away to tell us Wot He Thinks of Resident Evil 7, by the way, and I believe Alec is horroring minorly to scream some initial thoughts.
Pedants' corner: 7 isn't the first Resident Evil in first-person, as the series' six-hundred-and-eighty-seven games have included light gun shooters and whatnot, but RE7 is the first main RE game. A number of mods have taken other core RE games first-person but they're slightly janky camera tweaks and don't (as far as I've seen) have the cutscene fanciness of Rod Lima's mockup. And yes, I do know that the accepted term for Resident Evil fans is actually Evil Residenteers.