I don’t get the “RE has changed”. Resident Evil has always changed in some way, shape or form. They’ve had first person view in there since RE Survivor. The whole RE4-6 change was because the franchise was kinda out out the door in the first place. You had to have RE4 to get it back to being successful again. You’ve had numerous entries such as Survivor, Dead Aim, Umbrella Chronicles, and Darkside Chronicles. You have the fixed camera control saga, the first person rail games, the third person OTS camera, and then the complete first person perspective experience. You’ve seen the franchise try many different things and for better or for worse. It offers a lot of diversity and gives the franchise some very different ways to portray the world of Resident Evil.
I was listening to a podcast (Biohazard Declassified) about this as well. If I think about it, I’m left thinking we’d get burned out by the fixed camera perspective if that’s the only way they could deliver RE year after year. You saw what OTS did after a while. It was an action game with a virus that did whatever it wanted to do. IMO RE7 and Village stand out on top of that because you are taking a step back, you aren’t thrown into another action packed scenario, and you’re given a chance to see the impact of the characters that helped define this genre. Playing as Ethan is a lot like playing as “you the player” in a lot of ways. You get to see what years of this virus and these corporations existing has done to the world. In my mind, it gets a lot creepier as time progresses. If anything, try and reboot it or bring back the original RE feeling after Village. To me, Village is a perfect fit. It takes the fear and molds it. It shows that there is a lot of context beyond the all star cast of characters. Even if they get “rid” of some of the casts, Capcom sets themselves up for another good reboot of the franchise. Which I think is the only thing that non-fans of RE7/Village actually want to be honest.
