In Resident Evil 8 you play as Ethan Winters, who you previously played as in Resident Evil 7, and just like Resi 7, this game returns to the first person perspective view of the 7th entry after the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3 went for a more Resident Evil 4 style over the shoulder perspective.
Capcom have taken the odd approach of releasing 2 demos of the game which can be played for 30 minutes within set times on consecutive weekends in the run up to the game’s launch at the start of May.
Last week was the first of 2 demos which are only available for Playstation 4 and 5 owners to sink their teeth into, and the demo we’re looking at today is from the second demo, which is set in the games Castle environment, and we’ll be playing through it on the PS4.
My initial impressions were that the game looked great, and that’s even considering that this was the PS4 version. Next week the Castle and Village demos become available on Steam, Stadia and Xbox One and Series X/S so we’ll do another video then to test how they compare graphically.
The game plays very much like Resident Evil 7, and although it’s been a couple of months since I joined the Baker family in that game, there wasn’t really much that jumped out at me as being different gameplay wise from RE7.
The good news is that I did enjoy playing through this castle demo, but the bad news is that I was able to run through the demo 3 times within the 30 minutes. In terms of previewing the game, this short span of the demo is only going to be relevant to people who want to play next weekend’s time limited demos, where you will get a full hour to play either the village or castle stages. However, considering this demo could be completed in such a short time it shows that there is only a very limited amount you can do or explore within this hour.
The section of the game in the demo started you passed out on the floor waking up, which trivia fans may remember is also how the Silent Hills P.T demo started. This may be a coincidence, but considering many people made the connection that Resident Evil went first person after the hype around P.T this may be a nod that that playable teaser.
Another reference the internet have loved in this demo comes from a visit you can make to this game’s merchant character The Duke, who at one point asks ‘what are you buying’ in a similar tone to his friend who is obviously the merchant from Resident Evil 4.
After this fairly empty castle area where you can find a few items and break a few vases, you meet one of the games witchy sisters who appears in buzzing mosquito form which is reminiscent to dealing with Mrs Baker in RE7. The first time in this section I damn near was killed trying to fight the witch, but realised she can simply be run away from.
This leads you to see this games version of Nemesis or Jack Baker in the very tall woman, although in my time with this demo you didn’t get to interact with her beyond this brief cameo.
You then hit a puzzle to light two torches by swinging a flame into them and from there you go into a prison/dungeon like area where you face off with some hooded vampire/wolfy/creepy monster men with weapons. This is where things got more exciting and again on my second playthrough I realised they could be run away from as the best approach to dealing with this. This leads you to a return of our witchy sister who pins you down and that…well that is it for the demo. The trailer Capcom released for the game plays after this and in the rush to use all 30 minutes of the demo I had a very similar experience the repeat times and didn’t spot any major alternative pathways to explore.
Next weekend we’ll go in depth again with the demos and try them on multiple platforms to help you decide which system you should check the game out on should you still be on the fence, but for now this has been the preview of the Resident Evil 8 Castle Demo.
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