During the E3 show last year, Capcom officially announced "Resident Evil 7" as one of the games intended to showcase the PlayStation VR. After the survival horror game was released, it was praised for bringing the series back to its roots of being scary. Furthermore, its potential to frighten gamers was further increased when it is played in VR mode. Reports note that fans might be surprised that the game was not originally planned to feature a VR mode at all.
The game's RE Engine developer and lead VR engineer, Kazuhiro Takahara, reveals that Capcom decided to throw in the VR feature late in the game's development cycle. This bit of news was reportedly revealed during the developer's latest "Making Of" video that deals with "Resident Evil 7". Game Rant notes that the company has shown interest in virtual reality technology, and the developers wanted to add that feature into their game.
Takahara revealed that in order for "Resident Evil 7" to integrate the VR feature, he had to talk to the game's executive producer, Jun Takeuchi. The producer initially told the engineer that playing a game in VR for long periods of time might be difficult. However, Takahara apparently did not give up and worked on the Kitchen demo to hopefully impress the whole development team and the executive producer. It reportedly took him two and half months to complete the demo, but it seems to have been worth the effort.
During the 2015 E3 show, Capcom unveiled the Kitchen demo but did not market it as a new installment of their "Resident Evil" series. To the developer's surprise, the demo reportedly generated a lot of positive buzz, which the company considered to be one of the most PlayStation VR demos that year. It seems that the developers wanted to ensure that survival horror fans will be like what they see before they announce it as "Resident Evil 7".
Several sources have also reported that Capcom had a hand during the Nintendo Switch's development. According to Gamenguide, the developer requested Nintendo to increase the console's RAM size to ensure compatibility with their RE Engine. Fans continue to speculate that the developer might announce a Nintendo Switch version for "Resident Evil 7" as well as VR compatibility.
