Resident Evil VII: Biohazard has been lauded as a game that has brought the Resident Evil franchise back to the survival horror genre. However, it appears that in the game's early development, that was not a given direction.

The first episode in a multi-part Making Of series about Resident Evil VII's development released today. It delves into how the team responsible for reintroducing survival horror to the franchise was collected. According to the video (seen below), Resident Evil 6's action style was still on the minds of many at Capcom, and it seemed to be the direction that the next title would take until Jun Takeuchi became involved and assembled his team that would ultimately drive the game's shift to first-person perspective and the horror genre.

Among many other interesting aspects of the game's early development included in the video, Executive Producer Takeuchi-san explains that one of the biggest shifts for him was going from Resident Evil 5, a game he had also produced, to VII. For him, 5's huge scale wouldn't work for the new title's tone, so in order to establish a greater sense of horror, it was significantly paired down from his previous experience with the franchise.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VAsMpq8FeJA

It was recently revealed that Chris Redfield would be joining the cast of Resident Evil VII: Biohazard in the "Not a Hero" DLC releasing later this Spring.