Oh, Resident Evil 7's notoriously disgusting setting was actually just Capcom trying to create a more authentic American experience

Resident Evil is my favorite game series, but even I admit I'm utterly repulsed by one of the best games in the franchise, Resident Evil 7, to the point where I don't have any intention of ever playing it again. As it turns out, I have none other than the land of the free and the home of the brave to thank.

Capcom veteran and Resident Evil series producer Jun Takeuchi recently shared insights into the studio's top-level plans for the franchise for the November 2025 issue of Japanese print publication Nikkei Entertainment!, and in doing so, shared this eye-opening tidbit about one of the main goals in developing Resident Evil 7. We don't have any direct quotes from Takeuchi as the interview has yet to be translated, but trusted fan resource account Project Umbrella Re: Digest shared a summary of what Takeuchi said on Twitter.

Apparently, Capcom's approach for Resident Evil 7 was to "expand the series" through "culturalization," and in service of this effort, the developers visited actual American households and studied "the living conditions & lifestyles seen in [Resident Evil 7]."

I've never really stopped to think what exactly it is about Resident Evil 7 in particular that disturbs me so much more than, well, pretty much any horror game. Is it the tragedy at the heart of Ethan Winters' tormented existence? Is it the presence of Jack Baker, the hulking patriarchal psychopath who can burst through walls and squash your head like a watermelon at any moment? None of that is pleasant, for sure, but armed with this new information from Takeuchi, I have a stronger theory.

Maybe, it's just because it hits too close to home, literally. Those amber dusk hues, the abandoned, dilapidated house, the boarded up motorhome in the backyard, the familial dysfunction. It all looks like a scene straight out of backcountry America, like something that would attract my morbidly curious gaze as I drive through the rural hills of Prescott, Arizona. I've never seen a police station that looks like the one in Raccoon City, but I have seen a lot of homes that look like the Baker family's.

Yeah, I am definitely not playing that game again.

Resident Evil 7 was "possibly too scary" and "some people couldn't handle it," says director Koshi Nakanishi, and that's why Resident Evil 9 has a third-person mode to "make it slightly easier to deal with"