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"

Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi says Resident Evil 7, which he also directed, might've been a little too scary, which is part of the reason Requiem will have a potentially less-scary third-person view as an alternative to the first-person camera.

Right away I'd like to say: yes, Nakanishi-san, Resident Evil 7 is too scary. I love it, but my blood pressure doesn't. I'll freely admit there were times in the first half of the game that I contemplated giving up. I'm super glad I didn't, but hot damn that is one terrifying game.

It's for that reason that I'm genuinely relieved to hear Nakanishi acknowledge this as a potential issue in Resident Evil Requiem. It seems counterintuitive to suggest there should be some limit on how scary a game should be, but it's absolutely true! Imagine, for example, the stress of the House Beneviento sequence from Resident Evil Village, but sustained over the course of a 20-hour campaign. Stop acting tough. No one wants that.

Thankfully, it sounds like Nakanishi is keen to deliver a Resident Evil that stands up there with 7 in terms of scares, but with the option to tone it down a little by switching to third-person and thus removing yourself from the action somewhat.

"Looking back at Resident Evil 7's first person perspective, I implemented that as a way to make it more immersive and more scary than ever before, which I think most you know media and players agreed it was an incredibly scary game, but it was possibly too scary," Nakanishi told GamesRadar+ during Gamescom 2025.

"I think some people couldn't handle it, and either couldn't finish or didn't even start it. And that's something that I look back on thinking that, you know, I want to make sure that people can enjoy this game. So if you started the game off in first person perspective, and you're finding it's too much, then third person is almost a way to step slightly back from that level of horror and make it slightly easier to deal with by having the character on screen as a kind of Avatar of yourself."

I have to say, Nakanishi saying stuff like this actually makes me more nervously excited about Resident Evil Requiem, because it comes across like he's just now realized how scary the game is, and is sending out these little PSAs for wimps like me.

Speaking of which: Oh good, Resident Evil Requiem director says "there are similarities" to the scariest scene in Resident Evil history, but on "another level" of "claustrophobic, unarmed" tension