(A 16 minutes reading, approx)
Resident Evil 7 was a big comeback moment for the classic horror franchise. A great survival horror game followed up by the even better Resident Evil Village. Marking the beginning of a true horror renaissance for Capcom.
Despite that I feel that the narrative elements of Resident Evil 7’ Story don't get discussed that much compared with its excellent gameplay. Especially its suspicious similarity with Silent Hill 2’s narrative elements.
With the Silent Hill 2 Remake a few days ahead I want to take the opportunity to discuss those elements and how they are used in each game.
Motivation and Main Conflict
There can be no narrative or even gameplay without conflict, even the traversal of platforms in a game could be considered a small conflict.
If a game does not have any conflict, it is more of a toy, or an experience, rather than a video game. Not to confuse conflict with plot, a game can exist without a plot, but not without conflict.
Having that in mind let’s analyze the main conflict on Silent Hill 2 compared with Resident Evil 7.
1-Ethan (our protagonist) in 2017 received an email purported to be from Mia, his wife who disappeared three years ago while crossing the Gulf of Mexico during a hurricane, and was assumed dead.
2-The email gives him instructions to pick Mia at the Baker ranch in Dulvey Parish, Louisiana.
Rather than alert the authorities, Winters promptly drove out to the location alone.
This closely emulates Silent Hill 2 plot where:
1- James Sunderland has arrived in the town of Silent Hill, Maine, after receiving a letter from his wife Mary, despite the fact that she suffered from a terminal disease and died three years prior.
2-The letter claims that Mary is waiting for James in their "special place", which confuses James, as the whole town of Silent Hill was their "special place".
Despite James wondering if the letter is a prank by someone with a twisted sense of humor, he notes that the letter is definitely written in Mary's handwriting and the author is aware James once made a promise to return to Silent Hill with Mary and that he never fulfilled this promise.
However there are a couple of small differences that make one setting work and the other one seem ridiculous.
Ethan has no proof of the email being more than a cruel joke, as his wife disappearing is quite an easy thing to find out in newspapers or on the internet. Ethan has no reason to not contact the authorities or go alone on his journey. So right off the bat we have an illogical movement not only by the character but by any real world standards.
He even calls a friend in the middle of his trip to Louisiana, and they talk about how illogical all of this is; but no amount of lampshading can avoid this story feeling disjointed right from the beginning.
Contrast this with Silent Hill 2’s setting. James recognizes Mary’s handwriting, there is information that no one else but Mary could have obtained and more importantly (spoiler alert) James killed Mary himself, so he can't exactly call the authorities to investigate this.
Even without knowing the murder part, the setting is believable enough.
This brings into question the state of the Fictional Pact on both stories.
According to Umberto Eco the Fictional Pact has some fundamental rules:
We accept the imaginary world as a new reality.
Disbelief is suspended and we agree on norms that govern the imaginary world.
The events that transcur in that imaginary world need to be coherent with those norms and preferable with the norms of our real world although each literary genre (and I would extend medium) has its own set of rules.
The author and the public pretend that the narrated events are actually happening.
If anything of the above is not respected the pact is in danger and the communication between author and audience could be at risk.
Silent Hill has supernatural horror elements, so characters acting in unnatural ways could be believable and appropriate for the tone of the series.
Resident Evil is not supernatural, so all that this setting does is pull the spectator out of the immersion right from the beginning of the adventure, breaking the Fictional Pact.
Internal vs External conflict
SH2 focuses mostly in an internal conflict, with monsters acting more as representation of the psychological ordeals that the main character is facing, we can see this in their design as well as in their funcion inside the game’s world.
Not only the monsters but each element of the world reinforces that. Remember the letter at the beginning of the game? If you examine its content close to the end; after James has come to terms with the truth of having killed his wife, you will see that the letter is blank, reinforcing that the driving force of the plot is internal.
A lot has been written about it so I found no value in extending myself here.
RE7 at first seems to focus on external conflict. Surviving the monsters rescuing Mia and Escaping the Bakers. However as the game advances we see a shift to internal conflict, with Ethan discovering that his wife has lied to him his whole life, maintaining a double life as an agent for a terrorist organization which ultimately leads to her disappearance in the event previous to the game’s plot.
In this sense we could say that SH2 and RE7 plot follow a similar trajectory regarding the nature of the conflict in their plots, shifting from external (surviving the monsters), to internal (finding the true nature of their relationship with their missing wife).
Mia also shares similarities with Maria, being an idea of a partner and not a real person.
The main difference between SH2 and RE7 in that regard, besides the biological vs psychological horror aspect; is that RE7 dismisses that internal conflict once the whole truth about Mia is revealed, with Etan basically saying “We have stuff to talk about but we better scape this place first”, and everything being forgotten before the next game. His wife was part of a terrorist organization that created and used children as weapons and killed them if they did not obey every command.
I think that would be very unrealistic for Ethan to accept, not to mention for the government, who we know is aware of Mia’s actions but everything is forgiven without much explanation at the beginning of RE8.
Choices, Player Expresion v.s Player Impressions
I will focus on RE7’s Mia and Zoe and SH2's Maria and Mary since I think those are the more relevant characters for this Analysis due to their relation with the main character.
Also I will focus on the original main campaign of both titles and will not take into account the RE7 DLCs or SH2’s Born from a Wish side story since those came after their respective games were originally released.
In Silent Hill 2:
James Sunderland arrives in Silent Hill, a seemingly abandoned town after receiving a letter from his deceased wife, Mary.
In the town James encounters several monsters that seem to be twisted female figures and Pyramid Head, a terrifying, indestructible male creature that wields a giant knife and spends his time killing female creatures.
He meets several characters wile exploring the town:
Angela: A runaway searching for her mother.
Eddie: A disturbed man who fled to Silent Hill after committing violent acts.
Laura: A young girl who knew Mary from their time together at the hospital and accuses James of not truly loving her.
Maria: A woman resembling Mary but with a more assertive and sensual personality, who decides to follow him.
Maria is killed by Pyramid Head but later reappears with no memory of her death.
James continues his search, helping Angela when she is attacked by a monster, although she ends up killing herself later anyway; and confronting Eddie, whom James is forced to kill in self-defense.
James arrives at an Hotel where he discovers a videotape that shows he killed his wife by smothering her with a pillow.
James confronts his guilt and the manifestations of his psyche, including Two Pyramid Head, who commits suicide after James’ realization.
Depending on the player’s choices, James' final encounter is either with a manifestation of Mary or Maria disguised as Mary.
In Resident Evil 7:
Our protagonist explores a seemingly abandoned guest house where he finds his wife imprisoned in the basement. She is distressed to see him, saying that she did not contact him at all. During their escape, Mia suddenly becomes possessed by something unknown and attacks Ethan, forcing him to kill her.
After receiving a call from a woman named Zoe offering assistance, Ethan is attacked again by a revived Mia, who cuts off his left hand. He manages to defeat her but he is then surprisingly knocked out by Jack Baker, patriarch of the Baker family.
He then drags Ethan and Mia to the main house where Zoe staples Ethan's hand back on.
He is held captive by Jack, his wife Marguerite, their son Lucas, and an elderly wheelchair-using woman. Although Ethan escapes his captors, he is confronted by Jack who is seemingly invulnerable.
After Ethan defeats him the first time Zoe contacts him again, explaining that she is the Bakers' daughter.
After Ethan manages to defeat Jack once more by destroying his upper body, Zoe informs him that she, her family, and Mia are all infected, but can be cured with a special serum, which they need to make using special ingredients
Ethan kills Jack’s wife, Marguerite and survives the traps of Lucas, managing to recover the ingredients for the serum.
Our protagonist finally meets Zoe in person, who was captured by Lucas alongside Mia.
Zoe then develops two serum doses, but Jack, now heavily mutated, attacks Ethan, who, on Zoe's advice, uses one dose to seemingly kill him.
Ethan must then choose to cure either Mia or Zoe.
For a binary choice between characters those characters should have been placed in similar positions regarding the protagonist of the story or the player who is ultimately the one making the choice; ideally both. Is this the case with Mia and Zoe?
Regarding Mia:
Since the intro of the game we already know she is Eathan’s wife and that she is hiding a secret from him. A secret that is most likely related to our current situation and the weird family that is hunting us.
We fought her and watched her seemingly die by our hand.
Using a cassette you play as Mia for a short section. This is something I think Resident Evil 7 does great. Those playable flashbacks are a unique form of exposition that let us know the characters in an unique way, and more important in an interactive way, something that should be always a priority in the videogames.
We watch her get kidnapped by Lucas.
Regarding Zoe:
The first time we see her in person (after she staple our hand) is when we rescue her alongside Mia before Jack’s last boss fight.
We have only talked to her a couple of times on the phone where she has not been very useful or sympathetic towards us.
That's it. We have not seen her or played as her before the moment we have to choose between her and Mia. The choice most players would make is obvious.
The game even acknowledges this if we chose Zoe. She doesn't understand why we choose her, and Ethan really doesn't have any believable reasons to give.
In the book Resident Evil Biohazard Document File we can observe a promotional image depicting a scare Zoe inside the trailer where she promised that she would wait for us, before Lucas kidnaps her; so maybe this scene was originally meant to be included in the game but due to time constraints it was cut.
Doesn't matter anyway since Zoe is apparently killed by Eveline either way, despite the serum.
Regarding who we choose we end up in a sunk industrial ship playing as Mia. Something even Mia herself comments makes no sense, and it’s never explained.
It would have made more sense to play either the section in the boat as Ethan, that way they could have reused the same scenarios and still have the subsequent VHS flashback, but this time would be Ethan the one watching.
The only meaningful narrative and gameplay difference is that we have a short last battle with Mia where we killed her, so Ethan leaves alone at the end of the game.
Can we also take a second to appreciate how the supposedly dramatic final scene of Ethan watching the video one last time before throwing his cellphone makes no sense? The video is in his email, not in the cellphone itself. Also…he could have just deleted the video if he doesn't want a reminder of his wife, which is really weird but would make a little bit more sense than this. We all know how cellphones work, so this scene just pulls you out of the emotion of the moment.
Live Selection Outcomes’ System in Resident Evil 3
Analyzing an example of binary choices from the same saga, in Resident Evil 3 the player has several instances where they can make choices, called Live Selection Outcomes.
There are several key differences in how RE3 uses choices, especially when comparing them with their use in RE7.
In the first place, the choices in RE3 are actually not exclusively binary, since you can actually not react, and receive a third outcome, that is usually a small variation of one of the outcomes but the player gets penalized with some loss of life or having to fight a tough enemy. There is no time limit in the choices of RE7, and you can just stand there indefinitely until you either pick Mia or Zoe.
Let’s analyze the first choice of the game, Fight with the monster.
A)-If the player chooses to Fight with the monster.
This action gives you the opportunity to pick up Brad's S.T.A.R.S card from his dead body, thereby negating the need to explore an unnecessary area of the police station to look for Jill's S.T.A.R.S. card.
It also gives the player the opportunity to get gun parts to drop if they manage to defeat Nemesis in hard difficulty. The parts need to be combined with other parts to make a full gun, so the player will need to defeat him again in other optional encounter (boss battles don't count)
However, if you decide to enter the police station before you have knocked Nemesis into unconsciousness, then you will be unable to leave the police station until you have acquired the lockpick. We are already seeing a lot of gameplay opportunities that open up just due to this one choice.
B)-The player chooses to Enter the police station.
Nemesis will not follow you into the station. This is the choice most players make in their first playthrough upon being face to face with this intimidating opponent. This action means you will be unable to leave the police station until you have acquired the lockpick. Notice that this outcome is almost the same as if you choose to leave mid fight, and the choice that gives new players the most amount of content. Returning players will probably choose to Fight the monster, so it makes sense then to skip boring side quests (Jill's S.T.A.R.S. card) and streamline exploration whenever possible.
C)-The player chooses to Do nothing.
If you do not make a selection in time, Nemesis will attack.
This action plays out the same as the Fight with the monster choice.
The RE3 dev team have stated in several interviews that the reason for the inclusion of the Live Selection Outcomes’ system was the lack of content in the game, due to the low budget of the project. This meant that they had to re-use content in smart ways to give players more bank for their buck once the game was promoted from spin off to numbered title.
This is a smart use of content, giving players replayability for at least 3 playthroughs. The system was ignored on the RE3 Remake, and its absence is noticeable, especially with the other cuts that were made on that game.
If you compare the amazing system present in RE3, RE7 only choice doesn't look very attractive, but what about compared with SH2. There is even choices present in that game?
Well, no actually, not binary choices at least.
The game uses a completely different system that reacts to how players behave during the game to give them a specific ending. Each ending has a punctuation that is calculated through the game, and the one with the most points at the end is the ending that is chosen (with a few caveats).
Other endings can only be achieved in a second or third playthrough, so as in the case of RE3, the devs had replayability in the forefront of their design philosophy.
Let’s analyze Maria's Ending, for instance.
The player will receive this ending if James shows a lot of attention and comfort towards Maria, thus developing a bond with her instead of holding onto Mary's memory.
This includes spending 10 minutes or more near Maria, protecting her from monster attacks and avoiding bumping into her while moving. Also checking back on Maria in the Hospital Room S3 when she rests because of feeling ill, and trying to re-enter the cell where Maria dies at least twice.
It’s also important to avoid examining Mary's photo and/or letter in the inventory, since this shows that the character has not let go of the memory of his dead wife.
A curious detail for obtaining this ending is a conversation that can be heard in the hallway before the final boss of the game. The conversation ends with Mary yelling at James to leave. If the player waits she yells again, but if the player keeps waiting a little bit longer Mary starts sobbing and asks James not to leave. If the player activates this part of the conversation this ending is locked away for this playthrough. I guess that the reason is that the tone of the conversation's ending is one of compassion, more in line with the ending that activates (In Water Ending) where James keeps a strong attachment to Mary’s memory.
This way to allow players to leave an impression in the game’s world and to that world to give a narrative expression in return, is something that could only be achieved by the systemic approach to narrative that no other medium but videogames are capable of.
It can be admittedly a bit convoluted since the player doesn't even know that is making choices that affect the ending, on contract with the clear choices of RE3: but is a novel approach and for sure beats a binary choice at the middle of the game that doesn't reflect your playstyle in RE7.
Character Design Narrative
A final aspect that has been brought to attention several times is the similarities in design between James and Ethan, having even the same clothes.
We could then speculate that Penny is at risk disappearing in the Big Bang Theory, since Leonard uses almost the same outfit. I'm of course joking; but only kind of, since the outfit actually has importance in terms of character design at the service of narrative.
In this case Ethan, James and even Leonard are blank slate characters, trying to symbolize the everyman, so the audience can empathize and put themself in their place.Of course that doesn't mean that they are superfluous or empty characters, but their characterization is given by their action and personality once the audience or player is already in their shoes.
Small caveat, I know Leonard is not an everyman, since he is a super smart physicist, but on his behavior he serves as the leasant with the audience to experience the ridiculousness of the situations and act sometimes as the voice of reason.
Furthermore I need to clarify that the Ethan design that is similar to James is the one he uses in RE Village, not in RE7. Although if we take a similar approach on analyzing that outfit we can reach the same conclusion, that is designed to not express personality visually and allow the audience to put themself inside the character, this time literally since it is a First Person game, the more reason not to invest much production time in an outfit that is not going to be seen by the audience most of the time. That changed with the Gold Edition of RE Village, since it included a third person mode. The narrative reason for the design stayed solid none the less.
Final Conclusions
Although RE7 shares many of SH2 narrative elements, the developers have never mentioned it as an inspiration but it would be almost impossible to deny it once these elements are analyzed and taking into account the status of SH2 as a cult classic.
Precisely that status is what probably made the team at Capcom to look for inspiration there when crafting the game that was tasked with bringing the Resident Evil franchise back to their horror roots. Ironic if we take into consideration that the first Silent Hill was created with the premise of giving Konami their own survival horror saga inspired by the success of Capcom’s Resident Evil.
According to interviews on the book Resident Evil Biohazard Document File the main objective of the team with Resident Evil 7 was creating the most scary and photorealistic Resident Evil game ever in the shortest time frame possible.
Taking into account that they managed to sell 13,7 million copies; an astonishing amount, especially when compared with the entirety of the Silent Hill Saga that only managed to sell 8.8 million copies I would say that they succeeded.
No one can deny the success of RE7.
This analysis has highlighted several key points about the narrative and design choices of both games and thus we could reach the following conclusion.
1. Narrative Comparisons and Conflict
Both games share a similar central narrative conflict of a protagonist searching for their apparently dead wife after receiving a mysterious message.
However, Silent Hill 2 is more internally coherent in its premise, grounded in James’ personal guilt and psychological state, making the supernatural setting more believable.
In contrast, Resident Evil 7 struggles with logical inconsistencies, such as Ethan not contacting authorities, which weakens the "Fictional Pact" with the audience.
Silent Hill 2 uses internal conflict effectively, with James’ journey reflecting his inner turmoil, while monsters represent his psychological state. Resident Evil 7 initially focuses on external conflict (surviving monsters), but the later revelation about Mia’s secret life introduces internal conflict. However, this internal conflict is quickly dismissed, undermining the deeper emotional potential of the narrative.
2. Character Choices and Player Agency
Resident Evil 7 presents a binary choice between Mia and Zoe, but this decision lacks depth due to insufficient narrative development of Zoe, making the choice feel unearned.
In contrast, Silent Hill 2 subtly adjusts its ending based on the player’s actions throughout the game, creating a more nuanced relationship between gameplay and narrative, and allows for deeper emotional engagement with the story.
3. Character Design and Player Identification
Both Ethan and James are designed as "everyman" characters to allow players to project themselves onto the protagonist. A valid design choice that both games use in an effective way. However due to the internal journey of Ethan being truncated we never fully empathize with this character's journey. At the end of the game we are commanded to execute a child that was tortured and used as a weapon since birth, and the game’s plot tells us that that is a good thing because Eveline is the true baddie of the story for becoming emotionally unstable and dangerous after all of that ordeal.
While Resident Evil 7 successfully revitalized the Resident Evil franchise and we could argue the survival horror genre as a whole with its gameplay and atmosphere, its narrative elements fall short in comparison to Silent Hill 2. The latter offers a more cohesive and psychologically rich experience, where character motivations, internal conflicts, and player agency are tightly integrated into the storytelling. Resident Evil 7 misses opportunities to fully explore its internal conflict and character choices, resulting in a narrative that feels less impactful despite its strong gameplay.
The main takeaway of this comparison should not be to belittle RE7, since the game achieved every objective their developers set up to accomplish, but to underscore the importance of narrative coherence and player-driven storytelling in creating a truly immersive horror experience that has stood the test of time and is fully enjoyable more than 20 years later.
Let's theorize
Now, I'm asking you, dear reader.
What other narrative resources the Resident Evil and Silent Hill franchise share with each other?
Any other examples of games that use those narrative resources?
Please let me know in the comments below.
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