I’ve had a hard time being successfully scared by horror things throughout my life. Creeped out yes, but scared? Not really. Every deaf person I’ve ever known has the same problem (Although is it a problem, really?) The same has held true for horror games. I’ve played The Evil Within and Outlast and neither really did a thing for me because much of the story and fun is in the fear.
Enter Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
It started out a bit slow and while I was amazed by how great the game looked, I was underwhelmed when I first began exploring the Baker’s guest house. Sure it was eerie but nothing was particularly frightening, save for when a cockroach crawled onto Ethan’s hand and the controller vibrated as it did, but that’s because I was traumatized by cockroaches thanks to a hoarder neighbor in the building I used to live in.
After the first 20 minutes or so, once you’re past the guest house, things get scary, even for me, a totally deaf, scare-proof person. The visuals such as the stunningly realistic world and the poor lighting paired with just general disgusting-ness (open the fridge or the microwave in the guest house and you’ll understand) leaves you with a constant sense of dread, wondering what the hell is going to get you next.
Another big part of what made RE7 so damn scary for me was nobody can freaking die. You shoot the hell out of people, walk away, and when you return, they’re gone, obviously lurking somewhere around a dark corner to come after you with whatever weapon they’re wielding.
Too afraid to turn my back and run, on several occasions I just stood there and let Ethan die and then remembered to try avoiding that area the next time around.
RE7 does pretty well with the most basic aspects of deaf accessibility. Dialogue subtitles are spot-on and easy to read and they include captioning for in-game objects with writing on them that may be hard to see.
Visual cues are clear and helpful, changing from simply an indicator when close to an actionable object, to instruction on what button to push when close enough to it to interact with it.
Where RE7 falls short is in the little things they could have easily added that would allow deaf players to enjoy the same experience as hearing players. There’s a lot of ambient sounds that go un-noted throughout the game, thanks to lack of visual indicators or captioning. Noises throughout the house that add to the creep factor, such as sounds of the creaking old house and the outdoor sounds of the Bayou. There’s sounds enemies make when they’re nearby but out of your line of sight that allow you to hide or avoid them. There are puzzles that require the player listen for sounds to avoid damage when they get the puzzle wrong. There’s also sound that indicated whether you hit the enemy’s weak point or not, which allows you to save on ammo. None of these things were captioned, so deaf players miss out on all these incredible added effects. (Thanks to @HxCVarrath and @MHZoda for their help with this part of the review! My usual game review partner was too afraid to help out with this one, as was my back-up helper. Apparently this game was much scarier for hearing people.)
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a beautiful game (you know, in a gross kind of way) and I constantly found myself amazed by how real the garbage bags looked, but ultimately it’s disappointing because SO much was overlooked in terms of accessibility. It’s not unplayable by any means and deaf players can still easily enjoy it, but it’s one of those instances where I’m disappointed with what it could have been for deaf players but wasn’t.
Bottom Line
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a beautiful game (you know, in a gross kind of way) and I constantly found myself amazed by how real the garbage bags looked, but ultimately it’s disappointing because SO much was overlooked in terms of accessibility. It’s not unplayable by any means and deaf players can still easily enjoy it, but it’s one of those instances where I’m disappointed with what it could have been for deaf players but wasn’t.