Resident Evil 7's making documentary reveals scrapped breathing mechanic

Starting today, Capcom is offering fans the chance to uncover the secrets behind the development of the latest entry in the hit survival horror series, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. The Making of Resident Evil 7 series features never-before-seen footage and interviews with key development team members as they explore the origins of 2017’s scariest gaming experience. The four part series will release weekly.

The first part features revealing interviews with Executive Producer Jun Takeuchi, Producer Masachika Kawata and Director Koshi Nakanishi. It also explores how the team and the survival horror ideas in Resident Evil 7 came about as well as showcasing a sneak peek at how the Capcom Europe team reacted to seeing the game for the very first time.

The most interesting revelation from the documentary has to be the breathing mechanic. The game’s developers thought about adding a type of enemy in the game who only reacted to your breath. Holding your breath was added to the game but due to the intense nature of the experience, testers started holding their own breath. Holding your own breath again and again over extended periods of time—like the length of a video game—can lead to hypoxia and serious medical problems. Due to this it was scrapped from the final game.

Gamers unknowingly have various tics when playing games. This just goes to show you that a lot of thought goes into game development when a title lands in the hand of testers. You always uncover issues no one could ever have expected. Sometimes there are solutions to those problems, sometimes there aren’t. Over the coming weeks we’ll have more secrets to reveal about the Baker family and how the development team brought the Louisiana plantation to life.