Resident Evil is a survival horror series of games, developed and published by Capcom, that were initially released for the PlayStation back in 1996.
Biohazard, as the series is known in Japan, was about a team of special forces sent to a mysterious mansion to investigate a series of murders occuring in the outskirts of Raccoon City. There, the team is greeted with nothing but zombies and other infected creatures.
The series became an instant hit and the game got a sequel in 1998 in the form of
Resident Evil 2, which took place in Raccoon City's police station instead of a mansion, and introduced Leon Kennedy, who is one of the series most popular, and beloved characters. Over the years, the
Resident Evil series has seen quite a number of games but at one point Capcom decided that the series needed a new approach(it didn't) that was more action-centred rather than survival and turned
Resident Evil 5(2009) into an action game, completely missing the point of the series.
It wasn't until 2017 that
Resident Evil 7 made its way into consoles, bringing back most of the elements that made the series a household name. The game was back to its roots and would see players take control of Ethan Winters who is looking for his wife in a derelict plantation. Many players consider
Resident Evil 7 to be the first great game since
Resident Evil 4, which coincidentally is widely considered to be the best in the series.
And now, we got news that
Resident Evil 7 was announced to come out in Japan, for the Nintendo Switch, on the
24th of May. The thing that has players up in arms is the fact that the game will come out in the form of a cloud version. The service will allow players to give
Resident Evil 7 Cloud Version a try for 15 minutes and then have to pay ¥2000($17.99 USD) to "own" the game for 180 days. If we go by the like/dislike ratio in the announcement trailer, players are not happy about this and have shown their discontent. As of yet, the game has only been announced to come out in Japan and there are no news about it coming to the West.
Maybe this doesn't necessarily mean that
Resident Evil 7 will never come to the Switch in digital, or physical form, but players being disappointed really shows that cloud services in gaming consoles is not a good idea, especially because these services work better for players that don't own consoles and play on mobile devices, Windows, Linux, Mac, and other platforms. As it stands,
Resident Evil 7 Cloud Version simply comes off as a quick cash in rather than a proper attempt to bring the game to the Nintendo Switch.