20 Things You DIDN'T Know About Resident Evil 7

20 Things You Didn’t Know About Resident Evil 7

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we are sticking to my current addiction, looking into games I love and finding hidden little secrets and details that most players don’t know. We’ve done RE Village, now let’s take a step back, these are 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Resident Evil 7. Let’s go!

Made Of Real Dead Animals

Remember going into the Baker family's fridge from "Resident Evil 7", it’s like someone took a wrong turn at a butcher shop and just rolled with it. The secret to its realism is a process called "Photogrammetry". By snapping piles of real-world photos and lovingly slapping them onto 3D models, Capcom cobbled together all sorts of horrifying mounds of meat and animal leftovers. And to achieve the perfect look Capcom went to a meat processing plant to take photographs of different meats, and dead animals… You know—just normal workplace activities.

New Engine

Did you know that "Resident Evil 7" is the first Resi game since 2005 to run on a completely new engine. This shiny new tech, responsible for animations, environments, and the overall “please don’t let something be behind me” vibe, is called the "RE Engine". It’s a big step away from the long-running "MT Framework", which powered everything from the numerous "Resident Evil" remakes to "Resident Evil 5" and "Resident Evil 6". Basically, MT Framework was the workhorse; RE Engine is the new kid who shows up with better lighting and fewer emotional issues.

Convoluted Reference

Nothing says “happy family” like watching cursed home videos starring the world’s least huggable family, the Bakers. Each tape comes with a title card full of codes and numbers, mostly boring timecode stuff… or so they want you to think. Hidden in that little white box of numerical chaos is a partial product ID for "Resident Evil: Director’s Cut", yep, the 1997 one that included the legendary "Resident Evil 2" demo. And while every VHS tape in the main game uses that same sneaky code, the "Lantern" demo switched things up with the product ID for the U.S. release of "Resident Evil 3: Nemesis." Because why hide one Easter egg when you can hide an entire omelette?

Umbrella Appeared WAY Before Endgame

"Resident Evil 7" starts off feeling totally disconnected from the rest of the series, apart from the title, not much else is related. The Bakers feel way more "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" than classic "Resident Evil", and the supernatural vibes are strong enough that you start wondering if Capcom accidentally made a ghost game. But surprise! It’s never not Umbrella’s fault. Deep in the abandoned mines, you find a black-and-white photo showing an "Umbrella Corporation" helicopter cruising overhead like it’s on a very evil Sunday outing. Fans first spotted this same photo in the "Beginning Hour" demo, complete with the handwritten message, “Are they watching us from the helicopter?” Spoiler: If it’s Umbrella, the answer is always yes. The Kardashians of bioweapons, always causing drama.

The Creepy Twins

Here’s an interesting bit of cut content. Alongside Jack, Marguerite, and Lucas, there were once going to be a few extra homicidal relatives wandering around, as if the ones we got weren’t enough. One of the more intriguing no-shows is a pair known as the "Creepy Twins", and yes, that is absolutely the correct name for them. All we have is a sliver of concept art, which shows two identical twin boys dressed in plain farm clothes, looking like they escaped from a haunted cornfield and are ready to ruin your evening. They were cut early enough that they didn’t get the chance to chase anyone with a pitchfork or whisper unsettling things in unison.

We Knew Clancy Lived

After the DLC of Resident Evil 7, we officially found out that Clancy (the guy who was behind the camera in the main games VHS recordings) lived, but as it turns out, the big reveal came way earlier than that. First introduced in the "Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour" demo, poor Clancy Javis looked like he was destined to end up as another entry in the Baker family’s “people we ruined” scrapbook. Turns out breaking into creepy houses at night does have consequences. Who knew? Clancy got dragged off by a mysterious, very stab-happy woman, and it seemed like that was the end of him. Roll credits, cue sad violin, etc. But nope! The first hint that Clancy didn’t immediately become mulch comes when Ethan finds a handwritten note in the Bakers’ home listing the statuses of their captives. Everyone else is marked either “dead” or “turned,” but Clancy? He’s marked with an “L.” Does that stand for “living”? “Left”? “Lucky”? “Lol good luck”? Hard to say.

Wesker's Gun

Turns out, there’s a neat Wesker reference in this epic return to the series. Unlocked as a secret toy for your second playthrough, the "Albert-01" is basically Capcom saying, “Hey, remember Albert Wesker? Of course you do”. The gun’s name is an obvious wink to the infamous villain, the overpowered, backstabbing antagonist who met his dramatic, volcano-adjacent end in "Resident Evil 5." To make the reference even clearer, the weapon has "S.T.A.R.S." engraved on the side, a cute little throwback to Wesker’s original gig as the team’s resident double agent.

Fighting Street

Capcom loves leaving a trail of nerdy breadcrumbs for loyal fans. While rummaging around the Baker household in "Resident Evil 7", if the player lets Ethan take a breather and browse the bookshelf, one title sticks out: "Fighting Street." This is a cheeky nod to Capcom’s iconic "Street Fighter" series. But the Easter egg actually has bonus lore points: "Fighting Street" wasn’t just a playful twist on the name, it was the actual title of the PC Engine port of the very first "Street Fighter" game. So yes, while Ethan’s life is falling apart, the bookshelf is out here dropping obscure retro gaming references.

Resident Evil Dead

It’s hardly a secret that "Resident Evil 7" borrowed a healthy dose of inspiration from the 80s horror classic "Evil Dead." Fans with sharp eyes (or just fans who love pointing at the screen and doing the Dicaprio meme) probably noticed the resemblance between the car in the film and the one Ethan drives down at the start of the game. Sure, it later gets totaled during Ethan’s boss battle with Jack, but hey, what’s a road trip without a little vehicular sacrifice? For more “Evil Dead” references, check out the "Sewer Gators" van parked outside the Baker residence and the pamphlet with the words "JOIN US", a phrase the film repeats more often than a broken creepy doll. Then there’s Jack’s second boss fight, where he picks up a chainsaw and mutters "groovy", it’s not even on the nose, it’s all over our faces.

Demo Ghost-spiration

Resident Evil has now become infamous for dropping dope demos that reveal gameplay elements, but don’t just rip a section straight from the game, essentially leaving the main game unspoiled. Back when the “Beginning Hour demo” dropped, the entire fanbase basically exploded into one giant paranormal panic attack at the idea that ghosts might actually exist in a Resident Evil game, not realising that this wasn’t a direct reflection of the final experience, but instead a reference to Capcom’s 1989 classic “Sweet Home”, which served as a major inspiration for Resident Evil.

Severed Leg

Players who’ve already survived Mia’s little chainsaw-removal-of-Ethan’s-arm incident might think they’ve seen the worst, but Jack has his own surprise in store. Most people never stumble into this moment because the game only drops it on you by pure chance. If luck turns against you, Jack will greet Ethan with a friendly shovel… and by “greet,” I mean he slices Ethan’s leg clean off like he’s prepping ingredients for The Baker Family Cookbook. Instead of finishing him off, Jack turns into the world’s most unhinged coach, shouting encouragement at Ethan to crawl his way over to a conveniently placed healing item. It’s amazing that there are many, MANY, players who will have never seen this moment play out.

The Daughter Was In The Demo

Like I mentioned previously, some of the cut content from the final game was family members who couldn’t get past day 1 of writing, but one scrapped idea managed to crawl further than the rest: a creature simply referred to as the Daughter. Players who tried the Kitchen or Beginning Hour demos might remember her popping up like an unwanted jump-scare cousin. Back then, fans went into full detective mode trying to figure out who she was, what she wanted, and how many nightmares she planned to cause in the full game. Plot twist: by the time those demos hit the public, the Daughter had already been fired from the family roster. But her jumpscares linger.

Clive O'Brian's Return

Tucked away in the Baker home, players can stumble upon "an inspectable box of disheveled books." What looks like random junk actually hides a fun surprise: Clive O’Brian, the ex B.S.A.A. director from Resident Evil: Revelations apparently decided to hang up his badge and pick up a pen. Yes, the man survived bioterror, but not the urge to write novels. Truly the bravest career pivot in the series. And that’s not the only breadcrumb linking past characters to the horrors of Dulvey. Sharp-eyed players can also find a newspaper snippet from The Dulvey Daily, with an that article happens to be written by Alyssa Ashcroft, the investigative reporter from Resident Evil Outbreak, who is still out there chasing stories instead of zombies. As it turns out, she’s returning in Resident Evil 9, so Capcom may well have been way ahead in their planning. Truly genius.

The Servent

Rounding out our cut characters, the developers had the thought early on to draft a servant character meant to occupy the property. The creature, simply called the Servant, looked like a grimy groundskeeper in the concept art, complete with a lantern, the universal sign of “I’m about to show you something you’ll regret seeing.” But like many of the other planned residents of this cheerful Louisiana deathtrap, the Servant never made it past the brainstorming stage and was cut before the game took shape. However, his lantern did survive the purge. It ended up in the hands of Marguerite, because if anyone in that family deserved mood lighting to complement their horrific insect swarms, it was her. That’s it, the last cut family member... Human family members.

The Family Dog

It turns out the final member of the Baker clan wasn’t another murderous relative hiding in the attic, it was actually the family dog. The developers even gave her a name: Diane. She was meant to be Lucas’s loyal sidekick, which honestly raises more questions than answers. What kind of dog willingly hangs out with Lucas? That’s not companionship; that’s endurance training. The concept art doesn’t make her breed easy to pin down, though she vaguely resembles a Dobermann who’s seen too much and would prefer not to talk about it. Diane never made it far into development, but early plans placed her right in the middle of the infamous Baker dinner scene. So you could have had a dog gnawing on your leg while you tried not to cry from the food.

George Trevor's Company

While squeezing through the Baker home’s maze of absurd secret passages, you’ll feel like every “Resident Evil” character has felt since 1996. Staircases to nowhere, underground labs, trapdoors for days, it’s architectural chaos with a budget. After rummaging around in the attic you can find a document that exposes the mastermind behind the house’s bizarre layout: none other than George Trevor… or at least a contractor operating under his name. George Trevor was the poor soul who designed the Spencer Mansion and then met his tragic “thank you for your service” from Spencer himself. Apparently, even after Trevor’s untimely demise, his company kept rolling along, cranking out homes filled with questionable hallways and suspiciously convenient murder passages.

Biohazard Vs. Resident Evil

The tale behind "Resi's original dual naming convention" is almost as entertaining as the games themselves, though after two decades, even Capcom might be getting tired of juggling two identities like a franchise with a secret superhero persona. Back when the series was first being created, Capcom planned to call it Biohazard everywhere. Simple. Clean. Descriptive. Slightly ominous, perfect. Then Sony chimed in with the fun-killing truth: not only was “biohazard” basically impossible to trademark in the West, someone had already slapped the name onto a DOS title. Fast forward twenty years, and Capcom decides to get cheeky by naming the seventh entry Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, finally putting both titles under one roof like separated parents awkwardly reunited for a school play.

First-Person isn't Original

Fans love to point out that "Resident Evil: Survivor" and "Dead Aim" flirted with first-person sections long before Ethan Winters was running for his life. But funnily enough, the franchise was originally supposed to be first-person way back in the 90s. Capcom took a lot of cues from "Sweet Home", the 1989 proto-Resi title that used first-person combat, and for a good stretch of early development, that viewpoint was the plan. So why did the series end up switching to the classic over-the-shoulder, or, more accurately, awkward Fixed Camera of Doom™—setup? Two reasons:

Shinji Mikami played "Alone in the Dark" in 1992 and thought, “Hey, this third-person horror stuff actually slaps,” and

The PS1’s hardware had all the processing power of a microwaved brick and simply couldn’t keep up with a full first-person game running at a decent frame rate.

Thus, pre-rendered backgrounds became the stylish, necessary workaround.

Breathing Mechanic

It turns out that "Resident Evil 7" didn’t just cut characters during development, some entire gameplay ideas also got tossed into the bin. The "Resident Evil" series tends to follow a familiar formula (creepy hallways, limited ammo, and at least one refrigerator you should not open), but Capcom occasionally experiments with new mechanics… and not all of them survive. One early idea revolved around Ethan’s breathing. A planned zombie enemy was meant to react to how loudly Ethan inhaled and exhaled, basically turning the game into “Stealth: Asthma Edition.” Players would have needed to hold a button to manually steady Ethan’s breath, watching a gauge to avoid making noise. Slip up, let Ethan wheeze a little too enthusiastically, and the creature would zero in and grab him, and not for a cuddle.

Sweet Home Homage

As we’ve mentioned: before zombies, herbs, and questionable police station architecture, Capcom made their mark with "Sweet Home", a 1989 NES adaptation of a horror film where a documentary team explores a haunted mansion. It was basically the prototype for every “Why are we going in there?” decision in video game history. Fujiwara later joined forces with Shinji Mikami to translate "Sweet Home"’s ideas into 3D, eventually giving us iconic locations like the Spencer Mansion and the formula that shaped the entire series. But "Resident Evil 7" sneaks in a clever nod that goes even further than that inspiration. Scattered around the Baker estate are VHS tapes — wonderfully retro relics that let players hop into the recorded footage and control what happened. While many assumed the VHS segments were just a stylish wink toward "The Blair Witch Project", the deeper reference is actually rooted in the franchise’s earliest ancestor, right back to "Sweet Home", where a film crew stepped into a haunted mansion long before Ethan Winters had to deal with the Bakers’ unique hospitality.