PlayStation 4 Critic Reviews

In an ideal world it all would’ve been included in the main game, but if you can get past that this is a great set of DLC extras.

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

An interesting little package. You get a tense puzzle-focused escape room, a fun-as-heck action mode that I'm sure I'll be playing in the coming months, and a bastard-hard masochist-a-thon for those who want that. While I'm not a huge fan of Ethan Must Die, there'll be people out there who dig it, and those two tapes continue aspects of Resident Evil 7 that I'm hungry for.

A great return to the Baker Manor. Bedroom is the best section of this DLC by far, presenting an amazing puzzle with tense situations. Nightmare and Ethan Must Die are modes with more action that makes them a little more generic. If you enjoyed Resident Evil 7's main game, you should check this expansion.

Like matriarch Marguerite's dishes, bonus mode Ethan Must Die will prove an acquired taste, but the two other VHS tapes included with Banned Footage Vol. 1 are a delight. Nightmare serves up some surprisingly smart arcade action that fans missing Mercenaries will surely enjoy, while Bedroom is brilliant puzzle sequence that subverts the rules of the main game in order to create a real sense of tension without requiring any enemies at all. There's no question that had this content been incorporated into the main campaign it would have been an even stronger package overall, but as a standalone it's still easy to recommend.

Banned Footage Vol. 1 is a test to grade how well Resident Evil 7's innate talents extend past survival horror. As a wave based survival game, it is eager but routine. As a grueling roguelike, it is chaotic and formally aggravating. As an escape room, however, its fiendish motif fits neatly inside of a clever and contained challenge. All three accumulate to a zealous B-, which is a clean score for Resident Evil 7's first post-graduate exam.

Banned Footage Vol 1 is quite a good DLC. On the 3 new modes, The Bedroom is really excellent, and the two others offers more action and replayability.

Although Bedroom is interesting, Nightmare and Ethan Must Die are nothing more than throwaway minigames, resulting in an underwhelming DLC pack that doesn’t live up to the Resident Evil name.