New Resident Evil 7 Video Finally Explains How Green Herbs Work

We knew that the green herbs from the previous Resident Evil games would be making a return to Resident Evil 7, but we didn't know how they would be used. Well, a new video from Capcom finally shows us how players will make use of the iconic green plants.

The video went live this morning on the official Resident Evil YouTube channel, a slight departure from the content going up on the Capcom channel. The 20th anniversary celebration continued with a 32 second spotlight on how to heal.

When using an item, such as the herb, you bring up a pulldown menu that shows a list of options, including the ability to use the item, combine the item, examine the item or trash the item. In this particular case, you can take the herb, combine it with chemical fluids and create a health potion out of the combo.

What's neat is that the injury system in Resident Evil 7 appears to be similar to Far Cry 2 or Far Cry 3 where positional injuries are treated on the character. In this case, we see that the hand injury for the character is treated after pouring the contents of the chemical fluid and herb combo onto the hand. That's apparently one way of healing yourself in the game.

Also, basically we get to see a couple of things at play in the video apart from the herbs. First up, the player inventory is put on full display in the Resident evil 7 clip. Despite only being 32 seconds long, it's full of interesting tidbits of information. The player-character walks over to a shelf in what appears to be a basement or storage room of some sort and finds a box of shotgun shells on the shelf alongside a medicinal herb plant. I'm curious if all the items throughout the game will be in likely places or if they'll just be scattered around wherever?

If the item placements are kept realistic, then it would make for a really intense time because it would mean players would have to search the house in areas where weapons and ammo might be stored, a stark departure from Resident Evil 4, 5, and 6 where ammo was just littered all around the environment in sometimes ridiculous places.

The inventory management, however, reveals that the player can have four items assigned to the digital pad, and you can use the right bumper to combine items in the inventory screen. Space is limited, however, with only 12 slots being made available. Handguns and knives take up one slot while shotguns take up two.

I imagine players will have to pick and choose what they will want to take with them due to limited inventory space. I'm glad Capcom also brought back the classic inventory. I really hated that casualised nonsense they had in Resident Evil 6 where characters had their own specified weapons and the slots were already designated for them. It took a lot of the strategy and player agency away from the series when they went that route.

Thankfully, they're back to the old-school inventory and that should make Resident Evil 7 maintain a bit of replayability and bring back the player agency, given that now there's going to be the worry about whether or not you're picking up and retaining the right items.

Resident Evil 7 is due to drop on January 24th, 2017 for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC.