Essentially everything I want in a modern Resident Evil game: satisfying gunplay, masterful growing tension, great scares that never feel cheap, a compelling story, and excellent visuals to top it all off. While it may not be as consistently frightening as RE7 overall, it does contain a few sequences that are much scarier than anything seen in its predecessor. Mostly it feels like they dialed it back a bit and leaned into some action à la RE4. But the action never overtakes the horror and only in the final stretch of the game does it really come into play. And by that point, it feels great to go guns-blazing on this whole damn village. They found a strong balance here. It doesn't even have the exhausting ending sequence that makes the game overstay its welcome, unlike a number of entries in this series (including 7). Not to mention the surprisingly touching story that fits snugly into the larger Resident Evil continuity while still feeling complete and satisfying in its own right.

Can't wait to see where the series goes from here.