The style that made Resi 1-3 does include the camera angles and the general third person view, but it also contains visuals that didn't follow through the series (because we get people quitting here and there for nearly any studio out there, in doing so you lose some of that talent that made said game).

I know that some explain what they want out there from Resi, but to me R7 doesn't feel like R 1-3, but it feels more like a modern merge of Outlast meets Resi and well, we have Outlast and Resi for those respective experiences. 

Look at Code V, it had plenty of backtracking, creepy and eerie music, insane characters and a focus on the undead and a Virus. With 7 you didn't really catch on about the Virus until later on.

To some RE 7 is going to feel like an absolute exact return to roots, but for others (myself included) it doesn't feel the same. It just feels different, like it could have been a new IP and I'd easily accept it as a new IP.

I have the exact same feeling. I grew up playing Resident Evil, and RE 7  has nothing in common with the old games.

I can't understand what people see in this game. I feel that people are desperate to get a classic Resident Evil to "save" the franchise so they feel the need to label this game as the "saviour" of this franchise. The fact is, as much as people want to hate RE 5/6 they are decent games (specially if you play them in co-op action!) and they are loved by a lot of people (this fact makes people angry ). The series was far from dead so it didn't need to be "saved".

I'm not against a change of pace. We don't need another RE5/6, but we don't need "Outlast meets Resident Evil" either.

They wanted to ship 4 millions by the end of the fiscal year.I would say that 3.5 is close enough for that goal to be considered a success.

I don't think that's fair. "Nothing in common" is a stretch. I think you can find a lot of parallels between 7 and the earlier games: exploration; puzzle-solving; what I referred to earlier as "fight-or-flight" enemy encounters; inventory management; limited ammo and items; combinable items; clues and logs scattered around the game world; and, in general, a focus on survival and horror over action.

There are elements of Outlast, yes, especially when Ethan is hiding from the Baker family. But most of the time Ethan is exploring a creepy house/ship/docks, solving puzzles, finding keys, revisiting areas with new weapons/items, struggling with limited inventory slots, and deciding when to use valuable ammo and when to run for his life. That's very much in tune with earlier installments of the series.

Sounds good on paper, but it doesn't work in practice.

Why make it a first person game? The classics where on third person. Where is the cheese? Making Resident Evil an actual horror game is a mistake, the oldies had some horror elements but they didn't try to scare you. They where B horror movie parodies.

This game might have ticked all the boxes but it doesn't look/play/feel like an old Resident Evil game. And the sales will show it, RE 7 is never going to reach the heights that RE5/6 reached... it's also never going to reach the same level of success that RE 2 and 1 had. People aren't buying the smoke and mirrors.

And for the record, I don't think going back to the roots is the way forward. Taking inspiration from the old games and reinventing the formula is fine. But I don't see the inspiration from the oldies in this game. I just see an outlast mod.

But it does work in practice. What I'm describing are the gameplay basics of Resident Evil 7. It's a survival-horror game focused on inventory management, exploration, backtracking, and problem-solving, and it stars an under-equipped, overwhelmed protagonist. That's what the early RE games were all about.

Again, I see the comparisons to Amnesia and Outlast and Penumbra. I get it. The producers have acknowledged such similarities. But don't ignore the old-school RE gameplay just because of a few first-person stealth sections. I think you're getting too hung up on perspective and setting. That's window dressing. Mechanically, RE7 plays a lot like the original.