A little intro to free camera mode in REs 7 & 8

In my ongoing fixation on to picking apart these games from every angle possible, I finally got around to experimenting with free-camera mods. But before I get to sharing all the coolest new stuff I've found playing with freecam options, I wanted to say a bit about the general experience I've had with these mods. Installing them wasn’t too hard – there are instructions on their NexusMods pages (RE8 here, RE7 here). Figuring out how to use them effectively was a whole other thing.

In brief, switching into free camera mode decouples your viewpoint from its usual position in Ethan’s head (or from standard third-person viewing distance, if you’re in that mode). You can then fly around freely, even through solid objects, using the same keyboard-and-mouse combo that works for regular movement. The downside is that you’re now separately controlling both Ethan and the camera with the same controls, at different speeds.

To deal with this, you’re generally going to want to toggle one of two other settings – the lock-character setting, which makes Ethan stand still while the camera moves, or the lock-camera setting, which lets you move Ethan around while the camera hangs wherever you’ve put it. You can see me switching between all three variants in the video above, in that order, before switching freecam mode off again, resetting the camera back to it's original position.