Resident Evil 7's Baker family artwork

If you were itching to give Resident Evil 7 a try ahead of its January 24th release date, you now have a chance to do so as the demo has finally appeared on Steam. Simply head on over to the Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour Steam page, click on the Play Game button, and enjoy being chased around the house by invincible psychopaths.

And for those of you that know very little about Resident Evil 7, here's one of the recently posted trailers to hopefully clue you in. While it won't show you much in terms of gameplay, it does a rather good job of establishing the sort of atmosphere Resident Evil 7 is going for. Have a look:

As for the demo, I haven't had the time to play it for myself, but the community response on Steam seems to be quite positive. Apparently it runs nicely on most configurations, the controls are intuitive, and most importantly, Capcom seems to have nailed the horror aspect! That said, don't expect Resident Evil 7 to play like any of the previous games in the series, because outside of the name and lore connections they have very little in common. So treat it less like a Resident Evil game, and more like a survival horror offshoot set in the same universe.

And finally, if you're interested in some more gameplay footage you can find the other two parts of the video featured above by going here. Enjoy!