Why? Because of what it represents:
The file name was clinical: Resident.Evil.7.Biohazard.Gold.Edition-PLAZA Resident Evil 7 Biohazard Gold Edition-PLAZA
"Don't forget to support the developers, buy the game if you like it." It proved that the scene wasn't dead
For the , it was a renaissance. The .NFO file for this release was shared across Reddit, 4chan, and private trackers with a reverence usually reserved for religious texts. It proved that the scene wasn't dead. It proved that if you waited long enough (or waited for a GOTY/Gold re-release with a slightly different executable), you could win. The Ethical Swamp Of course, no discussion of a PLAZA release is complete without the moral quagmire. The tape-based minigames
The tape-based minigames. Bedroom , where you must escape your restraints without alerting Marguerite; Nightmare , a survival wave mode; and Ethan Must Die , a masochistic one-hit-kill challenge. These were the bones of the game, and PLAZA delivered them.
For most of 2017, the Baker family’s plantation remained impenetrable. Scene groups tried and failed. Cracks were promised and never delivered. The pirate community watched Let’s Plays on YouTube, reduced to voyeurs in a horror movie they couldn't afford the ticket to. It felt like the end of an era—the beginning of the "Denuvo Dark Ages." Then came December 12, 2017. CAPCOM released the Resident Evil 7 Biohazard Gold Edition —a complete package containing the base game, the "Banned Footage" DLC Volumes 1 & 2, and the highly anticipated story epilogue, End of Zoe .