To celebrate Resident Evil 7's strong sales and positive reviews, Capcom has started releasing a multi-part series detailing the development of the horror game. In the latest part of the series, scenario director Morimasa Sato revealed that he took inspiration from Stephen King's horror classic The Shining and Jack Nicholson's unforgettable portrayal of Jack Torrance in the 1980 film adaptation to create Jack Baker, the Baker family's terrifying patriarch. 

Early in Resident Evil 7's development, Sato was initially tasked with developing the character known as "daddy ," who ultimately became Jack Baker. The early characterization of Jack was nothing more than a violent killer, and Sato decided to flesh the character out by making him a father and the patriarch of the Baker family in an attempt to emphasize his dual personalities. Through a several month-long trial-and-error process, Sato worked on various ways to make Jack a terrifying presence who is more than just a murderer, before ultimately taking inspiration from The Shining and Jack Nicholson's unsettling take on Jack Torrance.

While Jack doesn't get the opportunity to whip out Nicholson's iconic "Here's Johnny!" line in the game, by naming the character "Jack" in homage to Jack Torrance and having him relentlessly chase the player character - including a moment where he breaks though a wall while wielding an axe - it's quite easy to see how The Shining influenced much of the final version of Jack Baker.

Interestingly, The Shining wasn't the only Stephen King novel to influence the making of Resident Evil 7. During the development of the game's Banned Footage DLC, the team took inspiration from another Stephen King horror classic, Misery, to create the expansion's unsettling Bedroom mode.

With Resident Evil 7's development team so heavily inspired by their love of Stephen King, it's not outside the realm of possibility that that the upcoming Chris Redfield-centric Not A Hero story expansion could contain more influences and homages to the renowned horror author.

Stephen King's works have certainly been a gold mine for the development team given that Resident Evil 7 has been deemed as one of the scariest entries in the franchise. It will be interesting to see whether the more of King's work will make it into future content updates or Resident Evil titles.

Resident Evil 7 is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Source: Resident Evil – YouTube