Insect hive

Insect hive
Biological information
Based:	Mold
Development information
Date of creation:	c. 2014-2017
Created via:	Unknown (large variants); Marguerite Baker (small variants)
Purpose:	Unknown (large variants); Accidental creation as a result of Marguerite's contamination with the Mold (small variants)

The Insect hive refers to a series of blob-like, motionless hives that generate various different insects within Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.

Biology

The Insect hives are hives that are often lined with an unknown material layered upon them. They appear to be grayish or beige in color when they're first spotted, and even appear to be moving. As well, there seems to be some slight "holes" within the layers of their material.

These hives vary in size, as well, and even host a number of different man-eating insects within them. As they are widdled down, however, they appear to obtain a more colorful appearance as their phases go by.

Gameplay

The Insect hives act as a slight obstacle and first appear when Ethan is at the Old House, and are actually non-hostile by themselves. They vary in size and shape, and even spawn in man-eating insects to try and dispatch of Ethan if he disturbs them. It is mandatory to destroy only one hive to progress the game further, and it's the one blocking the way to retrieve the Stone Statuette.

The hives are very vulnerable to fire, as they are easily dealt with if Ethan has the Burner or the Grenade Launcher. They can also be destroyed relatively quickly with the shotguns, but it is possible that some of the man-eating insects will block damage dealt to the hives.

Other insect hives appear during the boss fight against Marguerite Baker, as she is able to spawn smaller variants of them, which allows her to create more of the larger man-eating insects. These have relatively low health and can be dealt with in a variety of ways, though any weapon with fire is the most effective.

Ethan Must Die

In the mini-game Ethan Must Die, Ethan encounters one of the Insect hives down near the basement, though it is weak and doesn't spawn any bugs. When he comes to it, a Molded will spawn behind him and he needs to slash away at the hive before it attacks him. Often or not, this determines if a player should continue going or not early on, as the player would mostly benefit from obtaining the Survival Knife or the Burner to destroy it. Otherwise, it'd be better off just to retry, since the player would lose valuable resources or potentially die from the Molded behind them.