Give some stream of consciousness and then the answer. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a survival horror game developed and published by Capcom, released in January 2017 for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and in May 2018 for the Nintendo Switch in Japan. Diverging from the more action-oriented Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6, Resident Evil 7 returns to the franchise's survival horror roots, emphasizing exploration. The player controls Ethan Winters as he searches for his wife in a derelict plantation occupied by a cannibal family, solving puzzles and fighting enemies. It is the first main series game to use a first-person view.

Based on this passage, who do you play as in resident evil 7?
To answer this question, we should know that: The player controls Ethan Winters as he searches for his wife in a derelict plantation occupied by a cannibal family, solving puzzles and fighting enemies.
Therefore, the answer is Ethan Winters.