I’m Lycan what I’m seeing.
Resident Evil is certainly one of the most versatile video game franchises of all time. From its mainline series, spin-offs, companion games, and remakes, it certainly has kept a franchise centered around the dead very much alive across a wealth of different platforms. With Resident Evil VII: Biohazard, the series shifted from its third-person roots to that of a first-person perspective, something that also contributed to a truly stellar experience on the PlayStation VR. Village, which is a direct sequel, keeps that same perspective, but injects it with far more of the series' penchant for action, showing clear inspiration to that of Resident Evil 4, one of the most beloved in the franchise.
Village once again places you into the role of the faceless Ethan Winters, taking place some three years after the events of what happened in Louisiana in Resident Evil VII. Ethan, now a father, has since moved on, living with Mia somewhere in Europe, as the two proud parents are still trying to come to grips with what effects their time in Louisiana has left on them, and how it may have affected their daughter, Rose. It's not long into this fairly calm evening where tragedy strikes, and Ethan is thrust upon another adventure, attempting to track down his daughter, who has been kidnapped by a familiar face and will come to understand just exactly what happened in Louisiana once and for all.
Resident Evil Village places you in a mysterious European Village, somewhere in Romania, almost right from the start. After waking up next to a destroyed transport carrier, with bodies strewn about, you begin a short walk through an unknown forest that eventually brings you to the titular village where nothing is as it seems. Homes are vacant, vicious wolfmen are everywhere, and nearly every house is stuffed to the brim with compatible ammo. It’s not long before you’ll understand why, and while your encounters with the few surviving townsfolk are few and albeit brief, you’ll be shortly introduced to the villains of the piece; four monstrous lords that are corralled by Mother Miranda, a mysterious figure with potential ties to the past of Resident Evil. This scene sets the stage, and the tone, of this schlocky horror adventure.
Your enjoyment of Village is going to factor on whether you’re more into the franchise for its horror trappings, or its over the top action spectacle, something that started to work its way into the franchise deeper with the release of Resident Evil 4, and even more so with Resident Evil 5. Village is, in many ways, another attempt at Capcom trying to make Resident Evil 4 as it shares a great deal in its aesthetic, and its focus on its more action-based encounters. While the game does have some moments of genuine horror, slowing down the experience with some fantastic atmospheric dread, especially in the house belonging to its second lord, much of the game follows in the wake of having a lot of guns, even more bullets, and a variety of monsters that need to be put down.
Early on in the game, you’re introduced to the central cast of villains offered up here in a scene that is nearly identical to that of meeting the Bakers for the first time in Biohazard. Ethan awakens after being knocked out, and witnesses a gathering of his eventual foes, bickering on what to do with him. As I mentioned before, this sets the stage and tone of what you’re going to expect, a campy collection of personalities, each given various powers and found within their own spooky environments. Much of the early looks at Village showed off Lady Dimitrescu, which was both a smart idea and one that in some ways backfires here. Much of what we’ve seen of the tall vampire lady so far is almost everything we see of her here, meaning if you’ve been following up on every trailer or demo, there isn’t a whole lot left of her to experience. There are moments in her castle where she will stalk you, but her AI is so broken that standing in the doorway of certain safe rooms, will have her instantly lose sight of you, despite standing directly in front of her. Hell, I’ve shot at her and she simply just glances around, trying to figure out where my bullets came from.
Dimitrescu is also accompanied by her three daughters, who you’ll encounter at various stages of your time in the castle. While I love their designs, they simply feel like more elaborate regular enemy fodder than fully realized characters. They have a few lines of dialogue each but are all taken down in almost the exact same fashion. One of these fights literally has a “press the button” to win mechanic that removes all tension from the fight. I don’t mind villains that share in the same weaknesses, but exposing them in different ways could have gone a long way into making these characters, and the confrontations with them, a great deal more interesting.
By comparison, Lady Dimitrescu has a lot more given to her than the rest of the cast. While Heisenberg, a man who can manipulate metal, has a significant chunk of the back half of the game, the other two lords, Donna Beneviento, and the grotesque little swamp creature that is Moreau, feel as if they were given the short end of the stick. They are genuinely creepy and feature some intriguing personalities and encounters, but in many ways, it is those encounters that sum up almost every interaction you have with them. Beneviento, a puppeteer who you only really interact with her through her devious little companions, could have been a vastly more layered character, but our time with her is painfully cut short. Her escape room aesthetic is one of beauty in its design, a raw element of horror we saw present in PT, that we have here in Village that is, in many ways, a stand-out moment in the game. In fact, it is this environment where nearly every streamer or reviewer I’ve seen or read, has mentioned it as their favorite part of the game, or at least the one they reference the most.
Now, Mother Miranda herself is both a fascinating character and one that is largely generic and pointless at the same time. While there is a bit of lore in her lab that hints at some very juicy aspects of the history of the series, her involvement is so bare minimum here that having her as the final encounter just doesn’t carry the weight as it should. We get a few glances at her before then, as well a somewhat predictable reveal, and while her fight is typical of what the rest of the game offers, it’s a sort of by the numbers method in how she is put down, a character that is consistently mentioned as being incredibly dangerous and long-lived.
Lastly, Ethan Winters. Now, while Ethan had the benefit of the doubt with his first appearance in the previous game, he’s just not an interesting character this time around. While it’s intriguing to finally understand why he can shake off dismemberment so well, and while the medical solution he applies is so efficient, he often is surprised at everything that is going on, despite the absolute shitshow he suffered through in Louisiana. While so many of the villains here are superbly written to match the tone and feel of what the game is offering, Ethan often goes against the grain and is often spouting tired and generic lines one after another.
While Resident Evil VII did feature a few guns for you to arm yourself with, Village runs with that even more so, taking a page out of the more action-orientated games of the series. You'll have a variety of pistols, shotguns, and sniper rifles, that will outfit you for the monster at hand. While combat generally has you aiming really anywhere on your foe, instead of the series’ more tried and true ‘aiming for the head’, some of the later enemies will have key targets on their body for you to take aim at. Ethan can also block and kick away at enemies as well, a tactic that is rarely seen in the franchise, allowing you to get a bit of distance between you and your foe, especially if you're needing time for a quick reload, or wanting to lob a pipe bomb or two at them.
At first, I wasn’t crazy about the aiming, and in some ways, that still holds true. My entire time with Biohazard was through the PlayStation VR version, with only trying it out not in VR to see the stark difference of what VR did to make shooting vastly more engaging and precise. At first, I was missing a lot of my shots, as enemies move in such a way, and with a hefty quickness to them, where you’ll rarely have the time to react, causing a great deal of your ammo to go to waste. I ended up turning on auto-aim, and it provides a snap to its aiming, assisting you in lining up a shot that is more inclined to hit. This took me from not particularly enjoying the shooting to being a lot more capable with it, even if the game was doing much of the heavy lifting for me.
Resident Evil is no stranger to a weapon and item store, as Resident Evil 4's merchant is known to a great deal of the franchise faithful. While he gets a shout-out here via a quick line of dialogue, the Duke, an impossibly sized man who appears almost out of nowhere, or when and where you least expect it, takes over as the man with whatever you need. You can purchase ammo and guns from him, well, those you won't find laying about anyway, as well as using ingredients such as fish and meat to create single-use meals that will give Ethan more health, or a boost to his block. It's an interesting system for sure, and the map will detail where certain animals are and if you've depleted the lot of them in that area, as the map also does should you find every lootable item in a particular building.
As for the currency you’ll need to accrue, you'll earn enough Lei to buy things through the selling of items, gems, rubies, and other treasures, not to mention the crystal husks of the fallen enemies you've killed and the bosses you've slain. I'm not exactly sure where Ethan stores them, given their size, but thankfully, all treasures, key items, and crystals use a separate inventory that knows no limit. Your main inventory, which is reserved for your guns, ammo, food, and health items, can be increased several times over, giving you just enough space for a good portion of what you'll need but not enough for everything, so you'll need to pick and choose what is important to you. While Resident Evil is well known for its magical inventory trunk, its appearance is nowhere to be found here.
Village also has you collecting scraps of metal, herbs, and various other resources to have Ethan craft health items and ammo, should you buy the schematic from the Duke that is. You'll find these items pretty much everywhere, and honestly, depending on the difficulty you choose, you're going to either take full advantage of this, or forget that it's there. Still, you'll find a ton of resources, and best of all, they don't take up inventory space until you craft them, meaning while you can have several health vials in your inventory, you may have hoarded enough resources for another four in reserve. I found I would keep two health items in my inventory at all times and only crafted more when I really needed them, thus freeing up a lot of space.
Once you’ve completed the main campaign, you’ll have an arrangement of points saved up from your time with the game, allowing you to buy various unlocks that aid with future playthroughs, as well as the Mercenaries mode that is included. Since this mode utilizes levels and enemies from the main game, it was smart for Capcom to have this as something you unlock once you’ve seen pretty much everything the game has to offer. This mode has you rampage through environments, killing everyone you come across as you can track down upgrade orbs or time orbs to keep the action going. You can use the Lei you earn through this mode to outfit yourself further, making the killing that much easier. Upgrades carry over between stages, and while It’s not a mode that really impressed me, it’s still pretty damn good fun nonetheless.
Utilizing the RE Engine, Resident Evil Village looks incredible, with breathtaking large open environments, and highly detailed interiors. Characters and monsters are stellar to look at, and the gore and violence of the series is here in full form, with exploding blood mists for headshots that look and feel incredibly satisfying. The game also runs smoothly on the Series X, and considering the RE Engine was created to deal with a lot of graphical scaling, the game is also available for the Xbox One and PS4 as well, with both platforms still offering up a very good looking and playable experience. About the only issue I’ve seen graphically is some pop-in textures when on top of the castle, otherwise, I didn’t seem to notice any other hiccups during my 9-hour playthrough.
Village was exactly what I had expected this entry would have entailed; the continued use of first-person, with more action-orientated encounters, and a cast of villains that consistently kept my interest, even if a few of them were vastly underused. While the game is certainly more action-focused than Biohazard, there are still some moments of real horror that balance some of that action out, letting the game’s creepy and moody atmosphere breathe for a spell. Resident Evil has always been a franchise to play around with its take on horror, creating new and different experiences that exist within the same lore Capcom has been developing over the past two decades, and this gameplay shift with VII and Village are not likely to be their last.
Developer - Capcom. Publisher - Capcom. Released - April 18th, 2021. Available On - Xbox One/Series S/X, PS4/5, Windows, Stadia. Rated - (M) Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Intense Violence.
Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - Resident Evil Village was purchased by the reviewer.