One thing that many horror video game series have often failed to do, from Silent Hill and Castlevania to Alone in the Dark and Fatal Frame, is they struggled to keep up with the changing times. Resident Evil is an outlier. While it built on the foundation laid by the first Alone in the Dark back in 1996, it ended up defining the survival horror genre, constantly setting new trends from the over-the-shoulder action in 2005’s Resident Evil 4 to the polished contemporary remakes of the first two sequels.
Every entry in the series, be it a mainline title like Resident Evil VII or a spin-off like Operation Raccoon City, manages to feel different in subtle or major ways. Resident Evil: Village continues the first-person story of Ethan Winters from the seventh main game. While that highly successful 2017 horror was set in Louisiana, with the protagonist being brutalized by a family of immortal hillbillies, Village moves the action to Eastern Europe. Cinematic references have been present since the very first title, but these last two games are where Capcom had a real blast with the number of homages.
While Resident Evil VII was a Tobe Hooper, Texas Chainsaw Massacre-inspired nightmare, Village is a gothic Hammer production. It is what 2004’s Van Helsing wishes it were: a fun, tongue-in-cheek blend of various creatures of folklore and legend. Poor old Ethan Winters is forced to fight his way through a colourful roster of supernatural villains in order to save his infant daughter from certain death, and it is the villains and central location that make Village a truly memorable experience.
While Ethan Winters as a character has always been the equivalent of wet bread in terms of characterization, the first-person perspective makes it so much easier to immerse the player in his shoes. What is even more effective is the amount of torture that his hands endure: in a similar vain to Far Cry 3’s healing mechanic, hands are the only part of Ethan’s body that is always in the centre of the screen, the only visual link between him and those playing. By having these appendages stabbed, mutilated, pierced, and broken by the baddies, it heightens the visceral nature of the horror, while also lending it that pulpy level of violence befitting of the stories that inspired it.
The moment the titular village is introduced is astonishing: with a few dozen huts and houses, a corn field, an abandoned reservoir, a voluminous factory, and an ominous castle looming in the background, it is a sight to behold and a promise of what is to come (an update to the more contained town from the opening hour of Resident Evil 4). The main area of the village is a hub of sorts where Ethan fights Lycans (werewolf-esque enemies) and slowly unlocks access to optional content in typical Metroidvania fashion, the first time in the series where a player revisits a section of the map this often.
But the real attraction here is the line-up of villains. Ethan is forced to face Lady Dimitrescu (a nearly three-metre-tall vampire lady with three blood-sucking daughters), Donna Beneviento (a doll-maker that communicates through the creepy doll Angie), Salvatore Moreau (a mutant who can turn into a sea creature), Karl Heisenberg (a brilliant engineer capable of manipulating metal through telekinesis), and the formidable Mother Miranda (leader of the cult of the village). Each one of these antagonists makes for its own unique set-piece, and while the second half of the game becomes more action-oriented (which is very enjoyable, given the number of weapons in the player’s arsenal and quicker reflexes of Ethan), it is the first half that is an absolute standout of tension and release.
Exploring Castle Dimitrescu, hiding away from its owners and battling undead beings in its prisons, is a delightfully gothic set piece that would make Bela Lugosi’s Dracula proud. Hiding in the shadows, listening to Lady Dimitrescu cry out of pain upon discovering the ashes of her dead daughters, is exhilarating, with Maggie Robertson’s voice acting truly menacing and sensual, like all the best vampires are. What makes the escalation of the horror even better is the sequence that follows it, the journey through House Beneviento. This is the only part of the game where the player is stripped of any weapon or item, going heavy on puzzles and scares, essentially recreating the crippling fear and anxiety of the now-infamous P.T. created by Hideo Kojima. Ethan (and therefore the player) is so powerless, that this hour-long section ranks as the most terrifying part of possibly any Resident Evil game, courtesy also of a twisted and haunting unbeatable enemy that is best experienced in-game. It is a shame that, while all visually distinct and engaging to play through, the rest of the game never reaches these heights.
Outside of the main narrative, there is the welcome return of the Mercenaries mode, where players can go through the various stages of the campaign and kill a select number of increasingly tougher enemies to compete in leaderboards and receive skill points. These skill points can later be used to unlock extra content, from figurines and concept art, to infinite ammo and secret weapons to make future replays of the game quicker and cheekier (using a grenade launcher with unlimited ammo or doing a knife-only run using a lightsaber is on par with the previous entries’ silly unlockables).
Overall, Resident Evil: Village manages to show that Capcom’s flagship franchise is far from dead, and ready to reinvent itself with a cinematic location that is seldom explored in video games to such an inventive extent. It may suffer from an uneven narrative third act that draws things out, but it has a tremendous five-hour stretch and such tight gameplay that it is easy to overlook its structure and get lost in this beautifully rendered European village.
