Resident Evil Village (2021)

My opinion of this game has shifted quite a bit considering this is one of the newest Resident Evil games at the time of this writing. Initially, I was fairly positive on it, taking issue with a few aspects of the game but really enjoying it overall. That positivity deteriorated for a bit and after not really being in the mood for it when it came out, I didn’t think too highly of the Shadows of Rose DLC. I replayed through the game and DLC around the end of 2024 and my impression on it remains generally positive, but with some mixed feelings lingering.

I think one of the biggest sources of contention for this title stems from its odd structure. Village attempts to explore several flavors of horror, taking the player on a sort of tour through the various sub-genres the series to this point has inhabited. The villains of the game comprise the mysterious Mother Miranda and her crew of “Lords” who each have their own distinct personality, backstory, and design, with the immediate expectation that you’ll be taking each one down before facing Miranda herself. This is a familiar structure for many video games (and shounen anime), but that’s partially because it’s an effective way to structure progression with multiple individual arcs rising and falling for good pacing. Each of the Lords’ domains features a feel of gameplay and setting that are quite distinct from the others, based on the nature of that particular Lord. The titular village itself acts as a hub area you explore between the different Lords’ domains.

As I said, these segments each deliver on a different style of horror game, primarily calling back to previous Resident Evil titles. Castle Dimitrescu offers a castle to explore with puzzles and traps galore, all while dealing with a pursuer enemy similar to Mr. X in Resident Evil 2 Remake. House Beneviento focuses more on a psychological horror that this series hasn’t delved quite as much into, but would be right at home in a Silent Hill game. The Reservoir has call backs to RE4’s lake area, but is a bit more of an action sequence after some time skulking about. The Stronghold is a brief action-packed assault full of monsters but otherwise feels like a monster shootout than a slower-paced horror. The Factory then offers a rather lengthy “dungeon-like” setting full of mechanized threats. While this structure doesn’t cause too much whiplash, the different phases of the game can feel disjointed, especially with how neatly the different paths out of the village lead away to the Lord’s domains and these segments don’t really interact much with each other.

Though Village was initially compared heavily to RE4—especially since the remake of that game was just a couple years away—this structure actually has the most in common with RE6. As my rating of both games implies, I feel Village pulls off this formula far better than that game, though it is still somewhat to blame for my qualms with this one. Village for the most part simply does most of the concepts it’s going for well, allowing the structure to work better here. Like RE6, it never fully separates from the core gameplay too heavily. If you aren’t thinking too much about it, you may not even notice the explicit structure and this is when it works well as the shifts mostly just offer variety. On the other hand, this structure unsurprisingly leads to some parts being much stronger than others. RE6 tried to chase four hares and caught none. Village instead aims for a varied experience that across-the-board is mostly pretty good, but still has some dips and valleys.

While my commentary thus far is ambivalent, on the whole, I find Village a pretty solid experience throughout. The irony of the structure is that I found different parts of the game more successful based more on how well-designed they were rather than my inclination towards the nature of that segment. For instance, on paper, Castle Dimitrescu sounds pretty up my alley as REmake 2 is one of my favorite games in the series and the pursuer gameplay was clearly based on it. But while the Castle does have some really cool aesthetics and routing, it’s one of the more disappointing segments in my opinion, and I don’t feel like the pursuer mechanics functioned very well here, memes aside. Then sections like Bienviento House and the Factory to me don’t sound like styles Resident Evil typically excels at, but they worked for me. None of the game for me felt “bad” or even just “average,” but I can’t claim it's a consistent and even experience throughout the game.

Somewhat controversially, I actually really enjoyed the story in this game. I mean, I went in knowing that this is a Resident Evil game and the story is thus always going to be a little silly. There’s some higher drama and character-focused narrative that departs from formula, but on the whole, Village is just as ridiculous and over-the-top as any of its predecessors, if not more so. One area fans seems split in my experience is how Ethan is handled as a character. I certainly see the struggle the writers had going in with this game that is much more character-driven than RE7, where Ethan seemed purposely cast as an every-man character who is mostly a vehicle for the player to experience the horrors he faced without layers of other backstory and character. Village instead puts Ethan and Mia front and center as characters who now have a daughter and family life that are threatened pretty much immediately. Ethan’s motivations to save their daughter are the emotional foundation for the story. Even outside of the ridiculousness that comes with that plotline, this is already a bit of a leap to go from viewing Ethan as “some guy” to a character we should care about. I don’t think it worked for everyone, or maybe not even most people, but I can say that by the end I did actually feel more attached to the character and invested in his story and drive. This is another game from the era of “dad games,” but I think it worked a lot better than I expected in the end. While I don’t want to say too much in the interest of spoilers, I found some of the later-game twists to be both hilariously ridiculous and weirdly very engaging.

I am typically less-ambivalent on the world-building in this series and I think Village adds to this legacy reasonably well. I don’t appreciate how much the villains’ powers are basically just “magic,” an issue that’s recurred a couple times in the series to date. There is a very loose attempt to justify these abilities scientifically through notes in the hilariously on-the-nose “lore room” at the end of the game. However, these explanations are still rather silly and are no more plausible than you might see in any comic book where the focus is more on character studies than hard science fiction. I also find the connection to Umbrella a little hit-or-miss in that it's intriguing, but contrived. In some ways, it’s a little annoying how much the series keeps wanting to “tie back to its roots” as this motif runs through like half the games in the series. But on the other hand, it is somewhat nice that there are still nods to the original lore that’s enamored the fanbase for decades now.

All that said, I just find the setting and exploration in this game really engaging. I poked fun at the gang of villains being a bit tropey, but it is effective in letting us explore these different characters and their aesthetically-appropriate domains with special focus that results in a rather pleasing cadence of discovery. Seeing how this “family” of Lords interacts and came to be is also intriguing and added to my anticipation as I made my way through the game. This structure also lends to some pretty neat environments and settings that are as varied as they are beautifully crafted. I don’t quite feel like the village setting is as iconic as some others, but it is still a joy to explore and see the impact of the disasters the people in this remote village have endured.

The gameplay I found generally strong throughout. Though the shift to first person really started with the game before this, Village takes this perspective to a more action-packed setting as this entry features combat packed with far more enemies at once. The enemy variety is decent, with different segments of the game highlighting a few different enemy types to complement or contrast with the lycans we see throughout. The guns in the game are mostly the usual kind of loadout, sold or upgraded at a new merchant-type character. It feels like there’s a good deal of variety in your loadout and upgrade path to suit your style while also encouraging a mixture of weapons to keep stocked up on ammo. I found Hardcore difficulty a good balanced mode for the game, rarely difficult to the point of frustration, but adding a layer of tension with how strong enemies are. I don’t really like the Village of Shadows difficulty that reminds me of Inferno from REmake 3. These are really just NG+ modes disguised as difficulty settings. While a fresh playthrough is possible, they’re clearly designed for a second playthrough with upgraded gear and supplies.

While it took some time to come out, the Shadows of Rose DLC adds a shorter campaign to the game that takes place 16 or so years after the events of the main game. This was an interesting choice on the writers’ part as writing stories way ahead of the mainline series time-wise runs all kinds of risks, but this story is mostly confined enough that I expect their narrative decisions won’t cause significant problems down the line. I found the DLC mostly just “okay.” It has some good moments narratively which try to fill some of the emotional import the game tried to establish throughout. But otherwise, there’s a ton of re-using environments and settings that just made it feel like a bit of a slog. It’s certainly not all bad as there are some great sequences that rival the base game, but I ultimately didn’t find the DLC all that worth the long wait.

This is one of those reviews where I feel weird slapping 5 stars on it when I’ve spent so much of my time expressing ambivalence and have left vague most of the detail I found more thrilling. But I do genuinely really enjoy Village every time I play it. It’s not without its issues, and I’ll admit that it’s a game I’d consider a “barely 5 stars,” but I never find myself bored or disliking the game any time I pick it up, which is often sufficient for 5 stars for me.

My other Resident Evil reviews:

• Resident Evil (1996) - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil 2 (1998) - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil 3 (1999) - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil: Survivor - ★★★
• Resident Evil: Code Veronica - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil: Survivor 2 – Code Veronica - ★★
• Resident Evil Remake - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil Gaiden - ★★
• Resident Evil 0 - ★★★
• Resident Evil Dead Aim - ★★★
• Resident Evil: Outbreak - ★★★
• Resident Evil 4 - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil Outbreak File #2 - ★★★
• Resident Evil Deadly Silence - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles - ★★★
• Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles - ★★★
• Resident Evil 5 - ★★
• Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D - ★★
• Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City - ★★
• Resident Evil 6 - ★★
• Resident Evil Revelations - ★★★
• Resident Evil Revelations 2 - ★★★★
• Umbrella Corps - ★
• Resident Evil 7 - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil 2 Remake - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil 3 Remake - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil 4 VR - ★★★★★
• Resident Evil 4 Remake - ★★★★★

I loved this game thoroughly. The new RE gameplay and ambience is so good along with the story which I also enjoyed. Castle Dimitrescu stands far above the rest of the areas personally however the other areas still hold up pretty well.

But genuinely the one thing that stood out the most is Ethan's stupid fucking dialogue seriously how Mia put up with this fucker is unfathomable. I sometimes get flashbacks and nightmares of some of the stuff he says it haunts me dearly. I genuinely think if he just held a conversation with the main bosses they would have died of actual cringe its so bad.

The new campaign for Resident Evil Village, Shadows of Rose, is full of cliches and is not really important for the canon... but I loved it!

Rose is a great characters and it feels great to come back to this village after so many months. There's a stealth sequence that actually managed to feel tense and scary instead of tedious. The third person perspective is great, specially for those who suffer motion sickness or get scared easily, but there are sections that are obviously made with first person perspective in mind and don't feel that great.

Here's my full review of the DLC in spanish.

Another bad thing. You need to unlock Heisenberg and Lady Dimitrescu in Mercenaries. You cant play as them "out of the box". Well, bad for me because I suck and it was really hard to complete the requisites to get them.

Resident Evil 8 done, at least until October's Winter Expansion. Wow that sounds counterintuitive lol.

If RE7 harkened back to the old school, 1-3 style of gameplay, 8 is a love letter to 4, down to the return of the inventory management style and a funky dude who sells you shit magically appearing when you need him most. Fantastic game, absolutely in my top 3 Resident Evils. The story is up there with Revelations 2 in making me teary eyed, with the added bonus of not being one of the dumbest stories in a series that has some pretty dumb stories. I'm going to psychoanalyze myself and say that the common thread for me crying is dads because my dad passed away a few years ago, so I am sad about dads, I guess.

Good game, highly recommended

The story of Resident Evil 8 is one of my favorite to date. It takes the wild infection conspiracy from the previous entries and adds another level to it. It adds enemies who have sympathetic personalities - fighting for their children, the desire to be accepted, revenge, or even mental illness - as well as some other themes such as parenthood. The level design is fantastic with areas such as the factory and the castle (although there are some not as great areas like the lake). The game also perfectly blended the horror aspects from the previous title with more action-oriented aspects from RE4 and others. And the weapon/upgrade/inventory system is one of my favorite to use to date. Overall, all though there are flaws in the game, this is one of my favorite Resident Evil titles yet.

4.50/5.00

Full Review: https://watchreadgame.com/resident-evil-8-review/

I loved it! It was so good. (Finally a good review, yay). Go play it, everyone!

I absolutely loved how this game combined different kinds of horror (the villains and their locations) and put it into 1 game. It could've been chaotic but somehow they made it work perfectly.

Even though I wish it was more scary overall, the sequence at the Beneviento house was the most tense and scariest part of a game I have ever played. Never have I experienced fear like that before while gaming. It was awesome!

Omg. When Ethan died I was about to throw hands! The way Miranda killed him was so sloppy and it seemed disrespectful to Ethan to write him off like that. I loved the twist after though. And sure, it was incredibly sad Ethan died anyway but at least this was the epic death he deserved.

I was a little sad we didn't get any scenes with the Bakers. Yeah, yeah, they're dead, I know... But I hoped they'd give us another scene with them in Purgatory, like they did with Jack and Zoë in RE7. The quick flashbacks we got here don't count. But I guess that's just my hyperfixating self talking lmao. I would kill for comics about the Bakers.

I had so much fun. I can't wait for the DLCs. Will definitely keep my eye out for them.

In terms of the overall package, I hold this slightly above VII. Absolutely love the setting, placing you in multiple areas each different from the previous with different layers of horror. The combat was incredibly fluid with enough enemy variety to keep things fresh and the inventory system was a welcome addition, It felt like a Tetris minigame added in on the sly. Characters are interesting especially the diverse villains and are well voice acted. Though the final sequences sway more towards the action side, it still maintains that feeling of dread and helplessness that made RE a household name in the first place.

Excellent well-crafted campaign with satisfying combat and upgrades, but doesn't have much longevity.

• Similar to RE4, excellent combat/exploration loop.
• Memorable villains and locations.
• Cutscenes and certain segments (e.g. the dollhouse) are memorable, but hurt NewGame+ and dilute the experience. Game can't decide if it's an FPS or not.
• Lost interest in NewGame+ and Mercenaries quickly due to design choices that serve a single playthrough.

I gotta admit, Resident Evil: Village was more action packed that I expected. Right off the bat, the game gives you a hint of just how many bullets you're going to be pumping in your first run of this game and right up to the final showdown.

The way the game ties back to Resident Evil 7 is pretty cool with a lot of gifts for long-time fans of the series. Be sure to explore every nook and corner of the map, there are plenty of pleasant surprises to unearth.

P.S. The game has a little post credit scene :)

I'm not writing a review for this one, a workmate did it already, so I'm in charge of a few guides (like this one to get all the treasures) and opinion pieces.

Something I really liked about Resident Evil Villages is how it covers A LOT of horror subgenres, with disctintive styles and tropes, and each one is represented with one of the 'four lords' of the Village: Dimitrescu, Beneviento, Moreau and Heisenberg.

In my article, I explain every subgenre and mention some literary and movie inspiration behind it... In spanish, as usual.

This is definitely better than Resident Evil 7. RE7 was good, but I was disappointed in the lack of enemy variety, and that brought the experience down in multiple ways. Resident Evil Village doesn't make that mistake. They do a good job of mixing things up in both enemies and environments throughout the game.

The map system from Resident Evil 2 Remake returns in this game, and it's was the game's biggest hook for a while. I was obsessed with scouring every building for all the items within until the building on the map turned blue. It hits the appeal of Metroidvanias.

The game is split up into distinct areas with its own boss that runs the place. The devs are still committed to doing the RE1-like puzzles and exploration, and I love that they stuck with this. They also do something special in each area to give the game a good amount of variety which I love, but I have my own likes and dislikes for each area. The thing about the current team working on Resident Evil is they wear their influences on their sleeve, and it's clear they are influenced by games I don't like. These new RE games work to recapture the magic of the old games (RE1 to RE4) while mixing in some of the current horror game trends. My problem is with the current horror game trends. I don't like games like Outlast and Amnesia, so when they put in sections of this game that feel ripped straight from titles like those, it brings down the experience for me. RE Village also reuses some ideas from previous games that aren't as well executed here. There were also some disappointedly uninspired choices made when they could have done something cool and new. None of this makes any area in the game bad, but they definitely could have been much better. Except for the factory level. They 100% nailed what they did there. The level was so good that it made me forget about all the issues I had with the game before then.

Outside of the ending, the story left a lot to be desired. Ethan wasn't never a good character and they didn't do anything to fix that here. He's mostly one-note and surprisingly stupid in this game. The new bosses are also pretty one-note and boring (people excited for Lady Dimitrescu might be disappointed). Heisenberg was a standout though. He had a little more going on than the others. He's not necessarily a good character, but he was at least somewhat interesting. The new merchant character is pretty good though.

This game introduces new Lycan enemies. I was excited for this because Resident Evil has done nothing like that before. I was disappointed to see they attack me just like Las Plagas enemies from Resident Evil 4. They run up to me and then stop when they are a certain distance away. Then they start moving slowly towards move to the left or right before lunging. I just don't think Lycans would fight like this. I can see and hear them moving running around jumping from rooftop to rooftop, but then they get to the ground in front of me all that quick movement and aggression stops. It's a missed opportunity to do something new and cool. There is one underground ruins area where I fought against a group of them. Here, they acted more like Lycans. The area had three levels. Lycans would jump from ground level to the second level to attack me (they also used ladders sometimes which is odd). If I was standing near a platform a level above me, they would jump down right on top of me. The second and third levels had gaps between platforms that I could see them running and jumping over. They felt more threatening in this area.

I have so many mixed feelings on this game, but overall, it's still a really good, satisfying experience that I will play again. Because it's a game that likes to blend the old RE with modern horror games, I just couldn't help but think about how great Jill Valentine is in RE3 Remake compared to Ethan (Leon in RE4 is better than him too), how much more interesting enemy AI is in Resident Evil 4 compared to here (enemies don't even throw their weapons at you in this game), and how much I don't like a lot of modern horror games. It feels like this game is in some ways a step backwards from the games it's trying to modernize.

Side Note: They brought back the RE4 inventory management, and I never had to engage with it. I always had enough space. I did not rotate or move one item in my case through my entire playthrough.

Resident Evil Village is a continuation of the story of Ethan Winters, the protagonist of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. It's a second game in the fresh RE formula, with first-person perspective. The review is spoiler free, but i will refer to stuff from the trailers.

Village has literally everything you loved about Biohazard, but better. Duh, it has everything you loved about Resident Evil series... But better. Below, i will get more specific, but at this point i can already recommend you to order the game, all of you should experience Village as soon as possible.

The game looked absolutely gorgeous on my PS5, I played in 4k Ray Tracing mode and the game was really stable, except some parts where i could notice frame drops for a second, but nothing too big of a deal. The design and diversity of locations and enemies are mind-blowing. The animations are so clean I were simply amaze by them. The game just plays and looks fire.

The gameplay is as good as in the previous game. Ethan is now more experienced with a gun, so aiming is easier, but the enemies are stronger. To be honest they seem a bit too much bullet spongy, but you have plenty of ammo lying around. The game surprises you more with mini boss encounters and just tough situations, so you use everything you have rather than hoarding stuff for God knows what moment. I really loved that about Village.

Thankfully the game provides tons of quality of life changes. Journal and collectibles are easily accessible and really well-done. Your backpack is completely reworked, and it's really easy and comfortable to use, unlike the previous games. Weapons and the character are easily upgrade'able using the game's merchant. Stuff is just done cleaner than before.

The story of Village is just mind-blowing. Ethan is now on a mission to rescue his daughter and he does it with style. Our average guy is now totally chad and i love it. In my opinion he is easily one of the best protagonists of the series. Mr. Winters does impressive things and acts like a real badass, all of it with the actual explanation, not just "i'm now super cool and deal with it" approach. The story features tons of goose bumpy scenes, beyond cool action, moments of joy for fans of the series and some really cool twists. I played through it with my mouth open. I would love to write an essay about the awesomeness of every single part of the plot, but you have to experience it yourselves.

The game is pretty much divided into sections. Every section has a different setting and gameplay approach. There are good old chase segments, shoot them up arenas, puzzles, epic boss fights and more. The game is diverse to the bone and every section is different from the other. There is one part of the game that is really special and i see everyone praising it all over the internet. I'm not different, this one section of the game totally blew me away. There is a segment where they take your weapon and put you through a freaking extreme horror experience. P.T, Silent Hill, Outlast, you name it, it's way more terrifying. It's nearly impossible to scare me, as i watch and play horror games my whole life, but this made me pause the game to catch a break. I naturally played in the middle of the night and I was actually scared to go to the bathroom. Would you expect something like this from Resident Evil? Hell no. But they did it, and they absolutely destroyed it. It was honestly the best part of the game and maybe my horror experience in general. As long as you sink in the atmosphere and you roleplay as Ethan it will most likely blow you away and make your pants dirty. It's really short tho, like 40 minutes at best. The game has tons of villains, all of them unique, interesting and awesome. Well known Lady Dimitrescu is just a beginning.

The game features really nice references to the previous titles, i loved them all. Chris Redfield is absolutely awesome in Village, you won't be disappointed. I won't really elaborate, you will want to check them for yourselves.

The ending was really satisfying and i can sleep well knowing the series is heading in amazing direction, Capcom did wonders with the story.

After completing the game you get access to new game modes, new difficulty and tons of unlockables, i just started playing with them, but first impressions are fantastic. Mercenaries are back and if you liked them before, you will like then in Village.

In conclusion Village left me with open mouth, i'm simply amazed by this game and at this point i want to replay or resident evil games, and i totally will. I'm totally doing the platinum in the game, it's as chad as Ethan Winters... and he's chad af. Everything about the game is amazing so it belongs in my favorites. Can't wait for the next game, dang it, it was worth the wait.

10/10

"Playtime's over! I will take my chances."

~Wo