Resident Evil Village
Resident Evil Village is a 2021 survival horror game developed and published by Capcom. It is the sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and the eighth main installment in the Resident Evil series. Players control Ethan Winters, who searches for his kidnapped daughter in a mysterious village filled with mutant creatures. Village maintains survival horror elements from previous games, with players scavenging environments for items and managing resources while adding more action-oriented gameplay, with higher enemy counts and a greater emphasis on combat.
Resident Evil Village was announced at the PlayStation 5 reveal event in June 2020 and was released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on May 7, 2021. This was followed by a macOS version and a cloud version for Nintendo Switch in October 2022, a PlayStation VR2 version in February 2023, an iOS version in October 2023, and an upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 version scheduled for February 2026.
Resident Evil Village received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for its gameplay, setting, and variety, but criticism for its puzzles, boss fights, and performance issues on the Windows version; the increased focus on action divided opinions. The game won year-end accolades including Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards. It had sold over 10.5 million units by November 2024. A sequel, Resident Evil Requiem, is scheduled to be released on February 27, 2026.
Gameplay
Like its predecessor, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Resident Evil Village uses a first-person perspective, and has the option for a third-person perspective. It is set in a snowy explorable European village, described as "pulled straight from the Victorian era" and much larger and more immersive than its predecessor. Structures and buildings in the central village can be climbed and used to fight enemies. Compared to Biohazard, the game is more action focused, with protagonist Ethan Winters equipped with more combat skills due to military training. The game's primary enemies, the werewolf-like Lycans, are agile and intelligent and can wield weapons and attack in packs, forcing the player to rethink their strategy on whether to use sparse ammunition, use melee combat, or run away. Similar to Resident Evil 4, makeshift barricades can be used to fend off enemies.The inventory management mechanic is similar to that of Resident Evil 4, featuring a briefcase and the ability to move and rotate items for better storage space. Players can buy supplies, weapons, upgrades, and items from a merchant called the Duke. The players can hunt animals in the village and have them cooked into dishes by the Duke. Eating side dishes allows the player to gain certain advantages such as decreasing the damage taken while blocking. Treasures and collectibles can be found around the village, and sold to the Duke for currency.
Players can manually save the game progress by locating and using typewriters, which replaces the tape recorders in Resident Evil 7 and marks their first appearance in a mainline game since Resident Evil 4. A map of the village can be accessed from the pause menu, as well as a diary with sketches recapping the player's progress in the story so far. Two features added to the game were photo mode, which allow to screenshot in-game moments, and a button to skip cutscenes.
The Mercenaries Mode, an arcade-style game mode of past Resident Evil games, returns in Village. In this mode, players fight through timed stages, and purchase items and upgrades from the Duke's Emporium. Players who purchased Village also received Resident Evil Re:Verse, a six-player online multiplayer third-person shooter. After nearly a year and half delay, Re:Verse was activated in October 2022. IGN criticized the balancing of the game, lack of content, and aggressive monetization, while GamingBolt stated that Re:Verse is the worst Resident Evil game.
Synopsis
Setting
Resident Evil Village is set three years after the events of Resident Evil 7, largely on February 9, 2021. Ethan Winters returns as the protagonist, having defeated bioweapon Eveline in Resident Evil 7. Ethan has been living with his wife Mia and six-month-old daughter Rosemary when Chris Redfield—the protagonist of previous Resident Evil entries—and his men suddenly appear, murder his wife in cold blood, and kidnap him and his baby daughter. While Ethan and Rosemary are being transported in a van, a mysterious entity crashes it just outside the village. Ethan has to traverse the village to rescue Rosemary. The village is invaded by werewolf-like mutants called Lycans and governed by four different mutant lords, each controlling their own forces from strongholds within the village. Lady Dimitrescu, a tall aristocrat vampire, resides at Castle Dimitrescu with her three daughters Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela, and mutated female attendants. The hallucination-inducing and ghost-like Donna Beneviento rules from her mansion, House Beneviento, and acts through her puppet Angie. The grotesque Salvatore Moreau operates from a reservoir in close proximity to the village and is described as a "merman". Karl Heisenberg, who can manipulate electromagnetic fields, leads a group of Soldat simulacra from a contemporary factory. All houses respond to a supreme leader figure called Mother Miranda, the witch-like ruler of the village who is a "presence worshipped by the villagers."Plot
Three years after the events of Resident Evil 7, Ethan and his wife Mia have been relocated to Europe by Chris Redfield to start a new life with their newborn daughter Rosemary. One night, Chris and his Hound Wolf Squad raid the house, assassinate Mia, and abduct Ethan and Rosemary. The next morning, an unconscious Ethan awakens beside the crashed transport truck and discovers that Rosemary is missing. Making his way through a dark forest, he finds a mysterious village being terrorized by werewolf-like creatures called Lycans. Ethan finds surviving villagers holed-up in a house but fails to save them during an attack and is captured by Karl Heisenberg and brought before the village priestess Mother Miranda and her lords: Alcina Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, Salvatore Moreau and Heisenberg himself. Ethan evades a death trap set by Heisenberg and ventures into Dimitrescu's castle in hopes of finding Rosemary, with help from a mysterious merchant known as the Duke. Ethan eliminates Dimitrescu and her daughters, finding a flask containing Rosemary's head. The Duke explains that Miranda placed Rosemary's body parts in four different flasks for a special ritual, and that she can be restored if Ethan recovers the other flasks, held by the remaining lords.While killing Beneviento and Moreau for their flasks, Ethan learns that the Hound Wolf Squad & Chris are also present in the village. Ethan passes a test from Heisenberg for the fourth flask and is invited to the lord's factory, where Heisenberg proposes they defeat Miranda together. Ethan refuses, once he learns Heisenberg intends to weaponize Rosemary, and escapes. Venturing through the factory, Ethan encounters and confronts Chris over Mia's death, Chris reveals that "Mia" was actually Miranda in disguise. Chris reveals that Miranda possesses the power of mimicry and was attempting to abduct Rosemary, succeeding when she crashed the transport truck. Chris destroys Heisenberg's factory while Ethan uses a makeshift armored tank to kill Heisenberg. After the battle, Miranda reveals herself and mocks Ethan, revealing her plans to take Rosemary as her own. She then rips his heart out, killing him.
Witnessing Ethan's death, Chris leads Hound Wolf to extract Rosemary while a Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance assault force distracts Miranda. Chris enters a cave beneath the village and discovers the Megamycete, the source of the mold. He plants a bomb on the Megamycete lair and finds Miranda's lab, learning that she has lived a century since coming into contact with the fungus, and was a mentor to the Umbrella Corporation's founder Oswell E. Spencer; Oswell used her knowledge to develop the T-Virus. Miranda experimented with the fungus in an attempt to revive her deceased daughter, Eva, who had succumbed to the Spanish flu a century ago; the four lords, Lycans, and Eveline were all failed experiments. Rosemary, however, is a suitable host, due to her special abilities inherited from Ethan and Mia. Chris rescues the imprisoned Mia, who reveals that Ethan should still be alive, due to his "special" nature.
Ethan revives after encountering Eveline in limbo, who reveals that he had died in his first encounter with Jack Baker in Dulvey, 3 years ago but was revived by her mold, which gave him regenerative powers. The Duke brings Ethan to the ritual site where Miranda attempts to revive Eva, but ends up reviving Rosemary instead. Enraged, she battles Ethan, who kills her, before the Megamycete emerges from the ground. Ethan, with his regenerative powers finally having reached their limit, sacrifices himself to detonate the bomb planted on the Megamycete, while Chris transports Mia and Rosemary to safety. As Mia mourns Ethan's death, Chris learns that the BSAA soldiers sent to investigate the village were organic bioweapons and orders his squad to head for the BSAA's European headquarters to find those responsible. Years later, the teenaged Rosemary—who now goes by Rose—visits Ethan's grave before being called away on a mission for the BSAA. As she and her escort drive off into the distance, an unknown figure approaches the vehicle.
''Shadows of Rose''
Rose, now sixteen years old, has been separated from Mia while under the protection of Chris. She has become a social outcast due to her abilities gained from the Megamycete, and resents her powers. Canine, a member of the Hound Wolf Squad, informs her that, according to Miranda's research, there is a Purifying Crystal within the realm of the Megamycete that can remove Rose's abilities. He proposes that Rose finds the rest of Miranda's research within the sea of consciousnesses stored within the Megamycete fragment that the team has salvaged. Rose uses her powers for her consciousness to enter the Megamycete, where she discovers herself in a realm similar to Dimitrescu's castle. She finds it covered in spewing mold, with monsters led by a masked version of the Duke hunting and killing clones of herself. She encounters a guiding spirit whom she names Michael. Despite Michael's advice to leave the Megamycete, Rose persists, wanting to rid herself of her powers. With Michael's help, Rose escapes the castle but falls into a deeper stratum within the Megamycete.Rose finds herself in a replica of Beneviento's house, where she relives her traumatic childhood of constant bullying by her schoolmates, and the realm's leader tells her it's her father's fault she received her undesired powers. To comfort Rose, Michael shows her a realm similar to her house as a baby, where she finds a letter for her written by her father, saying that he loves her and will always be by her side. She is immediately pulled out of the realm and brought back to the previous one by the realm's perpetrator who reveals herself to be Eveline, seeking to kill Rose out of jealousy over being a failed and unloved experiment. Michael once again helps Rose escape.
Rose finds herself in yet another deeper stratum that resembles the village where she was kidnapped. There, she discovers and uses the Purifying Crystal, which absorbs her powers. Just then the consciousness of Miranda appears, who reveals that the man "Canine" Rose spoke with was an illusion to lure her into the Megamycete. Still determined to revive her daughter Eva, Miranda intends to use Rose's consciousness as a vessel now that she is powerless. Michael immediately manifests, revealing himself to be Ethan's consciousness within the Megamycete, and helps Rose escape, but Miranda catches up to them. Ethan encourages Rose to leave and battles Miranda himself. Seeing her father in danger, Rose is reluctant to leave, but when she hears his agonizing cries, she breaks the crystal and embraces her powers, gaining them back once again, along with some new ones. Rose fights and defeats Miranda, finally destroying her existence once and for all. Rose embraces her father, who apologizes for not being there during her upbringing, but says that he is proud of her. Rose's consciousness then leaves the Megamycete. The post-credits scene from the base game plays out.