The first hour of Resident Evil Village sets a very tense vibe by fusing brooding, atmospheric horror with rollercoaster firefights that bring Ethan perilously close to death. And like an ultramarathon runner, Village keeps up this exhilarating pace right up until the credits roll. Due to his voyage, Ethan must investigate a run-down shantytown, bloody wine cellars, and an eerie house filled with animated porcelain dolls. These settings make the ideal stage for a string of terrifying encounters.
It had to stop and gather my breath after a terrifying gunfight with a growling truck-sized dog, and my stomach churned as a malformed baby-like mutant followed me into a poorly lit cellar. Village is one of the scariest Resident Evil games to date thanks to its excellent opponent and setting design.
Resident Evil Village is a deserving sequel to the highly regarded Resident Evil, however where that game succeeded in bringing back the survival horror foundations of the franchise, Resident Evil Village expands on it with an adventure that incorporates all the series’ best moments. Capcom has at last discovered the recipe that would excite longtime Resident Evil fans as well as attract newbies, while also taking some much-needed risks.
Resident Evil 7 prioritized survival horror and exploration over action, but Village partially strikes a balance. Resident Evil Village marries the survival horror components that we love about previous editions with a more action-focused approach than its predecessor and gameplay that is obviously closer to the original Resident Evil 4. Resident Evil Village is yet another installment’s high point when all the quality-of-life enhancements, a cast of endearing characters, a fast-moving and suspenseful plot, and excellent use of in-game music are taken into account.
About
- Release date: May 7, 2021
- Platform(s): PS5, PC, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One
- Developer: Capcom
- Publisher: Capcom
- Genre: Action, Survival horror, First-person
- Price:
System Requirements
- CPU: Intel Core i5-7500 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200
- RAM: 8 GB
- Platform: Windows 10
- File Size: 50 GB
- Memory: 16 GB
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 with 4GB VRAM ／ AMD Radeon RX 560 with 4GB VRAM
- DX: Version 12
- Processor: Intel Core i5-7500/AMD Ryzen 3 1200
Design
Resident Evil Village due to his voyage, Ethan must investigate a run-down shantytown, bloody wine cellars, and an eerie house filled with animated porcelain dolls. These settings make the ideal stage for a string of terrifying encounters. I had to stop and gather my breath after a terrifying gunfight with a growling truck-sized dog, and my stomach churned as a malformed baby-like mutant followed me into a poorly lit cellar. Village is one of the scariest Resident Evil games to date thanks to its excellent opponent and setting design.
The sound design for Resident Evil Village is related to the English localization, notably how strange it sounded to hear people from a secret Eastern European village speaking in a contemporary American accent. it completely understand that it would be a costly undertaking and am painfully aware of how strongly this is an English-centric issue. Given how flawless the rest of the game’s design is, it’s not a major concern, but it did somewhat detract from the experience.
Without spoiling what’s to come, each of these environments varies quite a bit, with the Resident Evil Village itself (a central hub for all locations) changing over time too. It helps to keep gameplay fresh, especially given that the design of Resident Evil games often sees you retreading old steps. We found that each location seemed to hark back to a specific entry in the Resident Evil series, with the castle reminiscent of the original Resident Evil Village mansion in layout – the village, meanwhile, recalls the opening location of the fourth entry. Village feels like both a tribute and a step forward for the series.
Gameplay
While Resident Evil Village initially reminds players of Resident Evil 7, Capcom has made a few significant adjustments that significantly increase the emphasis on battle rather than creeping. It is fundamentally the same. The objective of the first-person exploration game is to discover the hamlet, which is divided into several separate regions each controlled by one of Miranda’s four lords.
The difficulty is in avoiding the swarms of aggressive enemies in each section while also figuring out how to open doors or other obstructions to your progress utilizing tools, weapons, and keys you come across along the way. Like in every Resident Evil game, players have access to a variety of weaponry, from simple pistols and shotguns to more potent magnum hand cannons and grenade launchers, all of which may be enhanced via findable attachments.
Herbs and medical kits still serve as the primary means of healing, and a sophisticated crafting system allows you to make essential goods like ammo. The main distinction is that Ethan now has access to a far wider variety of powerful attacks, tools, and upgrades. To begin with, Ethan now possesses a block that he may employ to lessen the impact of oncoming blows. Additionally, you may use his kick option to drive away lesser foes before they can mangle you. These tweaks may seem little, but when combined with the resident evil 4-inspired weapon upgrading system in the game, they give Ethan a significantly more intimidating feeling than he had in the prior title.
Character
Resident Evil Village third section is okay, but it lacks some real substance and has a weird tempo that makes it seem like it’s going very quickly and skips parts without letting you know. Although the fourth section is strong and has one of the more engaging personalities, its “thing” can become a touch boring. Naturally, there’s more after that, but I won’t tell anything.
They are all willing to torment and maim you while not especially like one another, and their interactions with Ethan and one another give their personalities depth. Overall, this Resident Evil narrative isn’t the finest, but it is a terrifying adventure with entertaining antagonists. It’s simply a shame that more effort wasn’t spent wrapping up all the loose ends in RE7’s plot or connecting it to the rest of the franchise.
Resident Evil Village Reverse, a multiplayer-focused game where you battle other players as both Resident Evil protagonists and monsters, is another feature of the Village bundle. Reverse is expected to go on sale separately for Village purchasers later this summer, but it wasn’t included of our review copy.
Sound
The audio in Resident Evil is the genuine star of the horror. Resident Evil Village supports PS5 3D audio, so long as you’re using Sony’s most recent system and a compatible headset. This mimics spatial audio and lets you hear noises originating from where they originate, much like you would if you were actually playing the game. It lets you to hear every drip in a dungeon and every scratchy breath of an enemy, making it ideal for a horror game like Village, especially in smaller structures.
But sometimes what you don’t hear is just as important as what you do hear. We discovered that we were dependent on audio to let us know when an opponent was around, so when Capcom purposefully prevented an adversary from making any sound at all, it caught us off guard, to put it mildly. The only issue we have with the 3D audio is that you have to manually adjust your audio settings in order to obtain the best sound quality because the game doesn’t automatically detect when you switch between TV and headset audio.
Visuals
Resident Evil Village stunning aesthetics are maybe best displayed at Castle Dimitrescu, but the entire game is just ridiculously lovely. Every object and surface in the settings has a palpable coating of dirt and texture, and they are wonderfully lighted and detailed. Even at high resolutions, it works smoothly, and raytracing produces stunning lighting and reflections. The character designs are likewise outstanding, and the group is brought to life horrifyingly through emotive, effective animation. Although a tad hammy, the English voice acting generally fits these ridiculous, egotistical characters.
The majority of RE:V takes place in an unidentified town in Eastern Europe. The community is perched high in the mountains, which results in some very breathtaking views. Although this isn’t an open-world game in the conventional sense, the fact that you can effectively view over the several game sections from the top of Castle Dimutrescu is a remarkable achievement.
Graphics
While it may be difficult to determine what your PC is capable of, there are a series of meters directly below the settings that display the amount of graphics RAM being utilized as a result of your selections. Additionally, there are meters that show the amount of work being put into things like processing load, picture quality, model quality, lighting quality, and graphical effects quality. Sadly, there are no choices specifically for accessibility. If Capcom and other AAA firms were to consider inclusiveness the way Naughty Dog and Ubisoft have, it would be fantastic.
Performance
In fact, given that the game had just released, It was taken aback by how fluid it was. In Resident Evil Village for PC, you may choose a variety of visual options. You may organize the game into six clear settings using the Presets option on the Display tab. These settings are Recommended, Prioritize Performance, Balanced, Prioritize Graphics, Ray Tracing, and Max. You may adjust the display area, brightness, HDR modes, color space, display mode, screen resolution, refresh rate, frame rate, and V-Sync below the default settings.
The specific graphical options, such as rendering mode, image quality, FidelityFX CAS, anti-aliasing, variable rate shading, texture quality, texture filter quality, mesh quality, ray tracing, GI and reflection, light reflection, ambient occlusion, screen-space reflections, volumetric lighting quality, subsurface scattering, shadow quality, contact shadows, shadow cache, bloom, lens flare, film noise, depth of field, and lens distortion, are located beneath those settings.
Final Words
Following the horrors they experienced at the Baker estate, Ethan Winter, the protagonist of Resident Evil 7, has reconciled with Mia and is raising their new child in Resident Evil Village. However, Ethan is immediately thrown back into the world of bio-weapons and the monstrosities such weapons produce when the series’ protagonist, Chris Redfield, knocks on their door. He arrives in a dangerous community full of uncivilized werewolf-neighbors and starts out to find his daughter.
