LADY KILLER
Beginning with a scene of domestic bliss, our hero Ethan Winters (returning from Resident Evil 7) and his wife Mia prepare dinner and look after their newborn baby, Rosemary. Then something bad happens – I won’t say what, because it’s pretty shocking – and soon Ethan finds himself lost in an isolated village in a snowstorm, searching for his kidnapped child. It’s a sharp, sudden intro, but an effective one, immediately setting the stakes high and establishing Resident Evil Village’s brutal, sadistic tone.
Resident Evil Village almost has the feel of a horror anthology
It’s never explicitly stated where the village the game takes its name from is located, but a few clues point towards it being nestled somewhere in the wintry mountains of Romania. The village itself is a scrappy, ramshackle scattering of wood and brick houses, farmer’s fields, and the occasional church. Over it looms a gothic castle with immense spires, and there are also traces of ancient ruins, suggesting a long and strange history. It’s a magnificent setting, dripping with atmosphere, menace, and mystery. I wanted to explore every dingy corner of it.
DEAD SET
Ethan is a boring guy who always seems confused about what’s going on, and never has anything interesting to say. This makes him a slightly unremarkable protagonist, but his extreme normality does heighten the eccentricity of the village’s residents. The previous game’s Baker family were a relatively grounded bunch of ghouls, but here Capcom has seriously ramped up the monstrousness of its antagonists. As Ethan hunts for Rose, he goes up against an impossibly tall
