MAJOR spoilers for Resident Evil Village
During the Resident Evil portion of the Capcom Showcase, we got some big news about Resident Evil Village. Last year’s haunting trek into a, well, village, continued where Resident Evil 7 left off. After losing limbs (again) and surviving terrifying (and sexy?) encounters, the game actually ends on a bit of a cliffhanger.
I didn’t expect to see what happens next for a while, but with the announcement of The Winter’s Expansion, Capcom revealed that we’re getting expanded game modes AND the next part of the Winters’ family story. Taking place 16 years after Resident Evil Village, Shadows of Rose will let us take control of Ethan Winters’ daughter, Rose.
What happened at the end of Resident Evil Village?
Ethan goes from having to rescue his wife, Mia, in Resident Evil 7, to having to rescue his daughter in Resident Evil Village. Baby Rose has been separated into four different pieces that four different lords now have a hold of (Alcina Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, Salvatore Moreau, and Karl Heisenberg). Don’t worry, he can restore her if he gets all the pieces back together. That’s how babies work in Resident Evil land, at least when they’re the child of a protagonist who teeeeechnically died in the previous game.
Ethan finds out he died during his first run-in with the Baker family in RE7, he was just revived by the mold Eveline (that game’s antagonist) used. This explains his regenerative powers, aka, why he was able to pop his chopped-off hand back on in RE Village. Ethan goes on to fight the final boss of RE Village, Mother Miranda. She’s been trying to revive her daughter Eva, who died from the Spanish flu, by experimenting with the Megamycete (the source of all the mold). We find out that she is the reason behind the creation of pretty much every antagonist (including RE7’s Eveline), they were all her attempts at reviving Eva. Oh, and she was a mentor for Umbrella’s founder, so say hello to the T-Virus. After Ethan kills Miranda, we get a classic “the self-destruct sequence has been activated” moment… kinda. Ethan stays behind to detonate the bomb that Chris Redfield planted on the Megamycete. In return, Chris makes sure Rose (who is now back together again) and Mia are far enough away from the blast to survive.
We get a time jump where we see a teenage Rose visiting her father’s grave, which is what the DLC trailer opens with. She talks about having “a lot of tests” and how “duty calls” when a man in black shows up to pick her up from the cemetery. She’s told they have a “situation,” and after the guy jokingly calls her Eveline, she warns him that there are things she can do that not even Chris knows she can do. She gets in the truck while the man is told that someone “has a clear shot,” which hints at Rose being watched to the point of someone being there to take her out if she snaps. The man tells them not to, and he drives off with Rose – after she belittles herself for not being able to keep it together.
What we know about Shadows of Rose so far
In the first clip we see for the Shadows of Rose DLC, we see that Rose really just wants to live a normal life. Of course, there’s a zero percent chance of that happening, as we get a mix of her remembering Ethan and remembering disparaging remarks made about her and her abilities. We see her entering some kind of mansion (is it Lady D’s place?) and getting warning messages to turn back. After that, she meets a girl who looks just like her, then runs into a man who seems very eager to pursue a new “little rabbit.” He’s wearing a mask, but I’m wondering if this is the Duke that served as the merchant in RE Village.
The second clip gives us more details. Here, we learn that Rose actually wants to get rid of her powers. We’re told she’s been struggling with them, and from the way RE Village ended it seems like she’s been taking tests to try to control them. Apparently, Shadows of Rose will have her entering the consciousness of the Megamycete, which is where she meets the second Rose (I’m going to assume that it’s a part of herself) and where it looks like a lot of the game will be taking place.
The part about how this realm warping time and space “beyond recognition” makes me wonder if Rose is going to start seeing blips of this place in reality. Are we going to get some Heather Silent Hill 3 vibes with this? Rose is also guided by a being called Michael, but we aren’t shown who that is. Perhaps that’s the character who I said might be the Duke? Either way, Rose is going to have to deal with the monsters that appear and the environment itself, according to the trailer.
While we do see her with a gun in hand, I really do hope we get to use her powers as well (and not just from something being cut off and being reattached). I know she’s trying to get rid of her abilities, but if she’s spent all this time with men in black conducting tests and whatnot, it would stand to reason that she can do more than use a firearm. Ethan wasn’t aware of his regenerative powers until the end of RE Village, but Rose is going in knowing she’s got supernatural abilities. I want to be able to use them, at least a little bit.
Resident Evil Village: The Winter’s Expansion (which includes Shadows of Rose) will be released on October 28, 2022.
(Featured image: Capcom)
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