If there’s one thing I learned from the Resident Evil fanbase yesterday it’s this:
Oh, and there’s a story trailer for the upcoming game, a release date, a demo for the PS5, yes yes all of that stuff is equally important, I guess.
Before y’all think I’m only here to get skewered by a tall, pale-skinned goddess, let me just say that I’ve been a Resident Evil fan for decades. Resident Evil 2 is still one of my all-time favorite video games and I’ve enjoyed my time with the franchise.
For the most part.
I wasn’t too fond of the games that became more heavy action than horror, but I will say, there is a special place in my heart for boulder punching Chris Redfield.
Even so, it was nice to see a return to “sleep with the lights on” with Resident Evil VII and the remake for Resident Evil 2 pulled no punches when it came to scaring the shit out of my wife and me whenever that trenchcoat-wearing jackass stomped into the room.
So I’m glad to see that Resident Evil Village is sticking to the horror aspects of survival horror, this time with this absolutely monstrous diva.
First, let’s check out the story trailer.
It looks like Ethan is back and has actually managed to live a peaceful life after the nightmare that was Resident Evil VII. He’s also back to filming his wife, Mia, and is encouraging her to think positively about … something? She doesn’t sound too thrilled as we hear a bell chime and get sweeping shots of what I’m assuming is the village in the title, complete with a castle that’s rocking an interior design that screams SPENCER MANSION OMG RUN AWAY NOW! Honestly, everything is triggering all kinds of red flags and I hope this isn’t the thing Ethan’s telling Mia to be optimistic about because no, just, absolutely no.
Do white folks just not have that sense of dread that activates when they see a clear horror motif going on?
The trailer goes on to reveal the vampiric woman of everyone’s dreams. She’s talking to someone named Mother Miranda and is talking about how Ethan has escaped. He’s apparently in her castle and is giving her daughters a hard time. There’s some kind of ceremony coming up, one that I’m thinking Ethan is needed for? Or maybe Mia and Ethan’s trying to save her because I guess it’s his lot in life to have to find his wife all the damn time? Whatever the case, it stops the tall vampire from doing what she wants to do (which, I’m assuming, is kill Ethan) and she hangs up the phone.
Pausing this debriefing to say that her name is Lady Dimitrescu, according to the official Playstation Blog. Now I can stop calling her “tall vampire woman the fandom wants to have step on them.”
I’m not kidding, by the way.
BREAKING: The ESRB has created a new rating specifically for Resident Evil Village pic.twitter.com/brRsWjm2cJ
— Daura ‘Antifa’ Late Kale (@zzuBkaruaL) January 22, 2021
After that is a showcase of unsettling environments, more Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters (I’m guessing), something with a baby (who I think Chris Redfield is in the shot with?), and this dude who’s giving me strange Big Lebowski x Dark Souls vibes.
All we know at the moment is that he wants to see what Ethan’s made of. I’m sure it’ll work out just fine, nervous chuckle. Whether he’s a brand new character or an existing character with a new look hasn’t been revealed yet, and if the developers do what they did in the last game, we won’t find out until the end.
This all feels more supernatural than the previous game and, well, eviler. You can say that the Baker family in Resident Evil VII were all victims infected by Eveline, so it’s not really their fault that they got all murdery on us. Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters are clearly something other than human and I expect, at least, one extremely disturbing transformation sequence to occur. Lady Dimitrescu probably isn’t even a vampire, to be honest, but that’s the closest description we can give her until the game waxes on about whatever strand of virus or mold or whatever we’re dealing with this time.
What I do know is that Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters do seem to be having a grand ol’ time stalking after you, especially when you reach the end of the demo.
If you’re like me and don’t have a PS5, you can see the demo in its entirety here:
The demo does not have you play as Ethan. Instead, you’re playing as “The Maiden.” It’s no surprise that you’re not taking control of Ethan, after all, the Resident Evil VII demo from a couple of years back didn’t have Ethan involved at all even if he was that game’s protagonist.
The only thing I’m kinda bummed out about with the story trailer is the lack of grotesque monsters in it. It’s also something I thought was lacking in the previous game since, outside of the Baker family, there was only really one kind of monster to face. I miss the lickers, the infected animals, the infected villagers of Resident Evil 4 due to las plagas and all the other nightmare fuel I’d unload my ammo into.
That being said … I will regret saying that if this game comes at me with some randomly generated piss your pants scary abomination.
Resident Evil Village is set to release on May 7, 2021, and will be available on past gen AND current-gen Playstation and Xbox consoles along with PC.
(Image: Capcom)
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