Thoughts on: Resident Evil Village

Four new mainline Resident Evil games in just 4 years… Even during the heyday of the series in the late 90s it didn’t happen quite as often. After trying to recapture the essence of the classic survival horror with flawed but wonderful Resident Evil 7 we got not less wonderful reimagining of Resident Evil 2, both of which managed to recapture the glory of the genre, while attempting new things. Then last year we had a disappointing attempt at a remake, but a very solid and fun linear survival action Resident Evil 3. And this year we get an attempt to mix 7 with 4, in Village (or as they stylize it VII.l.age, to show that it’s RE8). And it’s a really good, really well put together game. That I struggle to care much about.

I liked my first playthrough of RE Village a lot, mostly because of its strongest aspect – the exploration. It is genuinely fun to run around the beautiful locations of the game, finding treasures, new weapons or upgrades (just like in RE4) and just enjoying the views. And I did like the attempt to constantly spice things up – every “act”, so to speak, of Village works differently, focusing on different aspects of gameplay. It’s not exactly new for the series, and even 7, which this game is serving as a direct sequel to in terms of story, was very clearly divided into sections, each of which felt different. So Capcom tried to go even harder into this concept and on the first playthrough it is pretty fun and surprising.

Unfortunately, it is here, where I went from this really positive first playthrough impressions into the usual meat of any Resident Evil – the replayability. And quickly found myself utterly bored, even though I couldn’t quite understand why at first. I mean, there are multiple challenges and unlocks, most of which sound fun. There’s the return of The Mercenaries minigame that I never liked, but hey, it’s pretty well done too. There are additional difficulties that I could try. And there were still a couple things that I’ve managed to miss on my first playthrough. But none of it felt fun or exciting. And I’ve realized that the seeming variety of each act was extremely surface level. And, in fact, all of these acts just felt like they could be separate games that don’t fit into a whole experience when combined together. Which made me realize the core of my issues – the main gameplay of the game is really plain and boring.

What made RE4 tick was the fact that it’s core gameplay of running and shooting/kicking enemies was fun. It was somewhat clunky and the skill floor in that game was higher than, I’d argue, it should’ve been. But at the same time, it’s core mechanics and unique mix of weapons, each of which had it’s exclusive upsides and downsides, meant that you could find your own way of playing the game, that constantly challenged you. Even on its easiest difficulty with new game plus weaponry, there was fun to be had with its basics.

RE Village instead takes RE7 core, that was made with specific weapon, enemy and level design in mind, and drops more enemies and more weapons on top. All newer weapons in the game are straight up upgrades to the older ones. All enemies feel the same, despite seemingly having unique elements to them. And killing enemies feels like the most blandest FPS you’ve ever played. Sure, it’s challenging you far more on harder difficulties, but it’s more frustrating than fun specifically because the basics are plain and uninteresting. Where’s the counter punch from Not a Hero? Where are some clever tricks with specific weapons to learn as you play? Where’s the management of resources that’s actually fun?

And sadly, the story, which is always the least important point for enjoying RE games, is really boring too, despite having promise. Ethan is as much of a non-character as he was in 7, except this time the game goes to such great lengths to avoid showing his face in cutscenes, that it feels like a bad b-movie that’s not showing the unmasked villain to keep the mystery until later. Connections (no pun intended) to older games feel shoehorned and are simply dropped in files you can walk past. Chris remains the least interesting main character of the series, despite yet another attempt to give him something. And the villains lack the charisma and screen time of the Baker family or even the characters from RE3 (2020). I guess, it’s fun that all of those RE4 prototypes, the so called RE 3.5 demos, have been finally made into a game.

Resident Evil Village is a really well made, really good game that is fun to play once. But it’s also the only RE title I can think of, that doesn’t have anything special I could really hold on to, while even the worst or most frustrating games in the series before this one usually had something. It is weird to think that an RE game would have such bland action mechanics, especially one being so focused on the action aspect. But here we are. And even though it’s a really good game, I don’t really care much about it.