Bee Barnes
MINIMAL SPOILERS AHEAD
Resident Evil: Village is the much-anticipated sequel to the game that revived the Resident Evil series. While Biohazard was a love letter to the subgenres that make horror so fantastic, Village is an homage to the biggest monsters that fill the horror genre. Werewolves (lycans), vampires, and possessed dolls, oh my!
Frankly speaking, the lycans are the main reason I wanted to play this game. Yes, I wanted to know how Ethan’s story continued, but primarily it was the werewolves. I’m autistic; werewolves and lycans have been my special interest since I was in elementary school. Of course, I had to play the dang game!
Unfortunately, the lycans weren’t as big a part of the game as I had hoped they would be. Story of my life, honestly. There’s never a big, muscled werewolf to sweep me off my feet when I need one. But I enjoyed meeting Ethan in Biohazard, so I was excited to see what the devs put him through this time.
So let’s talk about the story. If you’ve seen the trailers or read the back of the game box, this review will spoil nothing. If you haven’t seen a lick about this game and want to remain unspoiled about it, turn away until we get to the gameplay conversation. It will be appropriately labelled as such.
THE STORY
Set three years after the harrowing events of Biohazard, Ethan and his wife Mia have settled into a cozy European village to build their life together. Things are finally going well for the little family.
That is, until Chris Redfield barges in and turns their entire world upside down. Cue the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song. After Chris’ chaotic re-entrance into Ethan and Mia’s lives, Ethan ends up in the ruins of a different (I think) mountainside village with a mission to find his loved ones.
Without going into spoilers, I enjoyed the story. It wasn’t the most masterfully written thing, I’ll admit that. But it had heart, and I want to give it credit for that, even though it didn’t draw me in very well. It’s a story about family, and damn if I’m not usually a sucker for a tale of a man fighting to save who and what he loves most in this world. Just about any story that tells you, “you can do hard things,” will grab me. Unfortunately, this didn’t hit the way I wanted it to. There’s a spoiler here that I won’t get into, but it’s a driving force for Ethan’s story, and as the player, I felt little to none of his desperation.
Given my bias, there were still a few NPC villager interactions that didn’t quite make sense for me. And why did all the supposed ‘European’ villagers have American accents? Don’t even get me started on the strange under- and overacting from the VAs at inappropriate times. But if you can get through the first area, you’ll be in the clear for 80% of the cheesy dialogue.
I have a lot of gripes with the writing, but I think the writers scrape by with a decently put together narrative.
⭐⭐⭐
THE GAMEPLAY
Okay, this is where you can come back if you want to avoid story spoilers. I’m just going to talk about how the game felt to play in this section. We should be safe here.
The biggest complaints I’ve seen floating around for Biohazard really boiled down to three points. The first being that Ethan didn’t react to anything happening to him. Players felt he was a one-dimensional character that didn’t lend to the tension. Frankly, I can’t tell you whether I agree. I was so locked into Biohazard that all my reactions felt like Ethan’s reactions.
I genuinely cannot recall a single Biohazard reaction that came strictly from Ethan. Maybe that proves their point. Maybe that’s immersion.
Maybe it’s Maybelline.
Regardless, Ethan emotes now. He reacts to everything. Like an action figure programmed with 22 distinct catch-phrases, Ethan can now express his fear and confusion at the horrors we all witness together. There’s this line that rings through my head regularly, and if you’ve played the game, you probably know what I’m thinking of. Put your favorite Ethan reaction line in the comments. I bet a lot of us share the same one hahaha.
My issue with Ethan’s reactions is that they regularly took me out of my immersion. If the character goes through something intense, if the impact is strong, I’m going to react to it, and that will make me feel like the danger in the game is more genuine. While I enjoyed a couple of Ethan’s outbursts, the vast majority of the time, I just wanted him to shut up. When I play games, I want to feel as though I’m the playable character. I’m supposed to be Ethan, looking for my [REDACTED], but Ethan keeps giving his own input.
Do you think that’s how demons feel when their host gains consciousness for a minute?
The second complaint I’ve seen is that players felt the map of the last game was too small. They felt claustrophobic, locked in the moulding bayou. Personally, I think that was the point. The devs wanted us to feel trapped, like we had no haven to hide in, and it worked.
In Village, we have the opposite problem. The map is so large and so empty (especially once you breach the initial village and reach the castle) that I kept wanting enemies to find me so there would be some sort of action or engagement. At certain points, it felt like the game leaned into ‘walking simulator’ territory. And I’ve unironically enjoyed literal walking simulators before, so it’s not as though I’m labelling it as such to be derogatory.
Unfortunately, these sections just bored me. While in RE:2, RE:3, and RE:7, there was the ever-present threat of Tyrant, Mr. X, or Jack Baker and his family, RE:8 mostly left me out in the cold all by my lonesome. Sure, there were a few enemies around the castle grounds, but more often than not, the lack of enemies left me feeling like there was no pressure to complete the puzzles ahead of me quickly.
Conversely, there are moments where the devs seem to suddenly realize, “Oh my god, we haven’t made the player fight anything in a while!” and send a handful of enemies at you for a five-minute gunfight. Then, once that’s done, they breathe a sigh of relief and set the player back on the linear path to the next puzzle.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed some linear games. Examples include God of War, Until Dawn, The Last of Us, and more. I think it boils down to this: I wish I had enjoyed the first half of Village as much as I loved the second half. The factory was my favorite part to play in. The stakes felt more serious there. Whether that’s because the area was more populated with a variety of monsters, the engaging and often dangerous environments, or both, I’m not sure, but if I decide to revisit Village, I plan to speed through the first half to get to the good stuff.
Don’t get me started on the puzzles. Goodness. They barely count as such! No consequences for failure, most items are handed to the player. A young child could solve them without issue.
⭐⭐
THE SCARES
For me, this game wasn’t nearly as scary as Biohazard. The atmosphere feels very similar to how Resident Evil 4 felt. The grimy village, the spooky castle, the sudden enemies (though not as populated). It all feels like a loving callback to the most popular game in the original half of the series.
The thing is, RE: 4 wasn’t scary at all for me. Sure, there were some moments where my adrenaline spiked, but frankly… It was because I hate being rushed. Not because of any intimidation from the enemies. This installment seemed to set out wanting to learn from that, but it didn’t quite hit the mark. While Village took a deliberate step back from the heart-pounding, pants-wetting terror that they put into Biohazard, there were only a few moments that had me jumping in my seat.
Granted, upon reflection, most of those moments were because of an enemy lunging at me from behind a blind corner, and not really because of setup and established tension. I still got scared, though, so what does that say about me? Without going into details, of the four houses, I think the third had the strongest ‘horror’ atmosphere, but the gameplay during that section wasn’t as engaging as I’d hoped it would be.
⭐⭐
OVERALL
I’m sorry to say that this game, while I played it to the end, wasn’t all that interesting for me. For the lycans alone, I really wanted to love this game, but I couldn’t quite get there. I think I’m pretty easy to please, but this installment didn’t hit.
You know what’s funny, though? I LOVED the Winters’ Expansion DLC. That was a tightly written, linear story that felt engaging and exciting to play. It just made me that much more eager for Resident Evil: Requiem to be released on February 27th, 2026. See you all then!
Not including the DLC, I’m rating this installment of the Resident Evil series a solid 2 stars out of 5. The passion wasn’t there for me.
⭐⭐
