Resident Evil 8: VIIIage

With the newest installment, Resident Evil 9: Requiem, releasing soon, I decided to play the entry I had missed, Resident Evil 8: VIIIage. Or RE: VIIIage. Or RE8. Or just Village. Honestly, since Capcom got cutesy with incorporating the numbering in the name of the entries its getting as nonsensical as the Fast & Furious franchise. For this review, I’m just going to call it RE: Village.

I started the game just to try it out for a couple of hours, and it ended up dominating my playtime as I put two other games on hold to see it through to completion!

Combining thrill ride, haunted house scares with the first-person terror of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Capcom made the most assured and enjoyable game in the franchise since Resident Evil 4 (original or remake, take your pick.)

3 years after the events of RE 7, Ethan and Mia Winters have settled into a quiet domestic life with their infant daughter, Rose. That is, until series badass Chris Redfield bursts in with soldiers, shoots Mia in the head several times, kidnaps Rose and knocks out Ethan.

Ethan (the player) wakes up in the remains of a wrecked van in the middle of the night and soon finds his way to a creepy village that happens to be infested with werewolves (lycans in the game’s scientific parlance). In no time, Ethan has a gun in hand, and the battle to survive the terrors of the village and rescue Rose begins.

What follows is a scary thrill ride for players as Ethan is once again thrust into a mystery with his family at the heart of a vast and terrible conspiracy.

On release, the gaming community was shocked (and saddened) to find out the mega-memed 9-foot-tall voluptuous vampire Lady Dimitrescu plays a much smaller role in the game than what the trailers led us to believe. While a major highlight, the cat-and-mouse game you play with her (and her three daughters) in Castle Dimitrescu is only the first of several distinct zones in the game, including the unnamed village itself.

Each zone is a different take on the horror game genre. Castle D is a return to the stalker gameplay of previous titles. Another is a creepy, terrifying psychological horror section more in line with Silent Hill, and yet another is a full-out gauntlet where the player throws everything they can at wave after wave of enemies to survive the onslaught.

By the time the credits roll after about 12 hours (depending on how much of the side content you engage with) the story has taken several satisfying twists and turns, culminating in a blockbuster ending that is appropriately weighty and fun to play. Never fear, the cheesy, overwrought dialogue the series is known for since the start is on full display at times, causing some inadvertent chuckles.

The weakest part of the game is Ethan himself. The developers made the odd choice of never really showing you Ethan’s face, yet they gave him a fully voiced personality. This is a carryover from RE7. The idea being that Ethan is an everyman and a faceless avatar for the player. Which is fine in theory for an RPG, but here the story and character are set in stone. There are no player choices that ultimately affect the outcome; the story is on rails with one ending.

Some cutscenes are awkwardly framed just to keep Ethan’s face out of view. Ultimately its a silly contrivance that calls more attention to itself than if they had just shown what the man looked like. It doesn’t help that, despite going through a similar ordeal three years previously in RE7, Ethan exclaims repeatedly, “What the hell is going on?!” as if he were somehow oblivious to the same information the player has been gathering the entire time. This disconnect makes it difficult to care much about Ethan as a character.

Luckily, the game is strong enough in all other areas to overlook the character weaknesses of the protagonist. I can’t overstate how beautiful this game is. RE 7 had a grim fidelity that was effective and creepy with aesthetics straight out of Se7en or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. RE: Village is like playing in a lush and gorgeous Hammer movie. Look at this!

In terms of gameplay, I’m not a big fan of stalker style gameplay, but I thought it was used well here. And I was personally happy that much of the game is a full-out action fest. On all but the highest levels of difficulty, the emphasis is on action over survival horror. The first-person perspective gets you up close and personal with the monstrosities, and they do not hesitate to get right in your face so you can see every snarling, rotting detail as you frantically try to put them down. More than once, a lunge from off-screen caused me to physically recoil in my seat and panic fire. The jump scares abound and are all well-engineered for maximum impact.

From the lycans, to ghouls, to zombies, to Borg-like abominations, to creepy dolls, to mutated fish people, RE: Village feels like a loving homage to the movies that inspired the franchise. If you are a hardcore fan of the Resident Evil franchise, you’ve already played this one. This review is for everyone like me who just hadn’t gotten to it. Give it a try, I was surprised how quickly I settled back into the rhythm of clearing out enemies, solving bizarre, obtuse puzzles to open a blocked door, rinse and repeat for several joyful hours.

More importantly, over the full run time, I never felt like the game wore out its welcome. A strong mixture of tension and cathartic release, Resident Evil 8: Village is a thrill ride well worth taking to its bloody, fiery finale.

Platform note: PS5 base model in performance mode. Rock-solid frame rate the entire playthrough.