Resident Evil Village | PS4 Review

Resident Evil has always been a war between fan expectations and the reality of the games. We crave each entry to be bleeding with horror and tension, but in truth the games always transform into B movie action nonsense by the end. Now don’t get me wrong, I love that. Action and horror are two things that have always gone well together in my opinion, and I’ve enjoyed nearly every Resident Evil title. I just think there’s a cycle (similar to one Sonic fans go through) where we hope for a horror game, and end up with an action one.

Resident…Evil…

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard went hard on the horror and was an unforgettable experience because of it, but as sure as the sky is blue, the final hours turned it into a full-blown shooter. Resident Evil Village makes little allusions about what it wants to be. After the mind-bogglingly bad first hour (it nearly turned me off the game entirely), the game takes hold of its identity and lets you know we’re in action land.

The standard enemies here are lycans, which move with a little more speed than your average zombie. They’re also wiry little bastards, dashing to and fro dodging your crosshairs. Of course, there’s plenty of other enemies you’ll face down, and they’re almost all pretty fun to fight. But gone is any concern at all for ammunition or inventory space. You can even craft more bullets in the field with crafting materials that have an insanely high drop rate and don’t take up any of that precious inventory room. There’s no tension in deciding whether or not you should fight these foul creatures. Resident Evil Village makes it explicitly clear: shoot everything. Even the fish.

Vampire Ladies and Werewolf Bros

That’s not the sizable indictment on the game as it might read. The shooting is actually pretty fun, even if it’s way easier to make a shot here than it was in Resident Evil 7 or even the Resident Evil 2 remake. And even with the action focus, there’s still plenty to explore. The titular village is a fun place to get to know intimately, and you’ll unlock tools throughout the game to explore it further. While I wouldn’t call it a gear-gated game by any means, it does add a thrill when you get to return to the village with the ability to find new areas. There are even entirely optional areas with a fun extra boss or two, so it’s worth checking out. The rewards you get for being a keen adventurer are always worth it.

You might have noticed I’ve not touched on the story as much as I usually do in my reviews, and there’s definitely some reasons for that. Right off the bat, I want to discuss the elephant in the room. The marketing has largely focused on Lady Dimitrescu and Chris Redfield.

Minor spoilers until the end of the paragraph:

Both of these characters are minor roles in the game, at best. I only mention that because it frankly feels a bit misleading, particularly in regards to Chris. I don’t fault Capcom for leaning into the internet darling Lady Dimitrescu became, and I seriously believe she’s a large (heh) reason for the major hype train the game’s been enjoying. Chris, on the other hand, is on the box art. So you might expect him to play a large role, but he really doesn’t. His role pays off by the end of the story, but the marketing remains misleading.

Sad Dad, Good Dad

Now about Ethan Winters. Here’s a man that survived the tumultuous event at the Baker Residence, and is enjoying a peaceful retirement with his family. We find him blissful with his wife Mia and daughter Rose as Resident Evil Village begins. Of course things go haywire, and now Ethan has to track his daughter down, having been seemingly kidnapped by series’ hero Chris Redfield. That’s a strong enough start for any game, but oh boy does Village go some places.

Resident Evil is a goofy franchise. For many years, primary villain Albert Wesker dressed in The Matrix cosplay as he dodged bullets and used super speed. Chris Redfield infamously punched a boulder. Resident Evil 6 had a freakin Bioweapon T-Rex. Resident Evil 4 saw Leon S. Kennedy dodging his way through a laser beam hallway. This is all some serious nonsense, but it’s always been fun nonsense. Resident Evil Village cranks it up to eleven.

I can’t even tell you the McGuffin you’re tracking down in the game because it is so mind-numbingly stupid. It immediately sets a tone you can’t take seriously, no matter how deeply the game leans into horror trappings. Ethan gets so humorously over-the-top brutalized throughout the game, you never feel worry or fear for his safety. I wanted so desperately to care about the creepy world Ethan is exploring, but then out comes a half man, half jet engine that makes me laugh out loud it’s so dumb. It’s not the fun kind of dumb for which Resident Evil is known and loved for; it’s just dumb.

Don’t Become an Ethan Sandwich

I should mention the game goes to some lengths near the end to explain some of the absurdity, but it comes too late and is pretty silly, even by franchise standards. I’ve played every Resident Evil game and can’t think of anything that comes close to these levels of ridiculousness. Even the merchant of the game, The Duke, stands out as being absurd. Whereas the famous merchant of Resident Evil 4 works because he exists as this silly thing outside of the story, The Duke is woven into it at a few different points as a deus ex machina and exposition machine. The game even hand waves away any potential explanation. It draws direct attention to something we could’ve all appreciated together otherwise as being fun and silly.

This isn’t to say aspects of it aren’t fun. Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters actually do manage to live up to their hype with scenery-chewing delight. In fact, all Four Lords are pretty delightful villains. The game is structurally broken down into the village and four offshoot areas each overseen by a particular villain. Dimitrescu’s castle is tremendous, but so is the doll-themed horror house that follows. It put genuine terror into my veins as the game spends a couple hours focused on pure horror, and really works as an example of what P.T. might’ve been.

There’s a lake area that starts off simple, but becomes a pretty great affair with the closest the game gets to actual puzzle-solving. The final factory area? The less said, the better. It’s filled with the only boring enemies in the game, is filled with laughably bad attempts at body horror, and is just drab to look at for hours on end. But again, each of these zones is overseen by a boss character that is fun and interesting.

The Uneven Rollercoaster

Ultimately, I come away from Resident Evil Village with mixed feelings. The highs are high, but the lows are low. I don’t know if I’ve ever played a game where the beginning and end are both so disappointing, but the middle is really great. Those several hours after your major foes are introduced are often spectacular. A lot of the minute-to-minute gameplay is fairly compelling, but I doubt you’ll get invested in the overall story. You will definitely find the drive to push through to the end, however. It’s undeniably engaging and filled with surprises, even if it is also an occasional slog.

To hear me talk more about Resident Evil Village, be sure to listen to Episode 345 of The Gaming Outsider Podcast.

This review is based on a purchased PS4 copy of Resident Evil Village. It is also available on PlayStation 5, Xbox, PC, and Google Stadia.