Today, during the “Resident Evil Showcase”, Capcom announced that Resident Evil Village will be coming to not only PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC but also PS4 and Xbox One (both of which can be upgraded to their next gen versions for free). All versions of the game are slated for release on May 7th 2021 and preorders will be open starting today. Along with that they announced a “Digital Deluxe Edition” that will be available for pre-order on all platforms and a physical “Collector’s Edition” for all consoles that includes a Chris Redfield mini-statue, artbook, poster, and special steel-book case for the game.
Resident Evil Village sees the return of Ethan Winters, the protagonist of Resident Evil 7, this time he is looking for his kidnapped baby daughter. There was also news of a playable demo out today (exclusively for PS5 though) where you can play as an unarmed character simply referred to as the “Maiden”. All other platforms will get a demo later in Spring.
The beloved “Merchant” system from Resident Evil 4 returns as a very large guy named “The Duke” who sells you weapons. Another returning mechanic from RE4 is the use of the Tetris-like briefcase inventory system, a fan favorite. There was also some gameplay footage of Ethan dealing with one of the denizens of the new castle area of the game, a female character that can turn into a swarm of bugs (hallucination or mystical being?). We also saw portion of the game where Ethan was in a dungeon-like environment fending off shambling humanoid creatures armed with swords and a quick cut to him being outside skirmishing with a giant hammer wielding creature similar to El Gigante from RE4.
From what we have seen from trailers and gameplay footage, this very tall woman in the center and her “daughters” will serve as some of the game’s main antagonists. Image from Capcom
The New Game Mode And Film
Along with that we also got the reveal of a separate multiplayer game (mode) called RE: Verse that is included free with a copy of Village. RE:Verse appears to be a mercenaries style mode from past Resident Evil games with different areas and playable characters from the most recent RE games. Capcom briefly showed a video with the player playing as various RE protagonists (and antagonists like Nemesis and Jack Baker) fighting off hunters and other creatures. Honestly it looked pretty rough, let’s hope the game looks more polished by it’s summer release. It appears to be the pack-in game for Village much like Resident Evil Resistance was the pack-in game for last year’s Resident Evil 3 Remake.
Promotional art for Re: Verse from today’s showcase. Depicted are memorable antagonists Nemesis, Jack Baker, and Hunk. All of whom appear to be playable. Image from Capcom.
Later in the presentation an executive from Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment team, Yannick Banchereau, announced a cross-collaboration with Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 to celebrate Resident Evil‘s 25th Anniversary. “For a limited time you will be able to collect some of the iconic outfits and items from the original Resident Evil trilogy. Everyone that logs in during the event will get Leon Kennedy’s Racoon Police Department outfit as warm-up” Banchereau said. The event will occur between February 2nd until February 15th. Almost makes me want to get The Division 2 myself. Lastly we got another look at the 3D CGI film, Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness which is slated to come exclusively to Netflix later this year. All we know so far is that film stars Claire Redfield and Leon S. Kennedy a couple of years after the events of RE4. To watch the full showcase yourself you can find it here. I am very much excited about all the Resident Evil news we got today and I can’t wait to get back into Capcom’s world of Survivor-Horror!
Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness sees the return of series veterans Claire Redfield and Leon S. Kennedy taking on another zombie threat. Image from Capcom.
Are you thrilled about Resident Evil Village or any of the other Resident Evil media we got to see today? Maybe you are over the Resident Evil hype? Let us know and comment below. To keep up with all geek and gaming news subscribe to out website and follow our Facebook here and our Twitter here.
