Now Playing: Resident Evil Village

Resident Evil Village is set about 3 years after the events of Resident Evil 7. Once again, we’re playing as Ethan, this time searching not only for his wife, Mia, but for their daughter, Rose. Rose has been taken by the nefarious Mother Miranda to the titular Village and it’s up to Ethan to rescue her. Honestly, the story of Village is just a load of nonsense but this is Resident Evil so I really shouldn’t be surprised.

Like RE7, Village is a first person experience. And like 7, Village begins strongly but unfortunately loses its way towards the end. The village in Village acts like a central hub from which you will travel to four different haunted houses. That’s essentially what they are – haunted house rides each with a unique theme and boss.

The idea is that in order to rescue Rose from Miranda, Ethan first needs to take out the four Lords (bosses) of the village. Initially I thought I’d get to choose the order in which I tackled each boss but, no – you have to follow a very linear path through the game, taking each Lord in turn.

It’s kind of a shame because using the village as a hub and letting the player decide which Lord to tackle next would be another new twist on the RE formula – and it could have led to meaningful decisions for the player as each Lord could have unlocked different weapons, items or exploration tools and it would then be up to the player to prioritise what Lord to go for next.

But that’s not how the game works. Village is painfully linear. It really is like a haunted house ride – you just sit back and let the game carry you through. There’s always a singular track to follow and it always leads you from one key item to the next. The puzzle aspect that you might expect in RE is almost entirely absent.

Do you remember the Baker family from RE7? They were easily the best part of the game, injecting real personality into the experience and once Ethan had dealt with them, that’s when the game really lost its way. Village suffers from a very similar problem.

The first Lord you’ll face – Lady Dimitrescu AKA The Tall Lady – and her daughters are very similar to the Bakers in the way you interact with them as they taunt and hunt you. But their haunted house isn’t very long and within an hour or so (on a first run – you’ll probably clear it in 30 minutes on repeat play) you’ll be moving on to the next.

The good news is that the next Lord – Donna Beneviento – offers a very different haunted house experience, one without any combat and instead focuses more on tension, simple puzzle solving and horror. It’s great, but it’s also incredibly short – maybe 30 minutes for a first run. Like Dimitrescu and her daughters, Beneviento and her doll Angie are sadly underutilised.

Despite feeling like these Lords weren’t given the time or attention they deserved I was still enjoying Village a lot at this point and I was eager to see what the next two Lords – Moreau and Heisenberg – had to offer. But this, unfortunately, is where Village started to lose its way.

The Moreau section is just a bit crap, to be frank. Moreau turns into a giant fish monster and his haunted house just involves running from one floating platform to the next. You wait for him to pass, run across, then do it again. And finally we have Heisenberg who is probably the Lord given the most amount of development from a character point of view, but his haunted house is where Village shifts focus entirely into mediocre action schlock.

You’ll fight waves of idiotic lycans followed by cyborg type monsters in his factory. But like the other Lords and their haunted house rides, it’s like you’re stuck on a conveyor belt yourself just riding it along to the end. Village, at this point, becomes a first person shooter and not a very good one.

When you strap in to a vehicle armed with a machine gun, a rocket launcher and a chainsaw arm for the upcoming boss fight you know the game has totally lost the plot. To be fair, the RE games have always had their ‘silly’ elements but they’re not well integrated here at all.

And then we get to play as Chris – and his section really is just a crap first person shooter level in which you shoot waves and waves of stupid enemies. The game ends with a pretty lacklustre boss fight against Miranda herself, a character we’ve barely interacted with all game.

I probably sound like I really hated Village but I didn’t – I’m just frustrated by how much squandered potential I see here. Miranda should have been a more active presence throughout the game. The Lords should have had more screen time and more interactions with Ethan. The Village hub should have been more important and changed the way the player tackled the content.

I’m glad I played Village because I did, overall, enjoy the game, but I’m also glad I picked it up on sale – I finished my first run in 8 hours and my second in 4 (on Hardcore). It’s pretty short and that’s largely due to how linear the experience is. I’m sure you can argue that’s in line with other RE games but I guess I was looking for something a little different from Village. Something new.

Instead, I got a game that begins strongly but squanders its potential and descends into silly action schlock long before you reach the end. Overall, despite suffering similar problems, I’d say RE7 is the better game and that’s pretty disappointing because Village, as a sequel, should have identified and fixed those problems, not amplified them.

It’s also disappointing because Village had the potential to offer far more variety in terms of characters, locations and monsters than RE7 in addition to new gameplay twists. It just doesn’t fulfil that potential to any degree that I’d like.

6/10