Resident Evil 8: Release date, trailer, evil Chris Redfield, and everything we know about Resident Evil Village

Sharpen your menu organizing skills, because Resident Evil is back with Resident Evil Village. Since this is a main series sequel, Resident Evil 8 (the number is baked into Village as Roman Numerals, get it?), we’re back in first person, and expecting yet another horror adventure full of twists, turns, and terrifying monsters. Resident Evil Village’s creepy first trailer was revealed at the Sony PlayStation 5 event back on June 11th, 2020 but it’s finally coming out in May of this year. Ethan Winters is back and having a bad time, as you can imagine. But things look even worse than we’ve come to expect from Resident Evil. Village features a ton of firsts for the series, including werewolf-esque creatures, ancient vampiric countesses, and some magic dude that looks straight outta Bloodborne. It’s going to be a weird one. Here’s everything we know about Ethan Winters’ not so relaxing trip to Romania .What’s the Resident Evil Village Release Date?Resident Evil Village launches on all platforms on May 7th, 2021. You can find it over on Steam for PC.A Resident Evil demo is coming this springCapcom have announced that they will be bringing a demo for Resident Evil 8 to all platforms sometime this spring.PlayStation 5 players are already getting their hands on a demo that’s meant to introduce players to the atmosphere of the game. We tried the Maiden demo ourselves and spent about 20 minutes escaping from Dimitrescu Castle. It’s set in an earlier time period than the game itself, laying out notes and clues about what’s going on there. “Without spoiling the demo too much, you’ll meet a couple of the inhabitants of the castle, and, yes, Lady Dimitrescu is just as charming, tall, and terrifying as we’ve been led to believe,” Emma says. Here are the Resident Evil Village trailers(Image credit: Capcom)Turn off your lights, get comfortable, and check out the Resident Evil Village announcement trailer. It’s a stressful, action-packed three minute teaser that features a bedtime story, an old man with a shotgun, and… a gritty Chris Redfield??? A story trailer shown off during September 2020’s PS5 showcase is a creepy setup to the game’s story partly through the lens of an animated storybook. The village that envelops RE8 seems like an appropriately demented destination with deadly forest.January 2021 brought around yet another Resident Evil Village trailer that showed off those very large vampire ladies who live in the castle above the village. You can also catch the gameplay reveal about 34 minutes in to the showcase from January.What will Resident Evil 8’s gameplay be like?(Image credit: Capcom)It’s a first-person survival horror game that seems like it will play similarly to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, with more of a focus on action elements. Ethan Winters is one of the least combat-trained protagonists of the series, so you’ll likely have to be clever and careful to get out of harm’s way in the village. In Capcom’s gameplay reveal, they let on that blocking will play an important part in avoiding danger, not just preemptively shooting things.They also gave a look at a crafting system for creating first aid items and ammunition. The grid-based inventory of Resident Evil 4 is making a return and so is the merchant, known as The Duke, who you can buy and sell weapons from.Who are the enemies? (Image credit: Capcom)Chris Redfield is back but doesn’t look like he’s trying to be your friend in this game. It’s still vague on where his morality and objectives are, and how much of an antagonist he will be. As for other enemies, it looks like the village has a large population of half-wolf people that do not come to play. These creatures look quick, and could be part of how the game leans more into action. One of them busts through a ceiling and grabs an old dude from the lower floor with one swift arm movement. These guys are gonna be a doozy. A band of Victorian vampire women are seen draining Winters’ blood briefly during the trailer. They can seemingly control a swarm of bugs too. Based on what we’ve seen so far, it seems like Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters may be the central enemies of the story. There are a lot of peculiar and new enemies in this game, and that has me curious about what kind of freaky bio-experiments are going on here.It’s ambiguous as to whether or not a couple more notable characters that we’ve seen are friends or foes. One is an elderly woman adorned with beads, a staff, and an unnerving smile. The other one is a gruff man with a cowboy hat and some cool circular sunglasses. Let’s be friends, guy.So what’s up with Chris Redfield?There’s a lot to sift through with this one; it is rife with fan theory potential. Ominous text at the start of the reveal trailer said “His story comes to a close.” It’s not confirmed who “He” is, or how his story is going to close. The trailer could be referring to Chris, who shows up at the end looking pretty unhappy. Or it could reference Ethan Winters, the protagonist of Resident Evil 7, who’s returning as the main character in Resident Evil 8. The teaser left a lot of questions about what kind of story Capcom is going to tell, and how the previous game’s protagonists will play into it.There’s also a developer message video hosted by producers Tsuyoshi Kanda and Peter Fabiano that gives more insight into everything shown in the announcement trailer. What’s the setting for Resident Evil Village? (Image credit: Capcom)It may come as a surprise, but Resident Evil Village will in fact take place in a village. It’s a gothic, snowy place with beasts, betrayal, and people just trying to survive. At the top of the village is a castle, which brings back memories of the Spencer Mansion from the first Resident Evil. Ethan will be heading up from the village to the castle to rescue his daughter.It all looks extremely clean running on the same RE Engine that was used to produce the Resident Evil 2 and 3, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, and Devil May Cry 5.Check out Resident Evil Village’s map(Image credit: Capcom)This image included in the Resident Evil Village special edition lets on lots of the locations we’ll be visiting in the game. It’s a pretty high-level look, not a map of distinct areas, but it does include some interesting names.Castle Dimitrescu, whose residents we’ve heard so much about, is up top overlooking the village. There’s also some kind of stronghold, a reservoir, and a place named House Beneviento. Down in the bottom corner is Heisenberg’s Factory, which we’ve heard Lady Dimitrescu refer to in trailers as someplace Ethan Winters has escaped before arriving at her castle.How is Resident Evil 8 connected to previous Resident Evil games? It takes place a couple years after Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, focusing on the stories of Ethan and Mia Winters after they busted out of that plantation, ran away from the twisted Baker family, and finally settled down. It’s not entirely clear why or how, but Chris Redfield, a playable character from the first Resident Evil who has since become a recurring part of the series, has decided to take on an antagonistic role and uproot them from their happy life. It’s seemingly a pretty huge character change.Redfield is beefier and more brooding than in the past, and in the reveal trailer he stands menacingly above Winters and before shooting a woman multiple times on the floor. We have no idea why Redfield has no chill in Resident Evil Village—it seems like whatever’s going on, it’ll be both messy and intriguing. A symbol of what looks like a fetus/face mashup with twigs and feathers was sprinkled through the trailers, and there’s already a lot of fan speculation as to its meaning. Capcom wants people to “pay extra close attention to this one,” because it is likely an important part of the game, and could possibly have a connection to the Umbrella Corporation (whose logo was also flashed in the trailer, surrounded by mysterious crests).Will Resident Evil Village support ray-tracing? The good news: yes, Resident Evil Village will support ray-tracing. That castle is going to look so nice with natural lighting. The kinda bad news: it’s only been confirmed for AMD cards so far. That doesn’t mean Resident Evil Village won’t support Nvidia GPU-driven ray-tracing, but when it comes to these branded partnerships, you never know what’s going to remain exclusive or not. It’s a bit worrisome, if only because we’re not sure if FidelityFX will do the heavy lifting Nvidia’s DLSS does and deliver decent framerates and quality alongside ray-tracing, which is a huge resource hog otherwise. Either way, you can check out what Resident Evil Village looks like with ray-tracing effects in the video below. Village will be a very violent gameAnother caveat here: We only know it’ll be violent because of what’s getting cut from the Japanese version. Confirmed by Capcom Japan, in keeping with the standards set by national ratings board CERO, Resident Evil Village will have less blood and no decapitations in the Japanese version. Which implies there will be more blood and heads rolling elsewhere. If you’re Japan-based and long to see whatever is going on inside a neck, hope isn’t lost. Workarounds are pretty easy to find for this kind of thing, at least for PC games. Village will include online game RE: Verse(Image credit: Capcom)RE: Verse doesn’t seem to be directly related to Resident Evil Village aside from coming free with the game. It’s being pitched as a treat for Resident Evil’s 25th anniversary and will feature “beloved Resident Evil characters as they clash in six-person deathmatches,” says Capcom, with a minimum of four players per match. As a twist, when players die in a match they respawn as a bioweapon to take revenge on their enemies.How tall is Lady Dimitrescu?Everyone’s in love with Lady Dimitrescu. She’s a single mom who knows how to dress, is like eight foot something tall, and has extendable claw nails. How could you not? Seriously, look at all the fanart.Correction: Capcom has issued a statement to specify that Lady Dimitrescu is 2.9 meters (about 9’6″). We apologize for initially underestimating her. She is very, very tall and everyone seems very, very into it. We did some science to understand just how tall Lady D is, so check the video above to feel ever so small. 

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