Content Warning: This article contains discussions/depictions of violence.
With the most recent entry in the long-running survival horror franchise Resident Evil, Village hitting the market recently, opinions about the new game are starting to roll in and it seems that fans of the series are pleased. All the positive buzz about the game is no doubt enticing new players to try out the franchise, but many may be wondering how suitable Village is as an entry point.
Fortunately, there isn't much in Village that will be totally obscure to a new player, especially since most Resident Evil stories are generally self-contained. Additionally, the protagonist of Village has only starred in one prior game, so there isn't too much that a newbie would need to catch up on when coming into RE for the first time.
However, there are a couple of things a newcomer will want to keep in mind to enhance the gameplay experience, though, so maybe read this as a primer for the newest, dreadful adventure from Resident Evil.
10 Who Is Ethan Winters?
Ethan is the protagonist of Resident Evil VII, who's making his return in Village to rescue his daughter. Ethan was designed as an everyman sort of guy, intended to make the player feel vulnerable by playing as a more relatable character. That makes sense because, by Resident Evil 6, most of the series' characters were pretty used to roundhousing zombies in the face and running away from huge explosions.
Ethan handily survived the events of VII, though, rescuing his estranged wife in the process. Between the events of VII and Village, he and his wife had a daughter, although it seems she's been kidnapped, so now he has to bust into yet another spooky mansion to rescue yet another lost family member.
9 What's The Deal With These Werewolves?
Although the Resident Evil series has always been most famous for its zombies, there are actually dozens of different types of monsters that the player has had to deal with over the course of the franchise's many different games. Just in the first game, for example, there were zombies, but also giant spiders, giant snakes, lizard people, and angry crows.
With all that in mind, it really isn't too huge of a jump to the Lycans that appear to be infesting the village in question during the events of the new game. There's always a new hazardous biological agent to mutate people into new things, so it's all to be expected at this point.
8 How Do I Stay Alive?
Conserve resources, and run whenever necessary. Resident Evil is typically the sort of game where attempting to kill, or even fight every enemy the player comes across is a swift path to a game over. This is because the game deliberately limits the resources available to the player, forcing them to think strategically about when and where to use them (even in the more action-oriented titles).
Furthermore, the player is often disempowered relative to their enemies in a Resident Evil game. Exemplified through enemies like Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters, these are foes that drastically outmatch the player in terms of combat capabilities, meaning that sometimes running and hiding is the best course of action.
7 What Happened In The Last Game?
Long story short, Ethan got a message from his dead wife, then got stuck in a house full of people trying to kill him, battled an enormous mold creature, and then got rescued by Chris Redfield. As it turned out, a mysterious crime syndicate had been attempting to traffic bioweapons to South America when their ship ran aground near the house that would become Resident Evil VII's setting, causing an outbreak.
Although the outbreak was eventually contained, it wasn't an easy ordeal for Ethan. Suffice it to say, that the guy has had prior experience with this sort of thing before he ever got to Village.
6 What Is The Umbrella Corporation?
Instantly recognizable via its distinctive logo that seems to appear all over the place in-universe; the Umbrella Corporation was a pharmaceutical corporation, responsible for most of the bad things that happened in the earlier Resident Evil games. Although they were technically destroyed between the events of Resident Evil 3 and 4, characters once associated with the company continue to cause trouble.
It's unclear if Umbrella will be directly involved in the events of Village, but their logo is visible in some of the trailers. Could the titular village be an old Umbrella test site? Whatever the answer, the shadowy biohazardous nonsense is going on, and they have often been behind it.
5 Who Is Mia Winters?
Mia is the wife of protagonist Ethan Winters', but she's got something of a complicated backstory. In Resident Evil VII, Ethan received a video message from Mia after presuming her to be dead for years, prompting him to go on a trip to try and find her (which makes up the primary conflict of the game).
Unfortunately, Ethan uncovered a dark and dangerous secret while searching. While Mia was still alive, she had been altered by a mold-like bioweapon, and beyond that, it was revealed that Mia had been involved in the trafficking of said bioweapon before things went awry.
4 Who Is Chris Redfield?
Chris Redfield was one of two protagonists of the original Resident Evil from back in 1996, and he's made a number of appearances in other games since then. Chris is a no-nonsense sort of guy, and he's dedicated his life to combatting the sort of bioterrorist-related outbreaks that are so common in the RE universe.
Chris also made an appearance in Resident Evil VII at the end of the game, definitively linking that entry to the rest of the franchise by canon. Chris was part of the joint B.S.A.A./Blue Umbrella strike team that secured the site of the outbreak in the preceding game, rescuing Ethan Winters in the process.
3 How Come Chris Shot Mia?
This one is only to be revealed for those who have played the game already, but there are a couple of things that make this act stand out to franchise veterans. In all of his years in the Resident Evil franchise, Chris has never exhibited the slightest bit of a villainous streak, making his attack on Mia surprising for longtime fans.
It's especially confusing considering the personal relationship between Chris and Ethan; Chris personally rescued him and Mia from the Baker mansion at the end of Resident Evil VII, putting himself at great personal risk in the process. Something has clearly changed with him because this isn't how he typically acts.
2 How Does This All Connect To The Older Games?
Newcomers to the franchise might be familiar with more established fandom speak about punching boulders into volcanoes, roundhouse kicking six zombies in the face at once, or undead sharks. That seems to clash a little bit with the (comparatively) more grounded approach to spooky stuff in Village. There might be werewolves, but being bitten in half by a giant crocodile seems unlikely.
Although all of the numbered entries in the franchise are technically connected by canon, Capcom has deliberately attempted to shrink the scope of the story from VII on. This is because things got a little bit crazy towards the later entries like 4, 5, and 6, where the protagonist would be machine-gunning monsters without a care in the world. To return the series to its horror roots, the developers likely thought it necessary to hit a bit of a reset button.
1 Why Is Lady Dimitrescu So Tall?
Lady Dimitrescu, the enormous vampire lady who took the internet by storm, is, without a doubt, singlehandedly responsible for a good portion of the buzz surrounding Village. Thanks to her outrageous proportions, menacing demeanor, and zealous fans, it's safe to say that she's the one driving many new fans to the Resident Evil franchise.
But why so tall? Only the developers over at Capcom have the true answers to this question, but fans can safely say that they probably made the right choice in scaling Dimitrescu up to approximately nine feet, since that's apparently a big part of her appeal.
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