Resident Evil Village, the new face of Capcom horror

Resident Evil Village

Resident Evil Village is one of the best games of the year: it is certified by the votes of the critics, the opinions of the public and the first, important awards that are arriving in these weeks. Likewise it is one of the best episodes for the Capcom series, which had the courage to turn the page, abandon the classic zombie theme and propose new settings, new references, a new horror.

Probably it is also for this reason that the formula developed by the developers for the new adventure of Ethan Winters is much more action-oriented than in the past, with real first-person shooter mechanics that mix with the traditional puzzle solving of the series and with sections "passive" that pay homage to several recent productions, even if they are not as successful as the rest of the experience.

With just a few weeks left until the end of 2021, let's sum up how much Capcom's horror has able to offer in terms of monsters, atmospheres and references, reinventing itself and finding in this dimension the necessary ideas to give life to a new, fascinating story that make Resident Evil Village a worthy contender for the Game of the Year award.

Setting

Resident Evil Village, Mia reads a fairy tale to little Rosemary From remote and rural Louisiana that we got to describe in the review of Resident Evil 7 biohazard to an unspecified European country clearly inspired by Romania, Resident Evil Village is set three years after the first appearance of Ethan Winters, who returns to take on the role of the protagonist, but with a very different approach than in the beginning.

The first sequences of the game, with the fascinating tale narrated by Mia to little Rosemary (a name that pays an obvious homage to Roman Polanski's film) and an atmosphere of stillness and tranquility, are brutally interrupted by a ferocious assault with gunshots that will only be explained in the finale, but which serves to catapult us out of Ethan's house and introduce the famous Village referred to in the game title.

Admittedly inspired by Resident Evil 4, this scenario is a sort of hub through which to access the abodes of the four Lords and retrieve the objects, let's call them that, which we will need to save Rosemary; or at least that's what the mysterious Duke tells us, a monstrously obese merchant who in his first interventions mentions again the fourth chapter of the series and his colleague: "What are you buying, stranger?"

Muoversi all' However, the interior of the Village is not simple, given the presence of the Lycans: werewolves that have become part of European folklore since the Middle Ages, ruthless and lethal, which in fact replace the zombies as basic enemies but boast mobility and a substantially higher resistance, as well as hiding in full view on the roofs of the houses waiting for the prey on duty.

Lady Dimitrescu

Resident Evil Village, Dimitrescu Castle seen from the distance The first mansion we visit in Resident Evil Village is Dimitrescu Castle, which is the fascinating backdrop to the most interesting and successful phases of the campaign. In this case, the authors took as a reference the Peles Castle, in Transylvania: built in the late 1800s by order of King Charles I of Romania, the building has been reproduced quite faithfully in the game, both indoors and outdoors. .

The haughty owner of the castle, Lady Dimitrescu, able from the first moment to conquer the network thanks to her charm, is without a doubt one of the best characters that the Resident Evil series has ever given birth, as well as the first hint of a turning point in horror references that led the franchise to approach the gothic world and European traditions.

Resident Evil Village, Lady Dimitrescu Alcina is indeed a vampire, but not only and not simply. Almost three meters tall, the noblewoman with a deadly pallor and long claws is inspired on the one hand by the Japanese legend of Hasshaku-sama, a spirit that attracts its victims, strictly male, imitating the voice of the people they love and wear. a big hat.

On the other hand, it refers to a Hungarian serial killer who really existed at the end of the sixteenth century, the Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who, according to the accusations of her servants and several other people, was guilty of unspeakable actions, imprisoning, torturing and mutilating over six hundred young girls and then taking a bath in their blood. All themes that we find precisely in the representation of Lady Dimitrescu.

Donna Beneviento

Resident Evil Village, one of Donna Beneviento's scary dolls Although the name of the second Lord of the Village recalls the legend of witches of Benevento, most likely not by chance, the character and his disturbing mansion refer on the one hand to the stories of Japanese ghosts, on the other to the wide horror tradition linked to the theme of dolls and finally to passive survival horror that goes so much fashion for some years.

Shortly after entering Casa Beneviento, in fact, Ethan loses all his equipment and therefore has to face an entire section of the campaign without being able to defend himself, but merely fleeing in the face of any threats ; such as the gigantic and monstrous child who moves in the corridors and brings to mind some sequences of P.T. , the famous demo created by Hideo Kojima which was to be the prologue to Silent Hills.

Salvatore Moreau

Resident Evil Village, the disturbing Moreau In the case of the third Lord of the Village, a creature deformed and pathetic that responds to the name of Salvatore Moreau, the references are quite clear and refer to the novel The Island of Doctor Moreau by HG Wells: the story of a castaway who is rescued from a mysterious ship only to find himself on an island inhabited by mutants, the result of the monstrous experiments of a mad scientist.

Resident Evil Village enemy of course is inspired by the creatures of Doctor Moreau rather than by the doctor himself, given how the "gift" of Mother Miranda has horribly transformed him, but just as his literary namesake is responsible for the experiments that are conducted on the villagers using the lethal Cadou. A monster that creates other monsters, in short, and that in the final confrontation takes the form of a huge and creepy sea beast.

Karl Heisenberg

Resident Evil Village, the evil Heisenberg The Heisenberg, the only one among the Lords of the Village who has not undergone any aesthetic mutation, has a peculiar aspect and a deeply evil and opportunistic soul, but above all he has the power to control magnetism and move the metal at will. Its name obviously refers to that of Werner Karl Heisenberg, the German physicist author of important theories on ferromagnetism, but above all the father of quantum mechanics.

Heisenberg's lair is a sort of huge factory in which the man conducts experiments on innocent people, just like his colleague Moreau, trying in this case to create the perfect marriage between man and machine, devoid of intellect, but endowed with lethal strength. One of his monsters has created a real case of alleged plagiarism for Resident Evil Village, since it refers to one of the creatures featured in the movie Frankenstein's Army.

Mother Miranda and the return to origins

Resident Evil Village, one of the forms of Mother Miranda The references to European folklore and horror themes previously never addressed by the series have made Resident Evil Village a chapter in many ways fresh and unpublished although, as usual, everything comes in the end traced in some way to the Umbrella Corporation and the offshoots of its work on viruses, as well as to the role that Mother Miranda played in this regard.

The bizarre witch we meet several times on the streets of the Village, and who eventually reveals to be a researcher who lived in the nineteenth century who came across a mushroom with extraordinary properties, is actually closely linked to the events of the famous multinational, whose experiments you have determined the invasion of zombies in Raccoon City and all the rest.

Resident Evil Village, one of the ferocious Lycans The Capcom developers have therefore succeeded in their intent to relaunch the series on a narrative level, changing its settings and renewing its bestiary, while remaining faithful to the original idea and reiterating it in the final stages of a campaign that confirms the goodness of the innovations introduced with Resident Evil 7 biohazard, starting with the unpublished protagonist.

A man apparently normal that he measures himself against the unknown, moved by the absolute determination to save what remains of his family, but who, as in a daydream, does not realize how much he really is involved in what is happening, how much the horror changed him. Until next time.

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