STILL on that Resident Evil kick! In the last week I’ve played through Resident Evil 4 again, just so my brain is match fit to play the REmake of it TODAY (if you’re reading this newsletter on the date I publish it!) but I’ve also - after last week’s newsletter talked about replaying games I binned off - been giving Resident Evil Village another crack, after bouncing off it hard upon release.

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A New Perspective.

I’m not sure where I stand with the modern Resident Evil games. They’re sort of a mess of ideas, being pulled in one direction by recent horror trends and seeing massive sales figures by doing so, but also being pulled in another direction by its own storied and largely excellent history. There’s a bit of the classic survival horror that it popularised in them but there’s also an awful lot of the more ‘action-y’ titles that were birthed with Resident Evil 4 and immediately tanked by its follow-ups. The series is so old now that almost everyone has ‘their’ Resident Evil, the game or style that defines the name and they are often at odds with one another.

I love Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. A total return to form after the disastrous two instalments that came before it. I played the whole bloody thing in VR and the Margueritte section probably gave me a bit of PTSD. It was incredible. The shift to first-person concerned me at first but the game was, for the most part, a real throwback to the original game - the Baker family residence full of progression gating puzzles and zombie replacement ‘the molded’, harking back to the Spencer Mansion. The semi-scripted chase sections with Jack Baker were fresh and thrilling and, although the game falls off a bit in the final third when it leans heavily into action sequences, it’s still a solid time and, for my money, the action in the last few chapters felt earned and was a nice cathartic romp to finish up on. An excellent time and one that really re-established Resident Evil as a top AAA experience.

2022’s Resident Evil Village, however, left me feeling a bit cold. It was first-person again, which initially seemed like a non-issue until it was made clear very quickly that this is a much more action oriented Resident Evil game. A slow start opens up into a pretty hefty firefight and, unfortunately, I just found the shooting mechanics to be a little underwhelming. The fast moving werewolf-esque enemies didn’t feel particularly ‘Resident Evil’ and the combat just wasn’t rapid enough to keep up. It felt like a mediocre first-person shooter, rather than a Resident Evil game. When it does settle into a more familiar rhythm, it’s full of really gimmick-y setpieces that are clearly designed to be a spectacle for those playing in VR (and for what it is worth, the VR mode was added to the game a whole year later) that just felt jarring otherwise, like that era of 3D movies at the cinema where loads of cheesy ‘into the camera’ moments were shoe-horned into everything and also the first main area is patrolled by a ‘stalker’ enemy - something they’ve failed to really build on in a meaningful way since Resident Evil 7. Sections of the game felt like they just borrowed ideas from the dearth of indie horror titles, rather than anything Resident Evil and, because it really wasn’t giving me what I wanted from something bearing that name, I sacked it off pretty quickly.

Revisiting it this week whilst on this heavy Resident Evil kick, I opted to start a new game using the newly added third-person mode and what a revelation this has been! Of course, the main difference is how it is fundamentally less immersive when you’re not seeing things directly through the eyes of Ethan Winters (despite cutscenes still playing out from the first-person perspective) but honestly, I’ve never played Resident Evil for the immersion. What I have played Resident Evil for, however, is that slow-burning tension in the combat and the sluggish first-person aiming felt at odds with the new enemy types but this third-person camera makes things feel a lot more… manageable? Having a wider view angle definitely helps but the more aggressive enemies balance this out - you’re still going to have to position yourself, plant your feet and pick your shots, just like classic Resi.

With this main gripe out of the way, it allows the stuff that Resident Evil Village does really well to rise to the top. The first few locations are still the highlight, with Castle Dimitrescu feeling like a chunk of classic survival horror and the P.T. inspired House Benevento now playing more like a large scale Resident Evil puzzle, rather than a VR haunted house game you picked up on your Quest for a couple of dollars. The final two main areas are definitely still Village’s weaker moments and they’re not magically made good by this new camera option but given that they’re much more action-focused and the combat clearly feels better in third-person, overall they’re improved. People have said that removing the immersion makes the game less scary too, but I can tell you that the aforementioned House Benevento is still shit scary, regardless of how you’re looking at it. A net win across the board.

What this third-person camera shows is that as cool as Resident Evil 7 is and as immersive and exciting the VR experience can be across both that title and Village, Resident Evil belongs in third-person. Don’t get me wrong - I think Capcom’s insistence on creating something that is a real VR flagship title is commendable but you’re focusing on such a tiny audience comparatively, I really don’t think it is worth giving up some key elements - such as the combat quality - to persevere with the first-person viewpoint moving forward. The high watermark for Resident Evil is an almost unfair yardstick to compare other titles to, as the best games in the series genuinely sit alongside some of the best videogames ever made, but playing Village in third-person elevates it from yet another series misstep to an enjoyable Resident Evil game that sits somewhere in the upper-mid tier of the series. Sure, it’s not as good as Resident Evil 4 (what is?) but its a damn sight better than 5 and 6 and personally, I think it edges out the REmakes of 2 and 3, too.

The last hour or so is an absolute madness, however. The plot of Resident Evil has been getting more and more ridiculous for decades now and after the slightly overlong factory section, Resident Evil Village jumps the shark. It is spectacular, I must admit, how much it takes a massive dump on the subtle, Romero inspired brilliance of the first few games and goes off the rails in a way that has more in common with the dreadful Resident Evil movie series than it does with anything created by the master of the zombie movie. I don’t want to full spoil it for you but honestly, the absurd shit you see during the last few segments is so fucking daft, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you anyway. Needless to say, a third-person camera couldn’t save the increasingly stupid Resident Evil lore from itself.

Fuck it, spoiler alert. Highlight the next paragraph if you want to embrace the madness: Chris Redfield builds a fucking mech out of scrap metal and you use it to have a mech fight with some lad who has Magneto style powers and has formed himself into a giant robot monster. That’s not even the daftest part, either. How on Earth did we get from Albert Wesker double crossing his mates to get his hands on a man-made bioweapon so he could sell it to the highest bidder to THIS? It’s been a crazy twenty seven years.

If I could be cynical (and I love to be cynical) the addition of the third-person camera feels like a bit of an admission of defeat. Village was less well received than Resident Evil 7 and this gave it a new lease of life, with most articles speak positively of this addition. As much as the sales figures seem to indicate people enjoy these recent Resident Evils, I personally hope that this is the end of this first-person experiment, because I can’t say I’m hugely interested in playing another after how much I’m enjoying Village now. If I’m enjoying it this much, perhaps there’s an argument that I was too quick to give up on Village first time around? Either way, I’m definitely in the right frame of mind to take on a new Resident Evil game right now and sometimes it is worth revisiting a game that you gave up on with a fresh head and a new perspective, literally in this case.

THANKS FOR READING.

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