Resident Evil Village

A few years after Resident Evil 7, Ethan Winters and his wife Mia are trying to build a quiet life when a new disaster takes their daughter Rose and leads Ethan to a remote European village. First-person exploration, resource-conscious combat, puzzles and a merchant’s upgrades carry him through the village and the strongholds of its dangerous rulers.

Resident Evil Village continues Ethan Winters’ story several years after the events of Resident Evil 7 biohazard. Ethan and Mia have moved on from the Louisiana incident and are raising their daughter, Rose, when a sudden attack shatters their new life. Ethan wakes in a remote, snowbound European village and searches for Rose among hostile villagers, ruined homes and a castle above the settlement. The story is delivered through first-person scenes and exploration, keeping Ethan’s limited view central to encounters and discoveries. Chris Redfield also appears, but his actions and motives are unclear to Ethan at first. The opening establishes a rescue mission and a place whose inhabitants live under the shadow of Mother Miranda and a group of powerful local figures.

The village works as a recurring hub between larger areas, linking the central routes to distinctive estates and facilities. Paths branch into homes, courtyards, workshops and locked side spaces, while keys and tools found later can open shortcuts or return visits to earlier rooms. A map helps track doors and unexplored spaces, and searching shelves, drawers and outdoor corners yields ammunition, crafting ingredients, currency and valuables. Some secrets sit outside the direct route, so looking carefully can provide supplies before a difficult encounter. The settlement is more than a corridor between fights: its changing access points give exploration a gradual rhythm, as new items make previously blocked doors and mechanisms useful. The path still moves through authored story areas rather than presenting an open-world map.

Combat mixes firearms, close-range defense and movement against enemies that approach at different speeds and from different angles. Ethan can aim and fire pistols, shotguns, rifles and other weapons, use a knife for close interactions, and block incoming attacks to reduce damage or create room to respond. Lycans are fast and can pressure the player in groups, while other creatures occupy caves, buildings and confined passages. Aiming for a weak point can interrupt an enemy, and explosives such as mines or pipe bombs can create space when a crowd closes in. Ammunition is limited enough that choosing when to fight matters: some encounters can be avoided or delayed, while other threats must be confronted to progress. The first-person camera makes aiming, blocking and navigating tight spaces part of the same immediate task.

Ethan’s inventory uses a grid-based case, so weapons, ammunition, healing items and other carried objects compete for room. Items can be moved or rotated to fit the available spaces, and the player can assign weapons to quick slots for fast access. Crafting materials combine into ammunition, mines, pipe bombs and first-aid medicine, but the finished items occupy inventory space even when their ingredients do not. That difference makes timing and capacity useful considerations: crafting everything immediately can crowd out extra ammunition or a newly found weapon. The case can be expanded through the Duke, giving more room in exchange for Lei. Treasure found during exploration can be sold, and some valuables can be combined before sale to increase their worth, connecting exploration rewards to equipment decisions.

The Duke is a travelling merchant who provides a regular point to spend Lei and adjust Ethan’s loadout. His shop sells supplies and weapon parts, while individual weapons can be upgraded in areas such as power, rate of fire, reload speed and ammunition capacity. Available upgrades change as the story advances, so a visit can present a choice between improving a familiar firearm, buying a useful supply or saving for a later purchase. The Duke also prepares meals from animal ingredients gathered around the village. These dishes permanently improve attributes such as health, defensive strength or movement, turning optional hunting into a longer-term character benefit. Because ingredients and treasure are found in the same spaces as ammunition and keys, the player continually weighs immediate survival against future advantages.

The major story areas give the village’s rulers distinct spaces and threats. Alcina Dimitrescu’s castle centres on grand rooms, locked doors and pursuit through a tightly connected interior; Donna Beneviento’s house shifts toward a quieter, puzzle-led horror sequence; Salvatore Moreau’s reservoir and Karl Heisenberg’s industrial territory bring different environments and enemy pressures. Mother Miranda’s authority hangs over the settlement, while the villagers’ fear and Chris Redfield’s presence complicate Ethan’s understanding of what happened. These named figures define the route through the game without reducing every section to a boss encounter: movement, item searches, environmental puzzles and combat alternate as Ethan crosses between the hub and each major location.

After completing the main story, the base game also offers The Mercenaries, a score-focused mode built around timed stages. Players defeat enemies, collect Lei and maintain combos while moving through several areas toward a stage goal, with remaining time contributing to the result. The mode uses Ethan’s first-person perspective and controls, but its objectives emphasize pace and efficient combat rather than the story’s exploration and inventory searches. In the main campaign, finding documents, inspecting objects and solving environmental puzzles help make sense of the village and unlock routes; in Mercenaries, the emphasis shifts to chaining encounters together. This gives the package a separate replay activity while keeping the campaign’s rescue narrative and its progression through the village as the central experience.