The next entry in the world’s most popular survival horror franchise, Resident Evil 8: Village is already looking to be an absolute blast. With everything we enjoyed about Resident Evil 7 seemingly coming back, we can’t wait to get our hands on another round of undead scares.
Coming out of Capcom’s Resident Evil showcase gave players a much better look at what the game would offer this time around, but it also led to new questions as to what will happen and how it will be executed with the next-gen hardware. What did the devs learn from RE7, and what mistakes will they inevitably make and fix with Village?
10 Do: VR Support And Optimization
A lot of players were excited to see Resident Evil 7‘s dive into the world of virtual reality. With the game being the first main entry in the series to go full-first-person, it was a welcome addition to the immersive horror experience.
This new direction in both hardware and the franchise as a whole was fun and exciting, if not for a few technical hiccups along the way. Many players found themselves losing interest after graphical bugs and resolution drops took the immersion out of the picture due to hardware limitations or overlooked bugs. RE8 looks to be an increasingly gorgeous and inviting game, so here’s hoping Capcom works out the issues and gives players a better first-hand look into Castle Dimitrescu, sans blurry pixels and nausea.
9 Don’t: Crafting
Crafting, a mechanic made popular by some of the best modern survival games, has been pushing its luck a little too far lately. Sure, it can be fun scrounging for items and combining them to see what happens, but when the game isn’t built around these mechanics and provides you with not only limited space but limited time to perform these combinations, it can get frustrating fast.
Sure, Resident Evil games have always featured combination mechanics, but those generally came into play with puzzles, optimizing healing items, and reloading weapons. This is fine and intertwines perfectly with the gameplay of classic survival horror, but trying to balance a million inconsequential items while also trying to make room for ammo, keys, and puzzle items can get overbearing quickly.
8 Do: Inventory Management
We all love Resident Evil 4’s approach to the inventory system, and seeing it come back is always a treat. The pure game-feel of inventory management can be extremely satisfying as long as it’s balanced.
With the addition of crafting mechanics, “inventory Tetris” is either going to be an absolute joy or a complete wreck. With one bad move on the developers’ part, balancing crafting components with healing items and weapons will become a chore, and lose its fun. However, if the game knows what it’s doing then this will all be perfectly accounted for.
7 Don’t: Resident Evil 7’s Identity Crisis
Alongside the various graphical bugs listed previously, many diehard fans of the franchise felt themselves slipping after RE7’s harsh departure from the series’ conventions.
While the fun new mechanics and POV were exciting, the game seemed to be having a bit of trouble with its newfound persona, and though promising a whole-hearted horror experience, stumbled a bit along the way. The biggest critiques of the game focus on the idea that it presented too many new ideas without fully delving into them, with players citing the mix of horror and action that seems to flip back-and-forth at a moment’s notice, then focusing more on action near the end.
6 DO: A Unique Identity Of Its Own
Resident Evil is known for its genius (albeit sometimes ridiculous) design, and judging by the reveals thus far, Village will be no different. So far, it appears as though the enemies are much more diverse than RE7, which relied primarily on the Baker family and slight variations of “the Molded.”
Players seem to be more than satisfied with the new designs, with the new main antagonist becoming an immediate fan-favorite despite her air of mystery. In addition, the Dracula-esque undead in the basement look great, and the apparent werewolf enemies in the village are an exciting premise that the series has surprisingly left unexplored until now.
5 Don’t: RE:Verse
The Resident Evil franchise has taken quite a few dives into spin-off territory, for better or worse, but recent years have shown a distinct lack of interest in these titles. RE:Verse seems to be the most offensive of these attempts since Umbrella Corps, with immediate backlash across the fanbase after its reveal during Capcom’s showcase livestream.
The timing of this announcement is strange, seeing as the company only just released Resident Evil: Resistance, a promising title that could have flourished if it had only been given more attention and support from the devs. Really, all the playerbase seems to want is a reboot of the classic RE: Outbreak, which wouldn’t be too big of a task for Capcom, who seems to be putting plenty of time into the series as of late. RE:Verse, with any luck, will last a few months before it’s inevitably taken out back and given the good old Miranda Rights finisher.
4 Do: More DualSense Support
Controllers are one of the most important parts of a new console launch. One bad design choice and your players’ hands will hurt for years. The Playstation 5, however, seems to have found the perfect next-step for their revolutionary DualShocks, and seeing the new DualSense features come into play has been quite the joy.
Horror games are the absolute perfect playground to put these features to the test, and we’re hoping RE8 delivers on the literal skin-crawling impact that DualSense could bring to the immersion.
3 Don’t: The Duke
Reminiscent of Marvel’s not-so-subtle “haha fat Thor” jokes in Avengers: Endgame, the entertainment industry doesn’t seem to get that we’re not laughing when it pokes fun at diverse body types. More often than not, this only serves to dampen the emotional impact of more serious moments, which can make or break any piece of media.
Resident Evil has always been goofy and ridiculous (cue the outfits), but the Duke presents serious tonal cringe, as well as a major lack of originality in the design department. A piece by indie writer Kaile Hultner puts it all into pretty good perspective, explaining that it’s ugly, lazy, and in poor taste.
2 Do: Romance Options
Resident Evil, regardless of its inclusion of some of the best female protagonists in gaming, has never gone too deep into the possibility of romance with these characters. Regardless, players are now more hopeful than ever with the reveal of RE8’s main antagonists. In fact, it seems as though that’s all they’re talking about on social media, with a plethora of memes, fan art, and more suggestive threads populating the game’s hashtags and reply sections.
Lady Dimitrescu and her three daughter-figures hit the world by storm after the game’s first screenshots released. While they may be the big evil leads of the game, maybe they’re not all that bad.
1 Don’t: Wide Chris?
Judging by fan theories and contextual speculation, the inclusion of series mainstay, Chris Redfield, is going to be interesting, to say the least. With his place in the new story yet to be revealed, many are arguing that his inclusion is hackneyed fan-service and will end in yet another absurd plotline for the franchise’s already convoluted timeline.
The biggest complaint, however, really has nothing to do with the context of the game. Instead, it can be summarized by the classic meme quote “why he look like that??” We’re sure it has something to do with all the boulder punching and action movie shenanigans from the previous games, but it’s still a little off-putting in terms of character design. Maybe RE8 will reveal Chris’ newly restored ties to Umbrella, or maybe something more sinister is brewing inside this wide, wide man.
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