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A Lesson in Horror

Resident Evil: Village is a bit like a Halloween-themed amusement park with a twist. It’s a ride, of course, and like most pop-up haunted houses, you feel mostly strapped in and safe. You go from one room to the next and are introduced to something new that pretends it’s dangerous. Maybe it’s a mummy? A zombie? But there’s no real fear that the chainsaw-wielding maniac in the next room will strike you, or that the large plush spider on the wall will actually move, but then again – you have an imagination. And sometimes your imagination cannot help itself.
And that is where the twist comes in.
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Horror aesthetics are easy to pull off. Indeed, it’s quite simple to slot in horrific tropes in place of true imagination-induced terror. Any amateur can do it. Simply cut and paste a few severed heads, some gore-splattered weapons, and a few creaky wooden floors. Done and done. But what really matters is how you knot the bow. How do you make your imagery mean something instead of feeling plastic?
Immersion separates frightening, memorable moments from generic, on-the-rails horror sequences that throw loads of creepy imagery at players (with their fingers crossed and praying) hoping to get a reaction.
It’s also what separates good survival-horror from bad.
Village checks appropriate boxes. It's alive and dangerous, adding context to all its aesthetics. Even when it’s not particularly horrifying, it’s still gratifying. And interesting. Which is far more valuable than any number of hokey jump scares and faux-spooky monsters.

Lupophobia

Resident Evil: Village is a survival-horror, first-person shooter/adventure game that uses light RPG and weapon customization elements. It’s also the direct sequel to Resident Evil 7, and it improves on its predecessor in a litany of ways.
For contrast, RE:7 (while still competent) relied heavily on aforementioned tropes. Chiefly, rural hillbilly American archetypes, which were popular horror iconography at the time of its release. The issue with depending upon established horror conventions is that you risk boxing your story in – which was exactly the case with the progenitor. Especially if the player doesn’t find the subject of unwashed, provincial bumpkins scary. Or worse, they find them unintentionally amusing (I’m guilty).
Village widens the net and completely avoids limiting itself. The throughline is constructed around four or five different zones that each articulate a different thesis. Some areas work better than others, but because the variety is inherent (and everyone responds to different stimuli differently), there is more of a chance the game can produce something that actually scares you. It’s also able to avoid feeling like a haunted house mishmash because every area sticks to its thesis and supplies context within the game’s narrative. Even if the story is usually silly, things with reason still feel three-dimensional. It’s an effort thing. And Village makes that effort.
The game is also an absolute clinic on level design.
Areas that the player will spend time navigating surround a nucleus. That nucleus serves as a safe zone. Well, it’s kind of safe; over the course of the game, the player clears it of enemies. Surrounding areas must be journeyed to via dangerous, corridor-shooting exterior environments, naturally replete with pop-up surprises and unnerving environmental storytelling. And these areas are loaded with unexpectedly dense combat encounters.
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Once the areas are arrived at, the player enters (mostly) vertically designed sets that fold back on top of each other as each puzzle is solved, door is unlocked, or boss is destroyed. This gives the player a serotonin-induced sense of accomplishment as they progress, and it also attaches meaning to the game’s shortcuts. It’s extraordinarily well done.

Throwing arbitrary, spooky props at players usually isn’t enough to horrify them. And it’s the hardest lesson survival-horror creators must learn: imagery and metaphor must have nuance because that’s what makes them scary.
Everything in Village is mostly deliberate, serves a purpose, and feels earned.

A New Kind of Terror

The story is doltish as all Resident Evils, and indeed most horror-based narratives, tend to be. However, it far from equals the goofiness that ran amuck through the franchise in its middle years. Village is more grounded. Even when the story beats are not connecting, it still never gives up on them. Particularly in how it frames its themes.
Whether the story is good or bad is immaterial to the main point: Village tries earnestly to tell one.
You take control of Ethan Winters who is searching for his infant daughter. Village uses the potential trauma of him losing his daughter as the main articulation point for the psychological (and occasionally physical) terror it presents. Which means there’s plenty of baby- and familial-themed horror front and center, but it dodges the “boxed-in” vibe of its predecessor by littering the world with a large variety of other tropes. But these tropes hold their own. Yes, it’s true that many enemies you find will bear similarities to those commonly found within existing Resident Evil titles, but they manage to behave in a manner that is slightly different from expectations. With little effort, Village employs enemies and combat scenarios that feel less familiar, and because of that, more dangerous.
Resident Evil is at its worst when it goes big. At the game’s expense, large enemies, with large hit boxes, that need to be dealt with in a large way, do occasionally sprout up. This tends to happen most often during climaxes or narrative-pivotal encounters. It’s disappointing, but it's not unexpected. And yet, they still created one large creature in particular that horrified me in an entirely novel way.
It’s commendable that this Resident Evil manages to do the things the series is weakest at, better.
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Village's characterization is solid, unexpected, and welcomed. The game features a large cast of characters. And a few show a surprising amount of depth considering the genre. Villains are themed appropriately to the environment in which you encounter them. They never distract either – you get just enough of them and their motivations to keep their presence additive to the overall experience. There are enough layers that, even though it’s not award-worthy depth, you’re still able to reasonably understand how they might behave within the framework of an encounter.
This means the script is being honest, and perhaps more astonishingly, you’re paying attention to it.

Conclusion

Resident Evil: Village is immersive, fresh, and beautiful.
It delivers the thrills you expect, along with many you wouldn't, through incredibly deft level design. It’s important, too, as it broadened the series’ expectations by improving on its already famous attributes. And, foremost, it’s a blueprint on how to construct first-person survival-horror games going forward by effectively lacing imagery with reason.
The story is quite silly at times. But the game deserves credit for anchoring narrative gravity to beat changes and character interactions to the point that most of its narrative atrocities can be pardoned, and in many cases, enjoyed. This defaults as a net positive, as the consumer will rightfully wield low expectations anyway.
Results are undeniable. This is one of the better Resident Evil games. And a marked elevation for the genre.
The series is in good hands. Hopefully they stay attached. Wink.

Rating: 8/10 (Great)