Alinea Analytics, for those unfamiliar, is a data analytics company focused on the gaming industry. It provides insight into everything from sales performance to player engagement.

This week, it has published a closer look at Xbox Game Pass, highlighting just how powerful the service can be when it comes to getting players to try new games.

The firm analyzed some major additions from last month, including: Star Wars: Outlaws, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, and Death Stranding. All three joined recently, so how are they performing? Things are looking good.

Game Pass delivers a major player boost

It’s no secret that Game Pass drives players to try new games.

What people have questioned, though, is just how much of a difference it really makes. If Alinea Analytics is right, the impact is quite significant.

According to the firm, Star Wars: Outlaws saw the biggest boost. Around 595,000 players checked it out across PC, console, and cloud, with 100,000 jumping in on day one alone.

Considering the game’s underwhelming launch, it’s encouraging to see so many players willing to give it a shot through Game Pass.

Next up is Warhammer: Space Marine 2. This is one I’ve personally been playing with friends thanks to Game Pass, so seeing 544,000 players dive in across PC, console, and cloud isn’t surprising.

Before joining the service, the game had already surpassed 1 million sales on Xbox, according to Alinea Analytics. It was also maintaining roughly 30,000 daily active users, showing it already had a solid base.

The data also highlights an interesting overlap. About 57% of Space Marine 2 players had previously played Gears 5, which tells you a lot about the kind of audience it’s attracting.

Close behind those two is Death Stranding Director's Cut, bringing in 512,000 new players. Then there’s Resident Evil Village, which saw around 500,000 total players jump in and also gained Xbox Play Anywhere support at the same time.

For Village, Alinea Analytics mentions that the game performed even better on PlayStation Plus Extra, where it reached 852,000 players after being added on the same day. Of course, PlayStation does have a larger install base, which likely played a role in that difference.

Lastly, Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, the 2D retro-inspired title that was added into Game Pass last month as well, saw 102,000 players check it out.

I must admit I'm surprised by some of the games here that saw a spike, mainly Star Wars: Outlaws, but more people checking out games is never a bad thing.

Passing it over to you!

Are you one of the players who jumped into any of these games through Game Pass, or did you already own them? Let us know in the comments and make sure to take part in our poll below:

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Xbox Play Anywhere is the best, and often most frustrating feature Xbox has right now. And Resident Evil Village continues the trend today!

Resident Evil Village is a landmark horror title from Capcom, and joins Resident Evil 7 in reviving the classic franchise.

Terrorising gamers since the PlayStation 1 era, Resident Evil is a saga of sci-fi horror tales following various bio-hazardous outbreaks of zombies, mutants, and other nightmarish entities. Typically, bio-engineering firms and shadowy government agencies are behind the outbreaks, which task the player to survive against impossible odds to rescue themselves, and oftentimes, others caught up in drama.

The franchise pioneered the "survival horror" genre, where scarce ammo, health pick-ups, and other support consumables require management and exploration to recover. Resident Evil suffered a decline in quality between Resident Evil 5 and 6, but bounced back hard with Resident Evil 7 and 8, the latter of which is generally known as Resident Evil Village.

A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced that Resident Evil Village will join Xbox Game Pass, slated to drop on January 20, 2026. It's part of Capcom's marketing run-up to Resident Evil Requiem, which launches on February 27, 2026.

Requiem will tie into Resident Evil Village as part of the franchise's wider saga, which sees various bioterrorist cells, pharmaceutical conglomerates, and even shadowy cults vie for control of manmade plagues, viruses, and mutant parasites. Resident Evil 7 and Village tell the tale of Ethan Winters, which is a more intimate story of, who is essentially, a regular dude caught up in the global bioterror struggle franchise fans have come to love.

Resident Evil 7 was strangely among the first early high-profile AAA third-party games to support Xbox PC and Xbox Play Anywhere. Since then, Capcom has been fairly inconsistent with its support of the Microsoft Store and Xbox PC. For Xbox Play Anywhere, we got Exoprimal, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 7, and Kuntisu-gami, but we didn't get Street Fighter, Resident Evil 4, or until now, Resident Evil Village. Oddly, we got Resident Evil 3 as a separate game, without cross-saves or cross-buy.

I'm not entirely sure why Capcom has been so inconsistent at supporting Xbox Play Anywhere. Some of it will be publishing clauses leveraged by PlayStation as part of marketing tie-ins, but part of me wonders if it's due to confusion about how Xbox PC works on the publisher end.

Resident Evil Village wasn't initially announced for Xbox Play Anywhere, leading to some confusion about how it would arrive in Xbox Game Pass. I asked around, and was told that indeed it is supposed to be getting Xbox Play Anywhere, and indeed, today, it picked up the official Xbox Play Anywhere tag — but there's a problem.

The installation file for Resident Evil Village on Xbox PC and devices like the Xbox Ally isn't available. Clicking "Install" simply downloads the 10 MB container, with no actual game inside. Weirdly, it'll even sync your save files from Xbox Series X|S, despite the fact it can't launch the game. It'll just give you a "This game has crashed" message when trying to launch it on a Windows PC or devices like the Xbox Ally.

I suppose this could be a result of the game's unique circumstances. It's already available on Xbox Series X|S, and obviously, they need to prep the game and get it ready for its imminent Xbox PC Game Pass drop — but in doing so, they've left the Xbox PC version inoperable.

RELATED: Xbox in 2026 preview: new hardware, new games, and new features

It's a niche issue that highlights how nascent Xbox's PC store operation still is in some regards. Just yesterday, I wrote about how a nasty save bug for Death Stranding on Xbox PC was finally fixed after two years of pain for buyers.

Microsoft has worked incredibly hard to convince publishers and indie devs alike to consider launching on the Xbox PC store, but it has a massive mountain to climb versus Steam, which seems to have truly cornered the "variety gamer" core market on Windows. Microsoft has, however, likely cornered the subscription-preferring market on PC. Additionally, owing to games like League of Legends, Call of Duty, Fortnite, Roblox, and World of Warcraft, it's increasingly becoming an all-in-one destination for major service games that aren't yet available on Steam, too.

Given the issues plaguing Windows and "Microslop" in general right now, the work being done on Xbox PC is one of the company's brightest spots right now. But it's still early days, clearly in some regards. The updates and fixes are coming thick and fast, though, and I suspect we'll see even more adoption for Xbox PC from both publishers and gamers alike in the coming year.

The Xbox Ally has become a primary gaming device for me, so it's great to see games like Resident Evil Village arrive retroactively, even if there are occasional temporary hiccups like this. I suspect the PC app package will go live when it officially hits Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming on January 20, 2026.

We're only four months away from the release of Resident Evil: Requiem, the latest and possibly darkest installment of Capcom's iconic survival horror franchise to date.

To help players catch up, Loaded is offering a massive Halloween sale for several titles in the Resident Evil series, like the Resident Evil Remake Trilogy ($33.99), Resident Evil 7: Gold Edition ($9.89), and the Resident Evil HD Remaster ($4.49).

Additionally, Newegg's got a special 72% discount for Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition for $13.99.

Why Resident Evil is the quintessential series for Halloween and beyond

The Resident Evil series is often considered to be the pinnacle of survival horror games, and for good reason.

Many of them are extremely polished, atmospheric, enjoyable titles that veer back and forth between keeping you up at night with their nightmare-inducing monsters to providing cathartic power rushes as a reward for mastering their resource management and combat mechanics.

Out of all the games in this post, the most plot-relevant ones are Resident Evil HD Remaster and the Resident Evil Remake Trilogy, as their stories help set the stage for Raccoon City's ruined state in Resident Evil: Requiem.

Resident Evil HD Remaster may be a remaster of 2002 remake, but this game still holds up even after 23 years for boasting some of the most beautiful, gothic pre-rendered backgrounds, perfectly-paced gameplay, and terrifying moments that will catch you off guard even on repeat playthroughs.

However, if you want something more modern, the Resident Evil Remake trilogy is the way to go.

Each game in this collection will have you quaking in your boots with its adrenaline-pumping scares, scarce resources you will need to be careful not to waste, and memorable characters you will want to help survive the horrors coming to consume them.

While not directly connected to Resident Evil: Requiem (from what we've seen thus far), Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil: Village are still worth playing regardless.

It's an incredible duology of titles that helped kickstart Capcom's redemption arc back into popularity during the late 2010s and early 2020s for their in-depth gameplay, spooky locales rich with secrets, and possibly the best villains in the franchise outside of Albert Wesker.

With these 70-80% discounts for Resident Evil Remake Trilogy ($33.99 at Loaded), Resident Evil 7: Gold Edition ($9.89 at Loaded), Resident Evil HD Remaster ($4.49 at Loaded), and Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition ($13.99 at Newegg), you will save dozens of dollars and have months of unforgetteble content to chew on before Resident Evil: Requiem arrives on February 27, 2026.

FAQ

Developer Capcom hasn't officially revealed the next Resident Evil game — assumed to be Resident Evil 9 — yet, but rumors about the game's structure, setting, and plot have circulated online for many months. Now, there's a new leak that suggests the title was at one point very, very different compared to other entries in the legendary horror series.

The information comes from Dusk Golem, a known Capcom insider, who shared it in a thread on social media this week. In their posts, they allege that Resident Evil 9 began life as a "big open world multiplayer game," with Capcom initially conceptualizing it as the opposite of Resident Evil 7's linear single-player experience due to its underwhelming sales performance at release.

"So RE9 originally started development in 2017 ... after RE7 underperformed at launch to Capcom's expectations. RE7 went on to have a huge tail in sales, but this was a bit reactionary," they explained. "And the original version of RE9 was trying to be the opposite of RE7, IE big open world multiplayer game."

Dusk Golem then went on to note that after Resident Evil 7's rebound, Resident Evil 9 got a major rework that changed Capcom's vision for the project close to the launch of Resident Evil Village in 2021. One of the only holdovers from the original concept is that Leon Kennedy — a fan-favorite character from Resident Evil 2, 4, and 6 — remains the protagonist.

"RE9 originally starred Leon & Jill in a fictional island based off Singapore. ... That was where the old scrapped version of RE9 took place. HOWEVER, AGAIN, this is the old RE9, the project got a pretty heavy reboot in 2021 around the time Village came out, though a few things stayed the same like Leon is still the main character," they continued. "The rest I'll let Capcom reveal, I've decided to be more a tease than a leaker, as I've said. But I find scrapped game stuff interesting."

So when will Capcom reveal Resident Evil 9 officially? There's no way to say for sure, though in a separate post, Dusk Golem commented that they believe the game will get an announcement in 2025 and then come out at some point in 2026. If that's going to happen, Summer Games Fest on June 6 seems like a good time for it; it's worth noting that fans think they spotted an "IX" teaser for Resident Evil 9 in a Resident Evil 4 Remake video posted in late April, so the timing makes sense.

Dusk Golem didn't mention how Resident Evil 9 was rebooted, but given the eventual success of Resident Evil 7 and how popular Resident Evil Village was out of the gate, I'm assuming it's been reworked into another single-player experience — and if that's the case, I'm glad.

While I'm typically pretty open to studios trying new formats and ideas with long-running franchises, I have a strong desire to see Resident Evil specifically stick closer to its roots. Great single-player horror games are few and far between, and Resident Evil is one of the only series that's had consistently strong showings recently. Plus, you know...we all know how the last Resident Evil multiplayer project turned out.

Besides, Resident Evil Village already introduced some nonlinearity with its optional locations, secret paths, and some more open-ended zones, and I'd like to see Capcom keep exploring that semi-linear approach in single player before making something radically new with a full-fledged open world and multiplayer gameplay. Let me know if you agree or feel differently in the comments, though.

It's worth noting that while Resident Evil Village — the latest chronological entry in the franchise — is usually $40, you can get it on PC for just $14.99 at CDKeys thanks to this discount. The console versions I've linked to in the box below are on sale, too.

Tomorrow marks the start of another October — "spooky month," if you will — and naturally, that got me thinking about some of the most memorable horror games I've played over the years. Without a doubt, many of the best are entries from Capcom's Resident Evil series, a franchise that's reportedly had over 154 million copies sold globally since its introduction.

Indeed, countless horror fans have fond memories of desperately fighting to survive against zombies and other monstrous creatures in Resident Evil — and as Halloween approaches, there's never been a better time to get into the series. That's because right now, you can get two or more of many of the best Resident Evil games for just $8 apiece at Fanatical as part of its customizable "Resident Evil Bundle: Reawakened" collection.

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Grab some of the best horror games for less

Since the release of the first title nearly 30 years ago in 1996, Resident Evil has grown to become one of the biggest horror franchises in gaming, with it even expanding into film, television, novels, comics, and other media as a direct result of its popularity. Though it fell off somewhat in the mid-2010s, developer and publisher Capcom propelled the series back into the limelight with 2017's Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, which it's since followed up with 2021's Resident Evil Village sequel and several exhaustive remakes of Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4.

Several of these — including 7, Village, and the remakes of 2 and 3 — are available to add to this excellent build-your-own-bundle deal from Fanatical, as are other entries like the Resident Evil Revelations titles, Resident Evil and Resident Evil 0, a pairing of the original Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5, and 2012's Resident Evil 6. The majority of these are priced at $39.99, but by taking advantage of Fanatical's offer you can pick up two or more for just $8 per game.

Whether you're curious about seeing what the Resident Evil hype is all about or are simply a longtime fan looking to play the games you haven't checked out yet, this deal is simply unbeatable and one that you shouldn't pass up. $8 for each game is the lowest price I've ever seen any of the modern releases go for, and the fact you can pick and choose what's in your bundle means you can save big while simultaneously getting exactly what you want.

• DEAL: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate 3-month pre-paid cards are just $29.49 at CDKeys, giving you three months for the price of two even after the recent price increase to $19.99/month

The only real downside to the bundle is that 2023's Resident Evil 4 remake isn't included as one of the game options you can pick, though the original 2005 release is. Still, I think you'd be better off going for some of the newer entries like the Resident Evil 2 remake or Resident Evil Village, as these are more expensive and are far less likely to go on sale comparatively.

It's also important to note that Fanatical sells the Steam versions of all these games in its bundle, so only PC players can actually take advantage of it. With that said, many of the titles are on sale on Microsoft's Xbox storefront for steep discounts right now, and you can even play the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 through its all-you-can-eat Xbox Game Pass service. With Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you can access them on both Xbox and PC, potentially making that tier worth investing in if you use both platforms.

It goes without saying that the universe of Resident Evil would be a horrifying place to exist. The world is constantly under threat of corrupt corporations, cultists, and terrorists unleashing viruses that turn innocent people into zombies and bio-engineered monstrosities that can rip you to shreds.

With the Resident Evil 4 Remake on the way, there is no doubt that there will be new living nightmares lying in wait to prey upon unsuspecting players. So, to help prepare ourselves for the future monstrosities we will have to face, let us look back on the main storyline of the Resident Evil series from Resident Evil 0 to the beginning of Resident Evil Village.

Be warned: this retrospective will contain massive spoilers for every game summarized on this list. Also, we will include the remakes of Resident Evil 1, 2, and 3 instead of the original PlayStation One versions as they are likely regarded as the canon versions now. While there may be some plot deviations between the remakes and original titles, the general narrative of each title remains the same.

Final warning: There are major spoilers ahead!

Resident Evil 0

Our tale begins in July 1998. We open to a scene of the Ecliptic Express, a train owned by the pharmaceutical company, the Umbrella Corporation, traveling through the Arklay Mountains.

However, its peaceful joyride is cut short as it is suddenly attacked by a swarm of gigantic leech monsters bursting through the windows and devouring the passengers. While this massacre is unfolding, a mysterious man singing a choir song is observing the carnage from afar.

Two hours later, we cut to a helicopter carrying an elite police force unit called the Special Tactics and Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S. for short) to Arklay Mountains for their latest mission. Recently, a series of grisly, cannibalistic murders have been circulating within Raccoon City. The only clue Raccoon City’s police department has as to who’s been committing these crimes lies within the Arklay Mountains where the murders first began. So, they assigned their S.T.A.R.S. division to investigate the region and bring in the ones responsible for these heinous acts.

S.T.A.R.S. initially send in their Bravo Team on a helicopter to the Arklay Mountains to begin the search. On their way to the last murder sighting, the helicopter starts to unexpectedly malfunction and crash lands into Arklay Mountains’ forests. Bravo Team then begins searching the immediate area while their pilot, Kevin Dooley, stays behind to guard the remains of their chopper.

Bravo Team then comes across a wrecked military vehicle with its drivers dead and its only surviving occupant, a former marine who has been court-martialled and sentenced to death, Billy Coen, is nowhere to be seen. Thinking that Billy took advantage of the crash to murder his captors and escape, Bravo Team’s captain, Enrico Marini, orders the rest of his squad to split up and apprehend Billy.

During their search, Rebecca Chambers, Bravo Team’s field medic, discovers the ruined Ecliptic Express and moves in to investigate it. She then finds the train’s deceased occupants whose bodies are already beginning to rot…or so it seems. As Rebecca is taken aback by the scene, the passengers suddenly begin rising up one by one to attack her. Rebecca quickly guns them down but is still horrified by what she’s seen as she thought they were already dead.

Rebecca continues searching the train until she gets ambushed by Billy Coen, who holds her up at gunpoint but relents once he realizes that she isn’t a zombie. She attempts to arrest him, but Billy tells her to get lost and leaves.

Rebecca feels frustrated for being outplayed so easily by Billy, but she doesn’t have time to reflect as a body comes crashing through one of the windows. It turns out to be one of her Bravo teammates, Edward Dewey, and he is mortally wounded. Edward utters with his dying breath that Bravo Team has been attacked by zombies and monsters.

Rebecca then gets contacted on her radio by Enrico Marini, who informs her that he has uncovered documents containing background information on Billy from the wrecked wagon. According to files, Billy Coen received the death sentence for killing 23 people and was admitted to a mental hospital for violent behavior.

Rebecca continues her search of the train with the warning about Billy in mind, eventually coming across potentially another survivor. When she tries to communicate with the man, his body falls about and turns into the leeches which attacked the train. They attempt to overwhelm Rebecca, but Billy comes in to save her at the last minute, earning her trust.

Billy and Rebecca then spot the mysterious choir singer from the beginning of the game, surrounded by leeches, implying this character has control over them. The train suddenly begins to move again, so Rebecca and Billy decide to call a truce and work together to figure out what’s going on.

Unbeknownst to our protagonists, the Ecliptic Express is being operated by Umbrella’s security forces who are taking it to one of their facilities for inspection. All the while they’re being monitored by Umbrella scientists, Dr. William Birkin and Albert Wesker, the captain of the S.T.A.R.S. unit, which reveals to us that Bravo Team was being set up from the start, but for what end? As Wesker instructs the Umbrella soldiers over the radio, the leeches sneak up and attack the soldiers, destroying the train’s controls which leads to the locomotive speeding out of control.

Rebecca and Billy make it to the control room and try to slow the train. While they were successful in stopping the train from speeding into a wall, they were too late to prevent it from derailing, and it grinds to a halt. They exit the destroyed train and find themselves inside a mysterious underground train station beneath the Arklay Mountains, infested with more zombies and other mutated creatures.

After exiting the train station, Rebecca and Billy enter a building that appears to be a school built by Umbrella for training potential future employees. They then discover that this school is actually a front, it is in fact a research site for developing and testing biological weapons run by one of the co-founders of the Umbrella Corporation, Dr. James Marcus.

Albert Wesker and William Birkin discover Billy and Rebecca’s intrusion through hidden security cameras, but the video feed gets cut off by the mysterious choir singer. The singer proudly declares he was responsible for the attack on the Ecliptic Express and has spread something called the ‘T-Virus’ throughout their laboratories, all to exact revenge on Umbrella for murdering Dr. Marcus.

William Birkin and Albert Wesker theorize that this self-righteous interloper is in fact, Dr. Marcus, who has somehow been brought back from the dead and is using the leeches to wreak havoc on Umbrella. Fearing the damage caused by Dr. Marcus will cause Umbrella’s illicit activities to be leaked to the public and lead to its financial ruin, they begin planning their agendas should Umbrella fall. 

Albert Wesker will continue his mission to gather 'combat data' by bringing the rest of the S.T.A.R.S. unit to the Spencer Mansion. While William Birkin plans to escape Umbrella and complete his ‘G-Virus’ research, but not before activating the school’s self-destruct sequence, hoping the explosion will take out the intruders and any incriminating evidence against them.

While that’s going on, Billy and Rebecca continue their trek through the Umbrella school. During their journey, Rebecca manages to get Billy to confess why he was sentenced to die since he acts nothing like the psychopath his official records make him out to be. The truth is that Billy was blamed for a military operation going south in Africa. While searching for a guerrilla force base, Billy’s unit suffered heavy casualties due to bad intel and Billy disobeyed orders to shoot innocent villagers. So, Billy was used as a scapegoat by the US government to cover up the incident.

After battling their way through more failed science experiments, puzzles, and death traps, they discover files that reveal the disturbing experiments that Dr. Marcus was conducting. He has used the school’s children as guinea pigs to test out viruses that the Umbrella Corporation was developing called the Progenitor Virus and the Tyrant Virus (a.k.a. T-Virus). He also created the mutant leeches and used them as carriers of the T-Virus to infect his child test subjects and many others. However, rifts began to form between Dr. Marcus and one of the founding members of Umbrella, Oswell E. Spencer, who is also its CEO. Dr. Marcus suspects that Spencer was planning to steal his research for himself.

Rebecca and Billy later get separated during an encounter with monkey-like monsters. Rebecca then discovers another Umbrella research lab beneath the school where man-made monsters called Bio-Organic Weapons (B.O.W. for short) were being developed. During her search for Billy, she runs into Enrico who managed to get in through another back entrance. He tells her this research facility leads to an old mansion owned by Umbrella where the rest of Bravo Team should be waiting for them. However, Rebecca elects to stay behind so she can rescue Billy as she has grown fond of him. Enrico reluctantly agrees to let her stay while he goes to meet with Bravo Team.

Rebecca eventually reunites with Billy, finding him inside a pool where Dr. Marcus discards his test subjects after they cease being useful. Soon afterward, they are confronted by the mysterious choir singer who reveals himself to be the 'Queen Leech', one of Dr. Marcus’ finest creations. It explains that ten years ago, Dr. Marcus was assassinated by Umbrella’s security, and his research on the Progenitor Virus and T-Virus was stolen by Albert Wesker and William Birkin on Spencer’s orders.

When Dr. Marcus’s body and his leeches were dumped in a river, the Queen Leech infected Dr. Marcus’ dead body and used it as a food source to survive. For the next ten years, the T-Virus within Queen Leech mutated and gave it the ability to transform into a younger version of Dr. Marcus, inheriting the doctor’s memories after eating his brain. Now believing itself to be Dr. Marcus reborn through divine intervention, the Queen Leech began a quest for vengeance to destroy Umbrella and the world.

The Queen Leech then transforms into its true mutant form and attacks Rebecca and Billy as it sees them as a threat to its plans. The battle was brutal and intense, but Rebecca and Billy manage to seemingly kill the Leech Queen after exhausting nearly all of their ammo. Shortly after, they discover an elevator shaft that will take them back to the school. The Queen Leech then revives itself using the T-Virus to heal its wounds and chases after Billy and Rebecca. To make matters worse, an alarm goes off saying that a self-destruct sequence had begun and that it will blow up the research facility and the school.

After being cornered in a helicopter cargo warehouse by the Queen Leech, Rebecca and Billy engage the disgusting monster in a desperate last stand. With little ammo left all hope seems lost, until one of the Queen Leech’s attacks breaks a hole in the ceiling letting in the sunlight which causes it to burn. Realizing that the Queen Leech is sensitive to light, Rebecca immediately runs to the warehouse controls which operate the retractable roof, and opens it up to bathe the Queen Leech in searing sunlight.

Billy then finishes off the Queen Leech blasting it with a magnum, sending it crashing back down the elevator shaft where it is utterly destroyed by the exploding facility. Rebecca and Billy manage to escape the inferno in the nick of time to emerge back into the Arklay Mountains. Rebecca then spots the old mansion Enrico mentioned earlier in the distance and decides to do one last favor for Billy before they part company. She takes his dog tags and declares him legally dead so he can start a new life as a free man without being executed for crimes he didn’t commit.

Billy agrees to this arrangement and thanks Rebecca with a salute before leaving her to rendezvous with Bravo Team. Rebecca then says a tearful goodbye and makes her way to the mansion, knowing full well that this hellish mission has only just begun.

Resident Evil

While Bravo Team crash was busy trying to survive in the Arklay Mountains, the rest of the S.T.A.R.S. unit back in Raccoon City desperately tried to contact them. After failing to contact their radios, their captain Albert Wesker, orders the S.T.A.R.S Alpha Team to assemble and get ready to deploy to Arklay Mountains and rescue Bravo Team. Little does Alpha Team know that Albert Wesker is one of the masterminds behind this disaster and is secretly leading them to their doom.

Once Alpha Team arrives, they find the Bravo Team's crashed helicopter with Kevin Dooley inside, mauled to death. Alpha Team was then immediately attacked by a pack of wild dogs, and one of their members, Joseph Frost, was torn to pieces. Alpha Team tried to save Joseph but was shocked to discover their bullets had little effect on the grotesque dogs. Seeing the horrifying scene causes Alpha Team's pilot, Brad Vickers, to take off with their helicopter, leaving Alpha Team stranded in the Arklay Mountains.

Our heroes have no choice but to flee to whatever shelter they can find. They spot an abandoned mansion and immediately rush inside, locking the door behind them. The only members of Alpha Team left on this mission are Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Barry Burton, and Albert Wesker. After getting their bearings from being chased by the mutant dogs, Alpha Team decides to split into groups to explore the mansion.

They find what they assume to be the culprit behind the cannibalistic murders feasting on the corpse of Kenneth Sullivan, one of Bravo Team's members. A grotesque, rotting man that felt no pain from gunfire but a bullet to the brain quickly dispatches the monster. However, he wasn't the only one — it turns out this mansion was crawling with undead zombies. As Alpha Team's exploration of the mansion continues, they discover that zombies weren't the only evil residents. There were mutant crows, spiders, snakes, sharks, plants, and even humanoid lizardmen. Not to mention this mansion was also laden with death traps and puzzles to deter intruders.

After evading all of those hurdles, they manage to find Rebecca Chambers, who sadly was the only surviving member of Bravo Team. Alpha Team eventually finds a laboratory hidden underneath the mansion and discovers the truth. All these monsters were the result of the T-Virus and Umbrella's goal was to produce Bio-Organic Weapons (B.O.W. for short) and sell them off to militaries worldwide. However, the Queen Leech posing as Dr. Marcus leaked T-Virus, turned all the research staff into zombies, and released all the locked-up B.O.Ws to cause widespread chaos. They also discover Albert Wesker's true identity as one of Umbrella's top researchers.

Our S.T.A.R.S. confront Albert Wesker, and he coldly confesses that he was working for Umbrella the whole time. He informs them that S.T.A.R.S was brought here to test out the B.O.W.'s combat abilities. Once they were dead, Wesker would gather the combat data and bring it back to Umbrella, but Albert Wesker has other plans. He plans to double-cross Umbrella and sell the data to one of their rival companies because he feels the T-Virus outbreak will lead to Umbrella's financial ruin.

Before he leaves, Albert Wesker activates the mansion's self-destruct protocol to destroy any evidence of the incident. He also unleashes the T002-Tyrant, the culmination of Umbrella's T-Virus research, and orders it to kill our heroes. However, the Tyrant proves somewhat unstable and goes berserk, killing Albert Wesker in the process. After an intense battle, our heroes manage to escape the mansion before it explodes thanks to pilot Brad Vickers coming back to pick them up at the last minute.

The only known survivors of this incident are Jill, Chris, Barry, Brad, and Rebecca. They breathe a sigh of relief, but deep down they know this nightmare is far from over.

Resident Evil 2

Two months after the events of Resident Evil 1, Resident Evil 2 kicks off in late 1999. We see a young man named Leon Kennedy is driving towards Raccoon City to attend his first day on the local police force. When he gets there, however, he finds the city overrun with undead zombies. Leon meets one of the survivors amidst the chaos, a young woman named Claire Redfield. Claire tells Leon she came to Raccoon city looking for her brother Chris Redfield because she lost contact with him a couple of months ago. After a disastrous car crash, the pair get separated and agree to meet up at the Raccoon City Police Department.

When they get there, they find the Police Department crawling with zombies and mutated abominations. They managed to find a surviving officer, Marvin Branagh, but he's been bitten by the zombies. He informs our heroes that everyone else has been killed, and they should save themselves. Claire also finds a diary left behind by Chris, which implies that he has left Raccoon City and traveled to Europe. With no reason left to stay, Leon and Claire decide to escape Raccoon City while rescuing any survivors along the way.

It is here where Leon and Claire's paths diverge. After using an emergency escape exit provided by Marvin, Leon meets an FBI agent named Ada Wong. Leon asks Ada if she knows what's going on, but she tells him to get out while he still can. He later encounters Ben Bertolucci, a journalist locked up in prison. He tells Leon that the Umbrella Corporation was responsible for the zombie outbreak, and they bribed the chief of police, Brian Irons, to keep his mouth shut. Leon is skeptical, but before he can ask any more questions, a giant man busts through the walls and kills Ben.

This is the T00-Tyrant (a.k.a. Mr. X), a B.O.W. sent by Umbrella to kill witnesses to the viral outbreak. Mr. X almost kills Leon, but Ada Wong saves at the last minute by ramming Mr. X with a police van. She confirms Ben's story and says she's been tracking down an Umbrella scientist responsible for this disaster, Annette Birkin. Leon demands that he joins her investigation so they can bring down the people who ruined Raccoon City and its people. She reluctantly allows him to join her, and together they begin tracking down Annette and the virus that caused the outbreak: the G-Virus.

Meanwhile, Claire Redfield encounters a little girl named Sherry Birkin looking for her mother. Not long afterward, Sherry gets kidnapped by police chief Irons and takes her to the Raccoon City orphanage. When Claire gets there, she finds Irons killed, with a parasite bursting out of his chest. Thankfully, Sherry is alive, and they make their escape through a secret passage in Irons' office. However, Mr. X arrives and gives chase. Mr. X corners Claire and Sherry in an elevator, but he gets ripped apart by the mutant that infected Irons with the parasite. Sherry says the monster is (or was) her father, before the elevator collapses from the chaos, causing them all to fall into Umbrella's sewer facility.

Claire wakes up to meet Annette Birkin, Sherry's mother, who takes Sherry Birkin to a secure location. Claire goes after Sherry to make she's okay despite Annete's protests. Claire is shocked to discover that Sherry has been infected, and she's beginning to turn. Annette, via an intercom, says there's a way to cure her at the NEST facility. Claire asks for her help, but Annette refuses, as she is busy trying to stop the monster she calls 'William'. So Claire decides to take Sherry to NEST by herself. Coincidentally, that's where Leon and Ada headed to as well.

Both parties arrive at NEST with their objectives — Leon and Ada are tracking down the G-Virus while Claire is looking for a cure for Sherry. Along the way, they discover the cause of the outbreak in Raccoon City. Dr. William Birkin had finished completing the G-Virus and was planning to sell his research to the US military. Umbrella higher-ups find out about William's betrayal and send in their paramilitary unit, the Umbrella Secret Service (U.S.S. for short) to secure the G-Virus. William refused to hand over the virus and was gunned down by U.S.S. agents when he resisted. In a last-ditch effort to stop Umbrella from stealing his life's work, William injects himself with the G-Virus and mutates into the B.O.W. now stalking the facilities. Driven mad by the mutations, William kills the U.S.S. agents and destroys the virus samples they took. Rats ingest the shattered samples and they quickly spread the G-Virus throughout Raccoon City.

When Claire and Leon get what they came for, they run into William Birkin. Annette arrives an in attempt to kill him for good but gets critically injured by William. After beating him, the following scene is different depending on who you play as. In Leon's story, Annette tells Leon that Ada Wong is not an FBI but a spy that's trying to steal the virus and sell it on the black market. Leon can't believe this and confronts Ada Wong about it. Ada immediately admits it and pulls a gun on Leon but can't bring herself to kill him. Annette then shoots Ada, causing her to fall to her doom along with G-Virus sample. Meanwhile, in Claire's story, Claire and Annette manage to cure Sherry of the G-Virus. Annette dies from her injuries sustained in her earlier encounter with William.

When Leon took the G-Virus samples, NEST's self-destruct protocols activate. With no time to spare, Leon, Claire, and Sherry rush off to find an escape route. While taking different elevator shafts, they each encounter an obstacle. Leon fights Mr. X one last time, and Claire fights William Birkin in a new, heavily mutated form. Ada manages to survive her fall thanks to her gadgets and tosses a rocket launcher to Leon (who has no idea she's still alive), saying that they're now even. Leon and Claire defeat the monsters and manage to get on a train, just in time to escape the exploding facility. Their reunion is cut short when the train gets boarded by William Birkin, who has mutated to the point where he's just a giant blob of tentacles, meat, teeth, and eyeballs. Leon and Claire barely manage to cut off the train carriage William was clinging to in time before the explosion caught up to them. After many battles, William Birkin finally dies in the exploding facility.

Leon, Claire, and Sherry come out of the side of the tunnel, surviving the longest night of their lives. Afterward, Leon and Claire decide that they're going to take down Umbrella for what they have done, once and for all.

Resident Evil 3

Resident Evil 3 begins shortly after Resident Evil 1. Chris, Jill, and Barry are making a request to the Raccoon City police chief, Brian Irons to conduct a full-scale investigation of Umbrella, who vehemently denies them. They soon find out that Umbrella's influence reached all corners of Raccoon City and that they can't trust any officials. They were on their own. Chris heads off to Europe to investigate Umbrella's Europe branch, with Barry following behind after relocating his family to Canada. Jill decides to stay behind to see if she can get any dirt on Umbrella in Raccoon City.

Two months later, Jill's investigation has been ground to a halt. Brian Irons disbands S.T.A.R.S., suspends Jill from the police force, and places her under house arrest. Due to the lack of progress of her investigation and Irons' constant surveillance, Jill decides that now is the time to leave Raccoon City and join Chris and Barry in Europe. As she prepares to leave, she is attacked by a new Tyrant creature, codenamed Nemesis.

Umbrella has sent Nemesis to kill all members of S.T.A.R.S for their meddling in Umbrella's affairs. After a tense chase, Jill manages to give Nemesis the slip for now. She meets up with Brad Vickers, and the pair quickly discover that Raccoon City has descended into pure chaos. Zombies are everywhere, and people are dying left and right. They quickly take shelter in a bar, but Brad gets bitten by one of the zombies. Realizing he's doomed, he stays behind to hold off the zombie horde, buying Jill enough time to escape.

While evading the zombies, a rescue helicopter spots Jill, and the pilot tells her to rendevous at the parking garage. When she gets there, Nemesis destroys the chopper, cutting off her escape. With nowhere to run, Jill decides to take out the Tyrant by running him over with a car, to no avail. As Nemesis looms over Jill, a soldier distracts Nemesis and blasts away the Tyrant with a rocket launcher. Nemesis survives but is incapacitated. The soldier, Carlos Oliveira, takes Jill to the subway, where other survivors are gathered.

Carlos explains he is with the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service (U.B.C.S. for short), and he has been sent to rescue any survivors. When they get to the subway, they meet Carlos C.O., Mikhail Viktor. Mikhail explains that they're trying to fix the train so they can evacuate the survivors, but their platoon has been nearly wiped out, so he asks Jill for help. Jill is apprehensive at first, considering that these guys are working for Umbrella, but she ultimately agrees because she wants to help the survivors, not Umbrella.

During her trek through the city, Jill finds an injured U.B.C.S. soldier, but he's quickly shot dead by another U.B.C.S. soldier, Nikolai Zinoview. Jill gets into a heated argument with Nikolai, but he dismisses her for being a bleeding heart. She gets the subway system back online and heads back to the train station. When she gets back, Nemesis shows up again. She decides to lure Nemesis away to buy the U.C.B.S. soldiers enough time for the train to be fully fixed.

Jill's battles with Nemesis are long and intense. Nemesis tries to burn her alive with a flamethrower and blow her to bits with a rocket launcher. With some quick thinking and teamwork from Carlos, they manage to defeat Nemesis by blowing up a nearby a gas tanker. Once they get back to the train station, Carlos says he has to stay behind because he has orders to find Dr. Nathanial Bard. Bard is a scientist whose vaccine research could save Raccoon City. Jill departs on the train with Mikhail, Nikolai, and the rest of the survivors.

During their ride, Nemesis attacks the trains and kills the survivors. An enraged Jill tries to fight him, but Mikhail holds her, saying they need to retreat. As they do so, Nikolai locks them inside, revealing himself to be a traitor. Nemesis mortally wounds Mikhail, but before he can kill him, Mikhail detonates a C4 charge, hoping to take Nemesis out with him. The explosions derail the train and knock Jill out cold.

Meanwhile, Carlos and fellow U.C.B.S. officer Tyrell search Raccoon City for Dr. Bard. They arrive at the Police Department and contact the doctor by using the officer computers. Dr. Bard says he's trapped at the Spencer Memorial hospital and that Umbrella's been killing off all the Umbrella researchers to cover up the incident. Carlos then gets a call from Jill telling him that Nemesis killed everyone on the train and that Nikolai left them to die. Jill then gets interrupted by Nemesis, who has horrifically mutated due to his injuries. Carlos immediately drops what he's doing and rushes to help Jill.

Jill manages to fight off the animalistic Nemesis, but he manages to impale Jill with a tentacle, infecting her with the T-Virus. Carlos finds Jill unconscious, slowly but surely starting to turn into a zombie. He carries her to the hospital, hoping that Dr. Bard's vaccine can cure her of the T-Virus. When Carlos gets to the hospital, he finds Dr. Bard has been shot in the head, most likely by Nikolai. Carlos finds Dr. Bard's personal computer and discovers a personal log entry from the doctor. Dr. Bard details the location of the vaccine and confesses that Umbrella was indeed responsible for the viral outbreak. Carlos doesn't take this revelation very well. Nonetheless, he gets a sample of the vaccine and gives it to Jill just in the nick of time.

Tyrell meets up with Carlos and brings him some terrible news. The US government has declared that they are launching a missile strike to destroy Raccoon City on October 1, 1998, because the outbreak has become uncontainable. Carlos tells Tyrell to contact the government to hold off the missile strike because they have found the vaccine. Carlos then heads off the Umbrella's underground facility, NEST2, where the rest of the vaccine is located.

Jill wakes up to discover the news about Raccoon City's impending destruction. Tyrell tells her that Carlos has gone off to get the vaccine, but he lost contact with him some time ago. Jill then heads off to NEST2 to help Carlos. Tyrell joins her after contacting the government, he says they're willing to call off the missile strike if they can retrieve the vaccine in a few hours. When they get to NEST2, they are attacked by Nemesis again, who kills Tyrell.

After evading Nemesis, Jill manages to create a sample of the vaccine needed to save Racoon City. Unfortunately, she drops it after a scuffle with Nemesis. Nikolai grabs the vaccine and offers Jill a deal — if she fights Nemesis while Nikolai records the battle, he will give her back the vaccine. Jill has no choice but to do what Nikolai says for now. The battle isn't going well for Jill, but Carlos arrives to save her by drowning Nemesis in a pool of acid.

Jill then pursues Nikolai to retrieve the vaccine but is stopped yet again by Nemesis. Who, at this point, has mutated into a giant amorphous blob of flesh and tentacles. Jill tells Carlos to go after Nikolai while she deals with Nemesis one last time. Thankfully for Jill, the area they're in happens to contain a gigantic experimental railgun weapon. After dismembering Nemesis with the railgun, Jill fires it directly in Nemesis's grotesque face, finally destroying the Tyrant for good.

Jill catches up with Carlo, but he's been knocked out by Nikolai. Nikolai overpowers Jill and destroys the vaccine, dooming Raccoon City. Nikolai reveals he's a mercenary hired to reduce Umbrella to rubble and collect combat data of the B.O.W.s in action. As Nikolai prepares to kill Jill, Carlos wakes up to put Nikolai in a chokehold and tells Jill to shoot him. They manage to incapacitate Nikolai by shooting him in the shoulder. Jill tries to interrogate Nikolai about his motives and who his employer is, but Nikolai responds with cryptic answers and asking for money. Having enough of Nikolai's nonsense, Jill decides to leave him behind to die along with Raccoon City. Nikolai warns Jill that she'll never find out if she leaves him, but Jill says she doesn't mind doing some detective work.

As Carlos and Jill escape in a helicopter, they watch the missile strike reduce Raccoon City to ashes. Jill mourns the loss of her home and contemplates that this horrific tragedy wasn't caused by viruses but by human greed. She vows to dedicate her life to bring down Umbrella and avenge all the good people who died in Raccoon City.

Resident Evil Code: Veronica X

Three months have passed since the destruction of Raccoon City, and Claire Redfield is still searching for her brother, Chris Redfield. Her journey takes her to an Umbrella facility in Paris, but she is immediately discovered by security. They knock out Claire and take her to Rockford Island to interrogate her. Her imprisonment doesn't last long as when she wakes up, she finds the island devastated and crawling with zombies.

Taking this opportunity to escape, Claire leaves her cell and tries to find a way off the island. Along the way, she runs into an inmate named Steve Burnside, and they agree to find an escape route together. Claire tells Steve she's searching for her brother, and Steve remembers overhearing the guards keeping tabs on Chris. Claire finds a nearby computer terminal and emails Leon Kennedy, to try and inform Chris of her whereabouts and that Umbrella is onto him.

As Claire's search continues, she encounters the commanding officer of Rockfort Island, Alfred Ashford, the grandson of one of Umbrella's founders, Edward Ashford. Alfred demands to know why Claire attacked Rockfort Island, but Claire has no idea what he's talking about. Alfred says an air raid strike attacked the island, and the ensuing chaos caused the island's stockpile of T-Virus samples to leak, killing all of the island's staff.

After overcoming numerous traps set by Alfred, Claire and Steve make their way to the Ashford Estate. When they arrive, they are obstructed not just by Alfred, but also by his sister, Alexia Ashford. However, they are shocked to discover that Alexia was actually just Alfred, portraying his sister through some warped obsession. In a moment of psychotic rage, Alfred activates the island's self-destruct sequence to take the pair out. Claire and Steve manage to find an airplane and escape the island before it explodes. However, Alfred activates the plane's auto-pilot by remote and directs it to crash into an Umbrella base in Antarctica.

Claire and Steve manage to survive the crash and begin exploring the base. Alfred makes one last attempt to kill the pair, but Steve shoots Alfred, causing him to fall into a deep chasm. The noise from the battle causes a failed B.O.W., Nosferatu, to awaken and attack Claire and Steve. They defeat the ancient mutant by shooting it in the heart. Claire and Steve find a nearby snowmobile and attempt to escape the base. A dying Alfred crawls to a hidden laboratory and releases the real, mutated, Alexia Ashford from cryogenic stasis. Alexa uses her mutant appendages to capture Claire and Steve to use them for her sick experiments.

Chris Redfield finally arrives at Rockfort Island only to discover it's in ruins. He explores the island hoping that Claire is alive amongst the wreckage, but he finds the last person he ever wanted to see again — Albert Wesker. Not only did Albert Wesker survive getting impaled by the Tyrant in Resident Evil 1, but he somehow also gained superhuman speed and strength. As well as enhanced regenerative healing.

He tells Chris that he's now working for a new company, The Organization, and has been tasked with retrieving Alexa Ashford. After dominating Chris with his newfound abilities, Albert Wesker decides to allow Chris to live. During the one-sided fight, Wesker lets slip that Alexia is in the Antarctica base alongside Claire. Wasting no time, Chris grabs one of the few remaining airplanes and flies off to save his sister.

While exploring the base, Chris discovers notes detailing the Ashford twins' origins. Their father, Alexander Ashford, was conducting experiments to clone their ancestor, Veronica, to bolster their family's reputation within Umbrella. The experiments resulted in two clones of Veronica — Alfred, and Alexia Ashford. When the children discovered they were nothing but a means to an end, they kidnapped their father and experimented on him as an act of revenge. Alexander was transformed into the B.O.W., Nosferatu. Their experiments on their father led to a variant of the T-Virus, which Alexia christened, the T-Veronica Virus. She injected herself with it and put herself into cryogenic stasis for 15 years so that the virus can mutate slowly without degrading her mind.

Chris eventually finds Claire, but they are soon separated again by Alexia. Chris tells Claire to rescue Steve while he deals with Alexia. Claire finds Steve but is shocked to discover that he's been mutated by the T-Veronica Virus and has lost his mind. One of Alexia's tentacles restrains Claire so that the mutated Steve can finish her. However, Steve manages to regain his mind upon hearing Claire's desperate cries for help. He saves Claire but is mortally wounded by Alexia. Steve confesses his love to Claire before passing away.

After fending off a mutated Alexia, Chris activates the base's self-destruct sequence to unlock all doors of the facility. While they are making their escape, they reencounter Alexia, who has mutated into a giant insectoid monster. Chris manages to destroy Alexia for good by using an experimental laser cannon that was nearby. Unfortunately, Albert Wesker abducted Claire while Chris was fighting Alexia. He makes Wesker release Claire by goading him into a fight. Chris tells Claire to prep Chris's harrier jet for take-off while he fights Wesker. Just before she leaves, Wesker taunts Claire by saying that he's taken Steve's body back to his employer for research.

Chris and Wesker's battle comes to a draw when the crumbling base separates the pair of them. Wesker and Chris vow to finish their fight the next time they meet. Chris catches up to Claire, and they both fly away as the Antarctica base explodes.

Resident Evil 4

After many setbacks and investigations, Umbrella was eventually found guilty by the US government for their illegal experiments and causing the viral outbreak in Raccoon City. The compensation charges bankrupted the company, and they were shut down in 2004. Umbrella may be gone, but there were other evil organizations out there, ready to terrorize the world with their biological nightmares.

Years after the destruction of Raccoon City, Leon was recruited by the US government to become a secret service agent owing to his skill and experience. After his training was complete, Leon was assigned his first mission. He must quietly travel to Spain and retrieve Ashley Graham, the United States president's daughter, who has been kidnapped by a cult known as Los Illuminados.

When Leon arrives at a village where Ashley was last sighted, he is attacked by the local villagers. All of whom display unyielding loyalty to Los Illuminados' leader, Osmund Saddler. During his investigation, he meets a man named Luis Cera, who the villagers have tied up. When Leon tries to set Luis free, he gets jumped by one of the cult's enforcers, Bitores Mendez, and is knocked unconscious. Saddler then arrives to inject Leon with a parasite while he sleeps.

Leon and Luis manage to escape their bonds once they wake up and go their separate ways. Before Luiz leaves, he tells Leon that the cult is keeping Ashley locked in their church. After Leon fights his way through the villagers and a couple of giant monsters, he reaches the church where Ashley is being held. Once he frees Ashley, Leon comes face to face with Saddler. Saddler tells Leon that they injected Ashley with a parasite, and once they send her back, the parasite will take control of Ashley and murder the president. Leon and Ashley evade the cult's clutches and begin to make their way to the extraction point.

Unfortunately, the chopper coming to pick them up has been shot down, so Leon and Ashley have to find shelter before another one arrives. After fighting more villagers and defeating Bitorez Mendez, Leon and Ashley find a castle they hope they can hide in until the chopper arrives. Leon and Ashley run then into Luis. He says he knows they have been infected with the parasite. Luis goes off alone to look for a cure while he tells Leon and Ashley to stay alive in the meantime. Leon and Ashley are eventually confronted by one of the Los Illuminados high-ranking members, Ramon Salazar. He has rigged the castle with dozens of traps, and one of them separates Leon and Ashley. Now Leon has to find her again while contending with Salazar's minions.

While exploring the castle, Leon comes across memos left by Luis that reveal that the parasite is named Las Plagas. Leon then gets an unpleasant reunion with Ada Wong. Leon says that he knows that Ada Wong is now working for Albert Wesker and demands to know why she's here. Ada responds with a flashbang and leaves him dazed and confused. Luis then meets up with Leon again with a drug that will stop the parasites infecting Leon and Ashley from growing, along with a sample of Las Plagas. However, Luis gets mortally wounded by Saddler. Saddler retrieves the Las Plagas sample and leaves Luis to die. Luis reveals to Leon that he was a researcher who worked for Saddler, but he defected once he realized how evil his employer was. With his dying breath, Luis gives Leon a drug that will stall the parasite growth and urges him to retrieve the Las Plagas sample before it's too late.

After overcoming dozens of obstacles, Leon catches up with Salazar, but Ashley is long gone. Salazar says Ashley has been taken to an island, miles away. Salazar then mutates into a giant monster and attacks Leon. After defeating Salazar, Leon makes his way to the docks to find a boat that can take him to the island. Ada Wong offers a ride, and Leon begrudgingly agrees since there are no other boats available. Ada then leaves Leon while she does her own work.

The island is a heavily fortified research facility, crawling with armed guards and monsters with regenerative abilities. There Leon encounters Jack Krauser, a soldier that Leon thought died in an accident. Krauser reveals he was the one who kidnapped Ashley and brought her Los Illuminados in the first place. His goal is to revive Umbrella and bring order to the world. Leon's not having of his crazy rhetoric and kills Krauser in a knife fight.

After many setbacks, Leon finally reunites with Ashley. They find a machine capable of eradicating the Las Plagas parasite within a host and use it to cure themselves. While they're finding a way off the island, Leon and Ashley encounter Saddler, and he has taken Ada Wong hostage. Leon tells Ashley to hide and prepares to take down Saddler for good. With some assistance from Ada, Leon blows Saddler to kingdom come with a rocket launcher.

Ada makes off with the Las Plagas sample and gives Leon a key to a jet ski he can use to get Ashley. She tells Leon to get a move on because she's rigged the island to explode in 3 minutes. Leon and Ashley escape the exploding island and proceed to make their way back home. Meanwhile, Ada Wong takes the Las Plagas sample not to Wesker but to the higher-ups of The Organization, leaving Wesker with only scraps.

Resident Evil 5

When Umbrella had dissolved, a new organization had risen to protect the world from bio-terrorism, the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (B.S.A.A. for short). Chris, Jill, Barry, and Rebecca join the organization to prevent any more tragedies like Raccoon City's destruction from ever happening again.

In 2006, the B.S.A.A. managed to track down Oswell E. Spencer, who went to hiding after Umbrella had fallen apart. The B.S.A.A. sends in Chris and Jill to arrest him and interrogate him on the whereabouts of Albert Wesker. When they get there, they find Albert Wesker has murdered Spencer.

Albert Wesker had been busy over the years. He took over The Organization, made new viruses, and began wiping out any trace of his existence. His latest loose end to tie up was paying a visit to Spencer. However, Spencer was already on death's door due to old age. Spencer decides to reveal to Wesker the true reason for Umbrella's creation before he passes away.

Umbrella wasn't making viruses and monsters for money. The viruses and B.O.W.s were part of many projects designed to create a race of superhumans that Spencer would rule over as a god. Albert Wesker himself was one of those projects, namely the Wesker Project. The company kidnapped several children and injected them with the Progenitor Virus, the first virus Umbrella created. The virus would give the host superhuman abilities but was also almost guaranteed to kill the subject. Albert Wesker survived those experiments and became an employee of the company, but Albert lost all memory of this event. The Progenitor Virus was also responsible for reviving Wesker after he was killed by the Tyrant and granting him his superpowers.

Once he saw no more use for Spencer, Albert Wesker kills him in cold blood. Wesker declares that he will be the god of this world, not Spencer. It was at this time where Chris and Jill barge in, and their fight begins. Even with Jill's back-up, Chris Redfield is still no match for Albert Wesker. As Wesker prepares to finish off Chris, Jill tackles Wesker into a nearby window, both plummeting into the Atlantic Ocean. Their bodies were never found, so they were declared dead, much to Chris' despair.

Three years later, Chris Redfield has been assigned to investigate potential B.O.W. smuggling in Africa. When he arrives at the location where the smuggling is supposed, Kijuju, he meets up with his new partner, Sheva Alomar. They meet one of their contacts, Reynard Fisher, who provides them weapons and intel for their mission. Chris and Sheva are to rendezvous with B.S.A.A.'s Alpha Team to ambush the B.O.W. smuggler, Ricardo Irving. Before they leave, Reynard warns about a doomsday project Irving may be involved in called Uroboros.

On their way to the rendevous point, Chris and Sheva get attacked by the locals who have been infected by a parasite similar to the Las Plagas. After dodging the hostile townsfolk, Chris and Sheva find Alpha Team have been decimated with only one member barely alive, Captain Dechant. He hands Chris a data file containing information on Irving's deal before succumbing to his wounds. Chris and Sheva are then beset upon by a brand new monstrosity, a mass of black worms merging to form a humanoid shape. They manage to burn it to ashes and find a computer to send the data file back B.S.A.A. HQ.

HQ orders Chris and Sheva to head for the mines because intel believes that's where Irving has fled to. Along the way, Chris and Sheva are ambushed by more infected locals, but they're saved by the arrival of the B.S.A.A. Delta Team, led by Captain Josh Stone. Before he leaves to clear the city of more infected, he gives Chris a data file containing info on Irving's dealings. When Chris reads the files, he is shocked to discover an image of Jill Valentine among them.

Chris and Sheva eventually find and corner Irving and attempt to apprehend them. Suddenly, a masked woman crashes through a window and tosses a tear gas grenade to stun Chris and Sheva. The masked woman then carries Irving away. Once they recover their senses, Chris and Sheva read Irving's notes to learn that his next destination is an oil refinery. After dealing with a giant bat B.O.W., a B.S.A.A. agent, Dave Johnson, arrives in a truck to escort Chris and Sheva to Delta Team.

During their trip, Josh contacts Chris and confirms the locals have been infected by the Las Plagas, transformed into monsters called Majini. They lose contact with Delta shortly after. When Chris and Sheva arrive at the rendevous point, they find Delta Team has been wiped out by a giant B.O.W., which crushes Dave Johnson. After Chris and Sheva gun down the monster, they receive orders from HQ to return to base. However, Chris is staying because he believes Jill Valentine is still alive and somewhere amidst this chaos. Sheva thinks this is a bad idea but then grits her teeth and vows to stay with Chris to the end.

Chris then tells Sheva of how Jill supposedly died when they encountered Albert Wesker three years ago. Sheva then tells Chris that her parents were killed in a viral outbreak in Africa caused by Umbrella. So, she joined the B.S.A.A. to make bio-terrorists like Umbrella pay for their crimes against humanity.

As they travel to the oil refinery, they encounter indigenous tribes that have mutated into Majini. In these villages, they spot some tents belonging to TRICELL, a pharmaceutical company that helped fund the B.S.A.A. The tents contain files that implicate TRICELL helped distribute the Las Plagas in Africa. When they get to the oil field, Chris and Sheva find Josh Stone managed to survive the B.O.W. attack. Together they fight off Majini and locate Irving, who is escaping on a boat. With nowhere left to run, Irving infects himself with a Las Plagas sample, given to him by the masked woman, to mutate into a giant sea monster to kill Chris and Sheva.

After sinking Irving's monstrous body, they interrogate Irving about Jill and Uroboros before he dies. Irving curses a woman named Excella and tells Chris he'll find what they're looking for in a nearby cave. Chris and Sheva head for the cave while Josh stays behind to call for backup. While they search the caves, Sheva mentions that Excella is the director of TRICELL's African division, adding further evidence that TRICELL is involved in this mess.

Chris and Sheva find a long-lost, ancient city within the caverns where many Majini lie in wait for them. After fighting them off, they discover a grotto filled with flowers that Umbrella used to create the Progenitor Virus. They have essentially found the origins of Umbrella. Continuing onwards, they find a research facility containing hundreds of people in pods. Chris accesses a computer and finds out Jill was in one of the pods. Excella then appears on-screen and reveals she hacked the B.S.A.A.'s communications to gave the fake orders for the agents to retreat.

Chris and Sheva eventually find Extella, who reveals that Uroboros is a brand new virus designed to help mankind evolve. It merges with the host's DNA, and if it's successful, it will turn the host into a superhuman. Failure to merge will just turn the host into a hideous abomination. After fighting more B.O.W.s, Chris and Sheva corner Excella, but they are attacked by the masked woman again. As they fight, Albert Wesker steps out of the shadows, revealing he was behind the whole scheme all along. He then takes the masked woman's hood off, revealing that it was Jill Valentine. Albert Wesker brainwashed Jill to do his bidding through a device crafted onto her chest.

Wesker leaves Jill to kill Chris and Sheva while he prepares the next phase of his plan. After the most emotionally difficult battle in Chris's life, they barely managed to get the mind control device off of Jill. Jill is too tired from the battle, so she tells Chris to go on ahead stop Wesker from releasing the Uroboros Virus while she recuperates. Chris is concerned about leaving her, but Jill says she'll be fine.

They track down Wesker and Excella to a ship and give chase. They find Excella carrying a couple of briefcases, but she drops one of them as she gets away. Sheva retrieves the contents, which happen to be syringes labeled PG67A/W. Later they reencounter Excella, but she's been infected by the Uroboros. Heartbroken, she reveals she only committed these crimes because she fell in love with Wesker and wanted to rule the world with him. Wesker saw no more use for her, so he infected her with the virus.

Excella transforms into a massive B.O.W., but Chris destroys her by blasting her with an orbital laser. Jill contacts Chris and tells him that the virus which gives Wesker his superhuman abilities is unstable. He needs regular doses of a serum labeled PG67A/W to keep it under control, but it will poison him if Wesker takes too much. Thankfully, Sheva happens to have the serum when Excella dropped it earlier.

They confront Wesker at a stealth bomber that Wesker's planning to use to spread the Uroboros Virus. As the stealth bomber takes off, Wesker goes on a rant about how the world has become overpopulated and plans to use Uroboros to cull humanity and rule the survivors as their god. Chris and Sheva shut Wesker up by injecting him with the serum. Their battle causes the stealth bomber to crash into a nearby volcano.

Now that his plans are completely ruined, Wesker takes in what's left of the Uroboros virus into him. If he can't rule the world, he can least get revenge on Chris. Their final battle is an epic for the ages, filled with fire and brimstone. After what feels like an eternity, Chris and Sheva manage to defeat Wesker, leaving him to burn alive in the volcano. Jill and Josh arrive in a helicopter to pick up Chris and Sheva before the volcano burns them. However, Wesker tries to use what little strength he has left to drag them all to hell with him. Chris and Sheva grab a couple of rocket launchers and blast Wesker to oblivion. Our heroes finally breathe a sigh of relief, content that the last remnants of Umbrella have finally been put to bed for good.

Resident Evil 6

Before we begin, it's important to note that Resident Evil 6's story is told through four campaigns that intersect with each other at various points. To help you understand the events more clearly, we will recap them chronologically rather than recap the campaigns individually.

On December 24, 2012, Chris Redfield led a B.S.A.A. team to quell a B.O.W. attack in Edonia, Eastern Europe. The local rebels are using a new breed of B.O.W. called J'avo to cause widespread chaos throughout the country. Chris gives a motivational speech to his men, and they head off to fight the B.O.W.s.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to Jake Muller, a mercenary working for the Edonian rebels. Jake and the rebels inject themselves with a syringe that is meant to enhance their performance in battle. Jake doesn't feel any effects, but the rebels he's working with mutate into B.O.W.s and attack Jake. Jake kills them without breaking a sweat, annoyed he should've asked for more money.

Jake then is greeted by a young woman and says Jake has antibodies that could save the world. The woman introduces herself as Sherry Birkin, now all grown up and working as a federal agent for US National Security. Sherry explains that the rebels have been tricked into taking a new virus called the C-Virus. This virus is so deadly it could endanger the entire globe if they don't get the antibodies in Jake's blood to stop it. Jake agrees to donate his blood, but only if he is paid 50 million dollars in compensation.

As they leave, they encounter a giant B.O.W. named Ustanak. A monster that resembles Nemesis and is equipped with a giant mechanical claw. As they flee the hulking beast, Sherry mentions that this creature was dispatched by a bio-terrorist group called Neo Umbrella, who also wants Jake's blood for their bio-weapons research. Once they lose Ustanak, they eventually come across Chris Redfield and his team dealing with the J'avo. Chris recognizes Sherry because Claire told him about her and vice versa. One of Chris' men, Piers Nivans, spots Jake Muller and points that he's working for the rebels they're currently fighting. Sherry defends Jake, saying he's under the protection of the US government. Chris notices something familiar about Jake, but before he thinks about it more, another giant J'avo attacks them.

After they defeat the B.O.W., Chris offers some choppers to escort Sherry and Jake to safety. Piers is upset that they're letting a heartless merc like Jake go, but Chris tells him to focus on the mission. Chris's team then runs into Ada Wong, who has been held hostage by the rebels. She explains that Neo-Umbrella was responsible for creating the C-Virus and tricked the Edonian rebels into using it. After escorting Ada out of the rebel stronghold, she lures the B.S.A.A. soldiers into a trap. She bids them farewell with a needle-grenade that infects all of Chris's men with the C-Virus. Chris is horrified at seeing his squad turned into monsters and is knocked out by one of them. Piers managed to avoid the needle grenade and drags Chris away before the B.O.W.s could kill him.

Meanwhile, the Ustanak catches up to Jake and Sherry and attempts to kill them both. Their fight causes the helicopter they were in to crash land into a snowy mountain range. Jake wakes up to find Sherry impaled by some of the wreckage. Jake pulls it out of her, and Sherry begins to heal her wounds instantly. It turns out the G-Virus within Sherry wasn't cured after all, merely mitigated. Thankfully, the G-Virus only grants Sherry regenerative healing abilities instead of horrible mutations like her father, William Birkin.

Ustanak and more J'avo then assault Jake and Sherry. Ustanak knocks Sherry unconscious and restrains Jake at the behest of Ada Wong, now working for Neo-Umbrella. Ada looks at Jake and reveals to him why his blood is so special — Jake Muller is the long-lost son of Albert Wesker. Ustanak knocks out a baffled Jake, and the J'avo take both him and Sherry away.

Six months later, on June 27, 2013, we see Ada Wong infiltrate a submarine. She is here because some time ago the US National Security advisor, Derek C. Simmons, contacted her, saying this submarine held information that was of great interest to her. Ada finds a mission briefing from Simmons addressed to her. It states she needs to capture Jake Muller and prevent the vaccine of the C-Virus from being made. Ada is confused, since these orders were dated six months ago, and she never received such orders before. She thinks either Simmons is playing mind games with her or somebody is impersonating her, taking orders on Ada's behalf.

Ada gets discovered by the submarine's security, who begin shooting at her. The ensuing battle ruptures the submarine's hull and begins to flood the ship. As Ada is escaping the sinking sub, she gets a call from Simmons saying that tomorrow the United States, China, and various major cities will come under bio-terrorist attacks. All of which will be conducted by Neo-Umbrella's "Ada Wong" doppelganger. Annoyed that some Umbrella wannabe is trying to use her as a scapegoat, she escapes the sub and prepares to track her impostor.

A few days later, on June 29, 2013, we find Chris drinking his woes away in a run-down bar in Eastern Europe. The trauma of seeing his men turn into monsters caused Chris to suffer immensely, who resolved to desert the B.S.C.A. Piers manages to locate Chris and helps Chris regain recollection of the event. Determined to avenge his fallen comrades, Chris returns to active duty.

Meanwhile, the president of the USA, Adam Benford, prepares to hold a speech at the Ivy University in Tall Oaks. He plans to reveal the government's involvement in the Raccoon City incident, particularly the part where they partly funded Umbrella's research. He hopes that by telling the truth, this will help the world unite against the war on bio-terrorists. Leon Kennedy is concerned about the backlash that may come from this, but he supports the president's decision.

Unfortunately, a bio-terrorist attack occurs at the university. Nearly everyone at the campus is turned into zombies, including the president. With a heavy heart, Leon Kennedy puts his friend Adam Benford out of his misery. Leon's partner, a secret service agent, named Helena Harper, starts blaming herself for this nightmare. Leon asks why it's her fault, but Helena says she'll explain once they reach Tall Oaks Cathedral.

They are horrified to see the city of Tall Oaks overrun with zombies and monsters as they escape the campus. Just like Raccoon City was many years ago. On their way to the Cathedral, Leon's operator, Ingrid Hunnigan, informs that Neo-Umbrella has claimed responsibility for the attack on Tall Oaks. She urges Leon to get to the cathedral and find out what's going on because Derek Simmons is getting anxious for info.

When they get to the cathedral, Helena takes Leon to a laboratory hidden underneath the building. They search the lab and find a VHS that displays disturbing footage of a woman resembling Ada Wong hatching out of a cocoon. Helena says that isn't what she wanted to show Leon, and what they were looking for lies deeper beneath the cathedral. Leon and Helena find a hidden passage that leads to underground catacombs filled with C-Virus monsters.

They eventually come across what Helena was looking for, her sister Deborah Harper. They try to escort Deborah to safety but they don't get far because she begins to mutate. Sadly though, Deborah has been infected with the C-Virus and attacks them both. The real Ada Wong comes in to help the pair, and together they put down Helena's sister. While Helena grieves for her sister, Leon demands Ada to them what's going on. Ada, as per usual, gives only cryptic answers and leaves to pursue her own goals.

Heartbroken over her sister's death, Helena reveals to Leon that Derek Simmons was behind the attack on Tall Oaks. Simmons kidnapped Deborah and threatened to kill her if Helena didn't help him assassinate the president. Simmons tasked Helena to distracting the president's security while Simmons released a B.O.W. that spread an airborne version of C-Virus amongst the campus, infecting everybody on site.

Leon attempts to contact Hunnigan, but he gets called by Simmons instead. Simmons denies he was responsible for the attack and puts the blame squarely on Helena and Leon. Framing them for the assassination of Adam Benford.

Elsewhere, Ada Wong examines the videotape Leon found. She gets contacted by Simmons, but Ada calls him out, saying he isn't Simmons — but the fake Ada Wong. She's figured out that this fake Ada is the one leading Neo-Umbrella because the real Simmons would never be so cocky to reveal his plans. Especially since any info getting out would endanger Simmons' position and expose his secret organization, The Family. Ada also says the fake Ada wants nothing more than to destroy the system that Simmons' organization had created by causing as much chaos as possible. Before she blows up the lab underneath the cathedral, Ada contacts the real Simmons to let him know that the fake Ada is trying to destroy the world.

After making it out of the catacombs, Leon and Helena see Tall Oaks City destroyed by a missile strike in the distance. Hunnigan contacts Leon and tells him that Simmons has departed for China in a hurry. Knowing that Simmons has framed them, Leon tells Hunningan to fake his and Helena's deaths so they can pursue Simmons without having the government on their tail.

We cut back to Chris Redfield, who has returned to the B.S.A.A to deal with a bio-terrorist attack in China. Neo-Umbrella has kidnapped UN officials and unleashed J'avos into the streets of Lanshiang. Chris struggles against the J'avos, while having horrific flashbacks of his comrades dying in Edonia. Nonetheless, Chris soldiers on.

Meanwhile, we return to Jake and Sherry. Both of whom have been locked in a research facility ever since Neo-Umbrella abducted them six months ago. Jake manages to take advantage of a lapse in security and breaks free of his cell. He manages to meet up with Sherry, and they prepare to escape the facility. Jake mentions that Neo-Umbrella has been taking his blood to enhance the C-Virus and lectured him about the history of Albert Wesker. He expresses fear that he may become a monster like his father because they share the same blood, but Sherry tells him it's our actions that determine who we are, not our parents.

Sherry Birkin contacts her supervisor and gets the coordinates for an extraction point. She grabs Neo-Umbrella's research data, and the pair leave the facility. Sherry and Jake get cornered by agents of Neo-Umbrella, but Chris Redfield and his B.S.A.A. squad take them out. They go their separate ways without speaking to each other because Sherry tells Jake that they're under orders to avoid contact with anyone.

Leon and Helena arrive in China, though their trip was almost cut short when a B.O.W. was smuggled into their airplane. Sherry spots Leon and Helena amidst the wreckage and rushes to greet her old friend. Leon says that he's here to apprehend Simmons for the bio-terrorist attacks. Sherry can't believe it and mentions to Leon that she was on her to meet Simmons, who also happens to be her supervisor. Leon demands to know where he is, but Jake tells him to back off. Before things get too heated, they are attacked by Ustanak. The group incapacitates Ustanak by dropping a tower on it, but they get separated due to the carnage. Sherry tells Leon their rendevous point with Simmons, and the two groups head off for it.

Meanwhile, Chris Redfield is getting increasingly mad as he learns that Ada Wong is in the area. Chris and Piers eventually corner her but get interrupted by Leon and Helena. Leon says they need her alive to prove Simmons's guilt, but Chris is too consumed by vengeance to listen to reason, saying that Ada is behind the bio-terrorist attacks. Both of them are unaware that the Ada Wong present with them is the fake one, not the real Ada. During their argument, the fake Ada uses a flashbang and escapes. After calming down, Chris decides to trust Leon's word and says he'll take Ada alive. They both leave to pursue their respective targets.

Leon, Helena, Sherry, and Jake meet at the rendevous point to confront Simmons. When Sherry asks Simmons if what Leon said was true, he replies by having his bodyguards shoot them. During the shootout, Sherry gives Leon the research data she took earlier, believing it could help stop the C-Virus. Simmons orders his men to keep Sherry and Jake alive because they are still useful. As he leaves, he gets injected with a syringe filled with the C-Virus by a J'avo sent by the fake Ada. Simmons collapses onto a nearby train and Leon, and Helena chase after him. Elsewhere, Jake and Sherry get captured by the J'avo.

Simmons reveals that he killed the president because he wanted to protect America's position of power. If Adam Benford revealed the government's involvement with Umbrella, it would've comprised America's global authority. He then begins to mutate into a horrific, dog-like B.O.W. and attacks Helena and Leon. Leon and Helena dispatch the mad dog, kicking it to the tracks to be crushed by the train.

Meanwhile, the real Ada Wong locates the fake Ada on a ship parked at the docks. She finds an audio log that reveals who the fake Ada really is — Carla Radames. The story goes is that Simmons obsessed and lusted after Ada Wong, but when she rejected him, he went nuts. He began research to develop a clone of Ada Wong, but all of his attempts failed until he met Carla.

Carla was a researcher that worked directly for Simmons and responsible for creating the C-Virus. She loved Simmons, but he didn't feel the same about her. However, he discovered that Carla's DNA would be the best chance to clone. So, Simmons manipulated her into becoming an unwilling test subject for his experiment, and it was a success. Carla was reborn into an Ada Wong clone, whose mind was sculpted by Simmons to love him forever. However, Carla's personality and memories began to resurface. Enraged that she was forced into becoming another woman, she spent years plotting her revenge to destroy Simmons and the world his organization, The Family, helped create. She also planned to frame Ada Wong because she was the object of Simmons' obsession in the first place.

Chris and Piers catch up to Carla on the ship. Chris overcomes his need for vengeance in favor of upholding justice by arresting Carla. However, a chopper belonging to The Family shows up out of nowhere and shoots Carla for killing Simmons. As Carla dies, she taunts the pair of them by saying she has prepped an aircraft carrier to spread the C-Virus across the world. Pier picks up a briefcase Carla behind and retrieves a strain of the C-Virus sample within it. He points out that two virus samples were missing from the briefcase. After getting informed the B.S.A.A. has its hands full, Chris and Piers rush on their own to find some airplanes to destroy the aircraft carrier.

Chris and Piers put together a valiant effort to destroy the aircraft carrier, but they're too late. A missile carrying the C-Virus launches into the city of Tatchi and converts every citizen into a zombie. Chris contacts Leon to see if he's okay. Thankfully, Leon and Helena were miles away from the explosion, but now they're struggling to escape the city. Leon tells Chris that he's been informed that Sherry and Jake have been abducted and taken to an underwater Neo-Umbrella base. He also mentions that Jake is Albert Wesker's son and has the antibodies needed to cure the C-Virus. Chris then informs Leon that Ada Wong is dead (still unaware that it was Carla). Chris and Piers fly off to save Sherry and Jake while Leon and Helena try to help the B.S.A.A. evacuate any survivors.

Back at the ship, Ada looks upon her imposter's dead body expressing pity that Simmons drove her to such madness. Carla then wakes up and starts transforming into a mass of goo, revealing that she injected herself with the C-Virus just before she died. The resulting mutation causes Carla to go insane, believing herself to the real Ada Wong and declaring she will rule the world. Ada Wong kills the mutated Carla in her most difficult fight yet and takes off in a helicopter towards Tatchi to tie up some loose ends.

Ada arrives to find Leon and Helena surrounded by hundreds of zombies and lends them a helping hand. They are then set upon by Simmons, who has regenerated from being reduced to mulch thanks to the C-Virus. Leon, Helena, and Ada engage Simmons in a prolonged battle where he undergoes multiple radical mutations that defy all explanations. After many close calls, they finally destroy Simmons by impaling him with a lightning rod, so he gets struck by lightning, and Leon finishes him off with a rocket launcher for good measure. Ada then leaves Leon and Helena with a chopper to escape the city and provides them with evidence of Simmons' crimes to clear their names. As Leon and Helena evacuate, Ada finds Carla's secret lab and destroys her research to make sure no more Ada Wong clones are made. There's only room for one Ada Wong.

Chris and Piers arrive at the base and free Sherry and Jake from their cells. Chris admits to Jake he knew Albert Wesker and killed him. Jake is extremely tempted to kill Chris for robbing him of the chance to get any closure with his father, but he relents. There are more important things currently at stake than revenge. Just then, an alarm triggers and activates Neo-Umbrella's last resort, HAOS. HAOS is a ginormous B.O.W. capable of spreading the C-Virus worldwide in mere minutes if it got out of the facility.

Chris tells Jakes and Sherry to escape while he and Piers deal with HAOS. The battle against the otherworldy monster doesn't go for Chris and Piers as HAOS is completely immune to regular gunfire. HAOS chucks a piece of debris at Piers and crushes his arm. All hope seems lost until Piers gets an idea. He injects himself with the C-Virus sample he took earlier in a desperate gamble to give himself a mutation that might damage HAOS. Piers then grows a brand arm that is capable of shooting lightning and uses it to weaken HAOS. Chris then rips HAOS's heart out, putting an end to its life. The base begins to crumble, and they rush to find any escape pods.

Meanwhile, Sherry and Jake run into Ustanak one last time as they're getting away. As the base falls apart, Sherry and Jake shoot Ustanak in the heart, finally stopping the monster's endless pursuit.

Chris and Piers manage to locate some escape pods. However, Piers is sensing that his mind is beginning to rot away thanks to the C-Virus. Piers shoves Chris into an escape pod and sends him away, while Piers stays behind to perish along with the base.

In the aftermath of the C-Virus nightmare, Chris continues his work in the B.S.A.A. to honor his fallen comrades. Sherry reports the government has managed to develop a cure for the C-Virus thanks to Jake's antibodies, though she chooses to keep Jake's connection to Wesker a secret. Leon and Helena are cleared of all charges against them by Simmons. And Jake decides to travel to protect citizens of the world from B.O.W.s as a vigilante.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

Resident Evil 7 moves away from the survivors of Raccoon City and starts a new story arc with a new protagonist, Ethan Winters.

in 2017, Ethan Winters travels to Louisiana to meet up with his wife, Mia Winters. Mia went missing three years ago and was presumed dead, until one day, Ethan gets an email from Mia telling him to meet her at the Bakers farm in Dulvey, Louisiana. When he arrives, Ethan explores an abandoned farmhouse and finds Mia in the basement. Mia says she doesn't remember sending Ethan an email or how she got here. She then starts to panic, saying they need to get out before "daddy" comes back.

As they leave the basement, Mia suddenly goes berserk and attacks Ethan. Ethan, in a panic, kills Mia in self-defense. He gets a phone call from a woman named Zoe, telling him to escape the house through the attic. When Ethan gets there, he is surprised to see Mia alive and wielding a chainsaw. He puts her down again and is wondering what happened to her. Ethan then gets sucker-punched by the man of the house, Jack Baker, dragging him and Mia back to the Baker's main house.

Ethan wakes up to a dinner table and is greeted by Jack Baker, Marguerite Baker, his son Lucas Baker, and an old woman sitting in a wheelchair. They show their hospitality by attempting to force Ethan to eat human flesh while torturing him. Ethan is spared any more suffering when the Bakers get interrupted by a phone call. When they leave to answer it, Ethan takes this opportunity to try and escape their mansion.

While exploring the Baker's home, he gets advice from Zoe via various phones from time to time on where to go next. She also mentions that she's Jack Baker's daughter, and she's the only sane member of the Baker family left. Ethan then spots a deputy outside investigating the premises and tries to warn him about the Bakers. Jack Baker then comes back and decapitates the poor deputy. Ethan manages to take down Jack but he quickly heals his wounds, revealing that he has powerful regenerative abilities. Jack even shoots himself to demonstrate that you can't kill him.

Ethan quickly finds out the Bakers aren't the only monsters he has to deal with. The Bakers have been kidnapping people and turning them into grotesque humanoid monsters covered in mold. Ethan discovers a key that will allow him to leave, but Jack Baker is guarding it. With no other choice, Ethan engages Jack in a chainsaw duel, hacking Jack to pieces.

He finally gets out of the mansion and spots a trailer in the backyard he can take shelter in. Zoe contacts Ethan and says Mia is still alive because she's infected with the same virus that mutated the Bakers. Zoe says there's a way to save Mia, but she'll only tell Ethan if he agrees to helps Zoe escape the Bakers. Zoe says a serum can cure both her and Zoe of the virus, but she needs Ethan to gather the ingredients first.

Ethan locates the ingredients at an old house infested with giant insects conceived by a mutated Marguerite. After killing Marguerite, Ethan brings the ingredients back to the trailer and calls Zoe. He is instead greeted by Lucas, who has kidnapped Zoe and Mia. Lucas taunts Ethan, goading him to come to get them at the barn house. On his way, Ethan begins to experience strange hallucinations of a little girl.

Ethan gets to the barn and is forced to solve many traps and puzzles set up by Lucas. Ethan manages to get past them all and causes Lucas to flee in frustration. He rescues Mia and Zoe, and together they make two doses of the serum. However, Jack Baker returns now as a giant monster to kill Ethan. Battered and bruised, Ethan is forced to use one of the serums to kill Jack for good. Now, with only have one dose left, Ethan is must choose between using the serum on Zoe or Mia. In the end, he chooses to save Mia.

They ride off on a boat, leaving a heartbroken Zoe behind though Ethan says he'll come back later with help to save her. As they ride the bayou, they come across a tanker ship washed on the swamp. Then Ethan and Mia are attacked by giant black tendrils and dragged to the ship. Mia wakes up and tries to rescue Ethan from the black tendrils. While exploring the ship, Mia's memories start to return. It turns out Mia used to work for The Connections organization and was transporting a B.O.W. they created called Eveline. Eveline is an artificially created human designed to brainwash her enemies by infecting them with a mind-controlling Mold. However, Eveline became unstable due to the rocky trip and began infecting the ship's crew.

Meanwhile, Ethan has a dream where he meets Jack Baker, now acting like a normal person. He explains he found Eveline and Mia washed ashore in the bayou and took them back to his home. Eveline then started brainwashing the Bakers because she is obsessed with having a family of her own. Jack begs Ethan to stop Eveline and free his family from her control. Ethan wakes up to find Mia, freeing him from some sort of cocoon. She hands Ethan a vial containing Eveline's DNA. With the last of her strength, she seals Ethan out of the ship before she is infected again by Eveline.

Ethan then travels down an abandoned salt mine and discovers a hidden laboratory. There he discovers notes detailing the origins of Eveline and that her body has become unstable. Eveline has begun rapidly aging as a result. Revealing that the old woman in the Baker's mansion is Eveline. He also finds out Lucas was working for The Connections. They gave him drugs to resist Eveline's brainwashing, and in return, he monitors Eveline's status. Using the equipment in the lab and Eveline's DNA sample, Ethan crafts a toxin that should be able to kill Eveline for good.

Now back at the abandoned house, Ethan confronts Eveline and stabs her with the toxin. Unfortunately, it mutates Eveline into a giant monster instead of killing her. Ethan stands no choice against Eveline but is saved when a nearby helicopter drops a special handgun that blasts Eveline to bits.

With Eveline gone, Ethan and Mia are rescued by the Umbrella Blue corporation, lead by B.S.A.A. agent, Chris Redfield. Umbrella Blue was formed by former employees who wanted to make amends for the crimes the original Umbrella committed. They ride off into the sunset, relieved that the nightmare is over.

Resident Evil Village

Years after the events of the Dulvey Incident, Ethan and Mia settle down and have a baby daughter, Rosemary. Their peace doesn't last long because a team of Umbrella Blue agents led by Chris Redfield inexplicably raids their home.

Ethan wakes up to find himself in a remote village in Eastern Europe filled with monsters straight out of a gothic horror story. Now Ethan must use what little wits he has left to survive this nightmare, rescue his family, and find out why Chris Redfield has betrayed him.

Will Ethan be able to save his family and get out of this village alive? Step into the world of Resident Evil Village and find out as one of the best horror games in recent years is now available on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

In the eyes of many, Capcom is firing on all cylinders right now. Since the release of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard in 2017, the Japanese publisher has been on an impressive hot streak. From Monster Hunter: World to Devil May Cry 5, this storied gaming institution has successfully reinvented most of its core franchises. It’s been thrilling witnessing the company celebrate its identity and history to such astonishing effect over the course of the last several years.  

Following the critical and commercial success of the subversive Resident Evil 7, Capcom has gone all-in on the iconic survival-horror series. As a connoisseur of the campy and macabre, I’ve adored the attention Resident Evil has garnered and celebrate Capcom’s commitments. While not met with universal acclaim, I’ve even appreciated the publisher’s multiplayer-focused experiments like the asymmetrical PVP tie-in for Resident Evil 3, Resident Evil: Resistance.  

When it was revealed that Resident Evil Village would ship with the arena-inspired shooter Resident Evil Re:Verse, I was morbidly curious to attempt this genre-shifting exercise. Unfortunately, after immersing myself in this multiplayer spinoff for the last several days, it’s become abundantly clear that Re:Verse isn’t worth your time or energy. This optional offering stands as a baffling fumble for Capcom that glaringly contrasts with the company’s recent release record. 

Disclaimer: This review was made possible by a review code provided by Capcom. The company did not see the contents of this review before being published. 

Resident Evil Re:Verse – What's good

Resident Evil Re:Verse is a six-player PVP shooter that pits legendary heroes and villains from the franchise against one another in appropriately themed battlegrounds. Players select starting human characters like Chris Redfield, Ada Wong, and Leon S. Kennedy and utilize their unique weapons and abilities to kill combatants. However, death isn’t the end. Re:Verse’s viral twist involves players’ post-death transformations into infamous horrors like Nemesis and Super Tyrant.

Neobards Entertainment painstakingly recreated memorable locations from the Resident Evil universe, like the Racoon City Police Department and the sprawling Baker House from Resident Evil 7. These impressive maps are brimming with carefully placed objects, and environmental details ripped straight from the games. As usual, the RE Engine shines with stunning visual quality and remarkably detailed models. To get the best global presentation, I’d recommend disabling the comic effect filter activated by default. It dramatically improves the sheen of the scenery.  

For players who connect with the PVP-centric escapades of Resident Evil Re:Verse, the package supplies a respectable amount of character customization. From weapon charms to character skins, you can accessorize your favorite Resident Evil protagonists like never before. Maybe I’m part of the problem with modern gaming, but I love nonsensical emotes in multiplayer titles. Call me simple, but there’s something undeniably hilarious about watching Jill Valentine capoeira dance on the victory screen at the end of a match. 

Resident Evil Re:Verse – What’s not good

While the graphics are pleasant and noticeably improved over the initial beta, the gameplay in Resident Evil Re:Verse leaves an aching amount to be desired. Character movement feels floaty and unnatural. Instead of incorporating a conventional sprint mechanic, Re:Verse opts for a meandering half-jog that forces our established Resident Evil figures into some of the strangest walking animations I’ve seen in a modern video game. Combine this with an absolutely weightless roll, and you have an action shooter that doesn’t stack up to its contemporaries.  

Your primary objective in Resident Evil Re:Verse is to shoot and kill player-controlled enemies and creatures. Unfortunately, the gunplay in this PVP arena game isn’t tight enough. Considering the team developed the project using the RE Engine, which has produced the best playing games in franchise history, I’m genuinely shocked by how unresponsive, and inconsistent the aiming feels in Re:Verse. Succeeding the popularity of Gears of War, we’ve had countless titles provide satisfying third-person combat, and unfortunately, this multiplayer spinoff isn’t one of them.

Amplifying the underwhelming gameplay is an overwhelming lack of balance. Resident Evil Re:Verse frequently devolves into a cluster of four to six players desperately flailing about as a synthetic blob of humans and monsters. The reliance on the “Revenge” system and your ability to instantly respawn as a T-Virus vessel encourages petty back-and-forth spats between adversaries. Characters like Hunk and Ada Wong also possess considerably better loadouts than their cohorts, leading to an unsurprising level of player repetition.  

As far as standalone Resident Evil multiplayer offerings go, Re:Verse’s content is nothing short of paltry. Six playable human characters, five monster variants, a measly two maps, and one game mode are currently available. The latest trailer showcased a new Resident Evil Village-based location and werewolf creature, but there isn’t much here for now. Minor character progression and a battle pass might be enough to keep some diehard players invested. Still, I can’t imagine anyone sticking with Re:Verse long enough for those features to matter.  

Resident Evil Re:Verse – Should you play?

Resident Evil Re:Verse isn’t plagued by bugs or performance issues, and the core experience, for all intents and purposes, runs quite smoothly. Unfortunately, neither the ideas nor the execution congeals to deliver a multiplayer title worthy of Capcom’s recent Resident Evil endeavors. Considering how consistent this publisher has remained for six years now, I find myself certifiably astounded by how much I didn't enjoy Resident Evil Re:Verse.   

I’m an enormous advocate of multiplayer horror and frequently celebrate the franchise’s fun but flawed previous attempts. While Re:Verse is bundled with any purchase of the excellent Resident Evil Village, with so many other outstanding titles like Evil Dead: The Game and Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed easily accessible, I can’t recommend anyone go out of their way to play the latest Resident Evil experiment. Unless there are transformative changes to the base game, I don’t see myself revisiting Resident Evil Re:Verse. 

When Capcom radically debuted Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, the team promised a healthy roadmap of DLC expansions aimed to supplement the base game. Considering the anticipation and Lady Dimitrescu-driven pandemonium surrounding the sequel, many players expected a similar strategy for Resident Evil Village. However, it wasn’t until after the game shipped and received passionate critical acclaim that Capcom announced its plan to support the title with a campaign expansion.   

Following a somewhat awkward initial declaration from the development team in June 2021, Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose was officially unveiled in June 2022. A gameplay trailer featured Rose, Ethan Winter’s daughter, utilizing impressive psychokinetic powers to dispose of horrifying monstrosities. Considering the shocking conclusion of Resident Evil Village, I was incredibly interested to see how the narrative direction would evolve following THAT twist.  

I’ve spent the last few days strapped in the high-top shoes of Rose Winters. While I was expecting the fright-filled horror antics the series is famous for, I absolutely wasn’t prepared for Shadows of Rose to deliver the most emotional storytelling we’ve seen in franchise history. This campaign expansion managed to bring me to the brink of tears and then immediately scare the living hell out of me. Some frustrating gameplay moments dampen the overall experience, but this is definitely a wild Resident Evil journey worth taking.   

Disclaimer: This review was made possible by a review code provided by Capcom. The company did not see the contents of this review before being published. 

Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose – What you’ll like 

Transpiring 16 years after the events of Resident Evil Village, Shadows of Rose opens with our insecure hero struggling with pronounced peculiarities. With the tragic death of Ethan Winters at the hand of the Megamycete, Rose has grown up without a father. She despises her unique gifts and the unfortunate side effects of being a strange part-mold creature. But hey, I don’t think any of us would want to profusely drip slimy, white sweat, either. 

Knowing Rose’s identity battles, a colleague offers an opportunity to rid herself of her powers once and for all. All Rose needs to do is link her psyche with a chunk of the Megamycete, and search within its absorbed memories for answers. Unfortunately, this cerebral descent into abstract territory unleashes a flood of distorted recollections and horrendous abominations. I respect Capcom’s commitment to fleshing out the motivations of Rose and presenting authentically disgusting visuals. 

I won’t be discussing any spoilers, as I confidently believe the overarching narrative of Shadows of Rose is one of its strongest traits. The exploration of Rose’s purpose in the world and yearning for a relationship with her deceased father lend themselves to an array of compassionate moments. I’m not exaggerating in the slightest when I tell you Shadows of Rose brought tears to my eyes, and that is an undeniably impressive feat for any video game, let alone something that exists in the campy world of Resident Evil.  

Despite occasional tenderness, this campaign expansion embraces its unbridled horror direction to grisly effect. Shadows of Rose feels like Junji Ito directed a repulsive adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. The mold enemies from Resident Evil 7 are reintroduced in an unbelievably morbid fashion, and Rose is subjected to depictions of terror that would make even make Chris Redfield wince. One standout segment involved playing a children’s game called “Statues.” Let’s just say Resident Evil Village’s scariest instances have some serious competition in Shadows of Rose.  

Much like her father, Rose possesses some superhuman abilities. While Ethan could inexplicably regrow limbs and take endless physical abuse, our protagonist in this expansion harnesses energy to slow enemies and conjure powerful attacks. Shadows of Rose introduces welcomed gameplay mixups not found in Resident Evil Village in the form of fauna-focused puzzles and strategic escape sequences. Rose never felt like an unstoppable force of nature, but it was satisfying to use her otherworldly attacks to navigate this world. 

Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose – What you won’t like 

The House Beneviento chapter of Resident Evil Village infamously stripped our protagonist of his weapons and hurled him headfirst into 30 minutes of genuine nightmare fuel. Shadows of Rose embraces these ideals for the bulk of its three-hour runtime. Unfortunately, this translates to an onslaught of stealth sections with scripted insta-kill encounters.   

Resident Evil is a franchise that has successfully managed to balance action, horror, and player agency to remarkable effect. Shadows of Rose retains many of these key design philosophies, but its ambitions to deliver a more scare-centric adventure ultimately led to slow, tedious meandering around monstrosities pacing familiar paths. I understand how helplessness elevates the sensation of fear in video games. Still, I couldn’t help but find the reliance on these overplayed mechanics in Shadows of Rose a bit tiresome.

Rose is gifted the commanding power to slow enemies. While this introduces welcomed experimentation to traditional Resident Evil combat, it also gives the development team free rein to force the player into a series of frustrating battles. Shadows of Rose primarily requires careful deliberations between fight or flight, making the forced boss-style showdowns all the more trying. Unlike the core Resident Evil Village campaign, this expansion fails to find the proper gameplay equilibrium.   

Another relatively minor gripe involves the heavy reliance on retreading familiar scenery. Resident Evil Village is bursting with stunning set pieces and gorgeous locations, so it makes sense to incorporate them into Shadows of Rose. Sadly, a majority of these reused environments remain essentially unchanged from the base game, making particular progression markers and even puzzles feel way too similar to stand out. 

Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose – Should you play?

Resident Evil is in an amazing place right now. Capcom has committed to providing fans excellent remakes that reimagine their favorite games while pushing the series forward with inventive new mainline releases. Shadows of Rose doesn’t quite reach the same soaring heights as Resident Evil Village, but it stands as a worthy continuation of its story.  

The engrossing, haunting visuals and beautifully presented narrative moments more than makeup for some dreary stealth and irritating combat. As someone who finished Resident Evil Village eight times, this campaign expansion is a justifiable reason to revisit one of the best horror games on Xbox and uncover its more profound mysteries. Shadows of Rose answers burning questions left lingering after the events of Resident Evil Village and presents a fascinating setup for what’s to come. 

Resident Evil Village first launched back in May 2021, but Capcom isn't done with supporting this Gothic adventure. 

Over a year after announcing DLC was on its way, we're finally getting Resident Evil Village: Winters' Expansion, which adds new modes and ways to play through the game, while also expanding some existing features and even a piece of new story content.

What is Resident Evil Village: Winters' Expansion?

The Winters' Expansion for Resident Evil Village is an expansion pack that includes three distinct pieces of DLC. They're bundled into the expansion pack and are not available for purchase separately, so you can't just buy one — you'll have to get them all. Winters' Expansion is $20 and includes the following:

• Third-person mode for Resident Evil Village
• The Mercenaries Additional Orders
• Shadows of Rose

If you haven't bought Resident Evil Village yet, the Winters' Expansion is also bundled into Resident Evil Village Gold Edition, providing one of the best horror games and its DLC all in one neat package. Resident Evil Village Gold Edition is $50, and also bundles in the Trauma Pack DLC for the game that's currently available. 

In case you haven't played Resident Evil Village yet, it's absolutely worth picking up. In our review of the base game, we noted that "Stunning visuals, truly bizarre creatures, a memorable parade of eccentric characters, and truly satisfying gameplay make Resident Evil Village soar, even if a few quirks in the plot delivery deflate the spectacle."

Resident Evil Village: Winters' Expansion — Mercenaries Additional Orders

Winters' Expansion includes The Mercenaries Additional Orders DLC, which revamps the Mercenaries experience with new playable characters and new maps, with additions to the latter consisting of the Bloody River and Bloody Village Stages.

The first character added is longtime Resident Evil hero and huge boulder-puncher, Chris Redfield. Chris gets powerful weapons and increased strength, using his Target Locator to blast away groups of foes while also building up his Onslaught Gauge. When this gauge is full, his movement speed, reload speed, and attack damage all shoot up, making him even deadlier. 

The second new character is the smug Heisenberg, the metal-manipulating lord. With his massive hammer, he can charge electricity for powerful shockwaves or activate a Magnetic Field and toss enemies around. He can also summon a Soldat Jet for assistance on the battlefield, though they'll self-destruct if they run into a sturdy wall.

Finally, the third new character is the towering vampire that broke the internet, Lady Alcina Dimitrescu. She slashes and claws her way through enemies with her talons and the Lady's Lipstick item. As she slaughters, she'll build up her Thrill Gauge, which increases her damage and movement speed while unlocking new moves. When the gauge is full, she can summon one of her three daughters — Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela — to the battlefield.  

Resident Evil Village: Winters' Expansion — Shadows of Rose

Shadows of Rose is a new story DLC for Resident Evil Village. Taking place 16 years after the events of the main game, Ethan's daughter Rose works to understand her strange powers and enters the Megamycete consciousness. Notably, while the main game first released as a first-person experience, this DLC can only be played in third-person mode.

Anyone that preorders Winters' Expansion or Resident Evil Village Gold Edition will get access to the Street Wolf Outfit for Rose Winters. This outfit includes the emblem of Chris Redfield's Houndwolf squad on the back of the jacket, providing a neat alternate look for Rose. 

Resident Evil Village: Winters' Expansion — Third-person mode

The final piece of DLC coming to Resident Evil Village with the Winters' Expansion pack is third-person mode. While many Resident Evil games such as Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, and the upcoming Resident Evil 4 remake are all third-person titles, a first-person viewpoint was introduced to the series in 2017 with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. 

Resident Evil Village, which is a direct sequel to 7, also features a first-person view. With this DLC, players will now be able to go through Resident Evil Village in third-person.

Despite this simple viewpoint change, the gameplay will feel very different, as almost all of the cutscenes in Resident Evil Village also take place from a first-person perspective. If you've already played through the game, this is a great way to make everything feel fresh again.

Resident Evil Village: Winters' Expansion — Re:Verse

Resident Evil Re:Verse, a multiplayer title, was included as a bonus for anyone that purchased Resident Evil Village. Like many other games over the past couple of years, Resident Evil Re:Verse ended up being heavily delayed. It's now launching at the same time as the Winters' Expansion and Resident Evil Village Gold Edition. 

Anybody who already purchased Resident Evil Village will get access to Resident Evil Re:Verse, so it's not required that you purchase the Winters' Expansion to get it. If, however, you have not yet purchased Resident Evil Village, then Resident Evil Re:Verse will be included with the purchase of Resident Evil Village Gold Edition.

Resident Evil Village: Winters' Expansion — Release date

Winters' Expansion is slated to arrive on Oct. 28, 2022 alongside Resident Evil Village Gold Edition. This is almost a year and a half after the base game first launched. Both the Winters' Expansion and Resident Evil Village Gold Edition are currently available for preorder. Resident Evil Re:Verse will also go live on Oct. 28, 2022.

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village first launched back in May 2021. Capcom stated shortly after launch that it was working on DLC, but months went by without any update.
• During the June 2022 Capcom Showcase, the developers shared that Resident Evil Village is getting a third-person mode, new characters in Mercenaries (including Lady Dimitrescu) and story DLC called Shadows of Rose.
• The new DLC is set to launch on Oct. 28, 2022, and will be available in the Winters Expansion DLC, or bundled with the game in a Gold Edition

At the June 2022 Capcom Showcase, the publisher and developer finally delivered on the long-awaited DLC for its last mainline Resident Evil game.

Resident Evil Village, which launched on May 7, 2021, is getting a variety of DLC, as originally promised by Capcom a year ago. The DLC announced during the Capcom Showcase includes a third-person mode, bringing the gameplay in line with that of Resident Evil 2 and 3. 

There's also new support coming for the Mercenaries mode, with new playable characters: Christ Redfield, Heisenberg, and Lady Dimitrescu. 

Finally, Capcom shared that some story DLC is in the works. Titled Shadows of Rose, the DLC stars Ethan's daughter Rose, years after the events of the game. Rose is drawn into conflicts in the center of her mind, facing threats from enemies and the world around her. 

All of this DLC is available in the Winters Expansion DLC (via PlayStation Blog), which is bundled in the newly-announced Gold Edition. The DLC and Resident Evil Village Gold Edition are slated to launch on Oct. 28, 2022, alongside the long-delayed RE:Verse multiplayer title, which was originally meant to arrive alongside the initial launch of Resident Evil Village.

Capcom is also currently working on a version of Resident Evil Village designed for PS VR2. While this doesn't have a release date, PS VR2 is currently expected to launch at some point in 2023.

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village first launched on May 7, 2021.
• Capcom shares that as of March 31, 2022, Resident Evil Village has sold over 6.1 million copies.
• Capcom also reported its fifth consecutive year of record-high profits, largely driven by digital content.

Publisher Capcom is reporting another year of record high profits, driven primarily by digital content, alongside solid sales updates for some of its more recent games.

Resident Evil Village sales have reached 6.1 million copies sold, per Capcom's latest financial results for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022. Resident Evil Village previously reached 5 million copies shipped worldwide as of October 2021. The best-selling games in the Resident Evil franchise are Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and the Resident Evil 2 remake, which launched in 2017 and 2019, selling over 10 million copies and 9 million copies, respectively.

During the fiscal year, Capcom recorded a record 32.6 million units sold across all its franchises, which the company notes was driven primarily by the launch of Resident Evil Village and Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, the latter of which has now sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide.

Looking ahead, Capcom is currently working on Street Fighter 6, though little is known about this next big entry in the iconic fighting game franchise right now. Capcom is also widely reported to be working on a remake of Resident Evil 4.

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village launched earlier in 2021.
• The game has crossed 5 million copies shipped faster than its predecessor, the 2017 Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
• Resident Evil 7: Biohazard reached over 10 million copies shipped earlier in 2021.

Resident Evil Village crosses 5 million copies shipped worldwide, faster than the prior game Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Capcom shared on Thursday. Resident Evil Village launched back on May 7, 2021 to critical success and has continued to steadily sell well since, joining the ranks of the best Xbox horror games currently available.

While Resident Evil Village is currently selling faster than its predecessor, it'll be a while before it reaches the top. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard recently crossed 10 million copies sold since its launch in 2017. Meanwhile, Capcom's best-selling game of all time remains Monster Hunter World, which recently reached over 20 million copies sold.

Resident Evil Village is currently available on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PC, PS4 and PS5. The game supports a free current-generation upgrade, so if you buy it on Xbox One or PS4, you'll get the Xbox Series X|S or PS5 version at no extra cost. Resident Evil Village is a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, with protagonist Ethan Winters trying to find his kidnapped daughter.

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village is getting additional DLC, but we don't have info on it just yet.
• Capcom announced that it just started development by "popular demand."
• The only piece of DLC set to come out right now is Re:Verse, the deathmatch multiplayer mode.

Like previous Resident Evil games before it, Resident Evil Village is about to get some DLC. Capcom announced at its E3 2021 showcase on Monday that the horror title will be receiving upcoming DLC. However, there's no info just yet.

According to the short sequence during the showcase, development has just begun on additional DLC "by popular demand." This could mean that the game is so popular (it's at the top of the NDP Group's May charts) that DLC is warranted, or that it's a piece of DLC that people have been asking for (Lady Dimitrescu DLC maybe?). Either way, more information is set to come soon.

The announcement wasn't a surprise, especially considering post-launch DLC is very common in the modern Resident Evil series. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, the precurssor to Village, had a few free and paid DLC packs, including the Banned Footage DLC that utilized the VHS tape mechanic in some extra stories, and Not a Hero, the free DLC that had you playing as Chris Redfield as he goes after Lucas Baker after the events of the main game.

We're also still waiting for another piece of Resident Evil Village post-launch content: Re:Verse. This multiplayer mode is a six-player deathmatch that features previous characters from the series, including Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield. It's set to come out next month, but we don't have an exact release date yet.

Resident Evil Village wowed us over here at Windows Central. Jez Corden, in his Resident Evil Village review, called the game a "celebration" of the series that came before it, as well as to horror as a genre. As you can imagine, we're excited for any more time in the game, even though a lot of us have already played through it multiple times thanks to its great replayability.

Resident Evil Village is a game carefully crafted to incentive multiple playthroughs. Recently, I even wrote about how it has the best replayability of the entire series. As I upgrade my arsenal and become more familiar with the different areas of the game, my desire to do it all over again even faster increases. If you're interested in attempting your own speedruns of Resident Evil Village, here are some handy cheat sheets for all the major puzzles in the game.

All Lock Combinations

While most of the lock combination puzzles in Resident Evil Village aren't inherently difficult, this graphic provides a quick reference for each of the three lock puzzles in the game. For a more detailed breakdown on where these locks are and how to solve them, check out our detailed guide on all lock combinations.

Piano Puzzle

In the castle guarded by Lady Dimitrescu, you'll come across a puzzle that will put your musical chops to test. If you don't feel like fumbling through the piano keys, the above image designates the order in which you should play each of the notes to solve the piano puzzle.

Music Box Puzzle

After Castle Dimitrescu, you'll have to make it through House Beneviento, which almost consists entirely of puzzles. In one of them, you'll need to restart a music box. Your goal here is to line up the various vertical slices with the markings on the edges of the track. Or you can take a peek at the image above for the solution.

Film Puzzle

House Beneviento is quite the puzzle gauntlet. Another one of the challenges contained within these halls is to organize strips of film in the proper order. Pictured here is the correct placement for each of the pieces of film.

Medallion Door

The final puzzle you'll encounter in House Beneviento involves a series of medallions and their corresponding symbols locking a door. If you don't feel like re-examining the Mia mannequin, above is the solution for this door puzzle. If you want a detailed breakdown on all House Beneviento puzzles, as well as the quickest way to track down Donna during hide and seek, check out our guide.

Sluice Gate Control

After being chased by fish Moreau, you'll make your way back to control room of the Sluice Gate. You'll need to change each of the buttons on this grid to match the scribbled note in this room. With the note being sideways, it can be slower going to cross reference. Thankfully, we've got the proper placement pictured above.

Any other speedrun tips?

Do you have any other tips or tricks for shortening your speedrun time in Resident Evil Village? What's your best time so far? Let us know in the comment section below! And if you're in the mood for some more scares, be sure to check out our list of the best horror games on Xbox.

Slay Resident Evil Village will these top tips and guides.

• Resident Evil Village guides
  • 5 beginner's tips and tricks
  • All enemy types and tips for fighting them
  • House Beneviento puzzle guide
  • Where to find all the Goats of Warding
  • How to unlock infinite ammo
  • Best ways to farm Lei
  • How to get the magnum and its upgrades
  • How to unlock The Mercenaries
  • Everything in the Duke's Kitchen

Among the many atmospheric, dreary, and terrifying locales of Resident Evil Village, House Beneviento stands out as one of the most unique and possibly dangerous of them all.

When you arrive at this household, you will quickly be robbed of all your weapons, healing items, and key items, forcing you to survive this evil residence through pure wits alone.

This will be easier said than done, as House Beneviento contains some extremely devious and complex puzzles that will bring your journey to a grinding halt if you can't solve them.

Fortunately, if you're stuck trying to escape House Benevientio's absurd puzzles, we have solutions to help get out of here quickly before its horrifying masters come to claim your life.

Warning: This guide will contain spoilers for some events in the game, so proceed with caution.

Beneviento doll house puzzle guide

1. Door Lock Combination

After attempting to snatch a piece of Rose from the clutches of the creepy Donna doll in the lower levels of House Beneviento, the lights will go out, and you will lose access to all items in your inventory.

On an operating table in the center of this room, you'll find a disturbing mannequin with the likeness of Mia. You'll also notice that the door you entered from now has a lock requiring a six-digit combination.

To crack this code, you'll need to investigate the mannequin on the operating table thoroughly.

Examine the left hand of the mannequin. You'll notice a small wedding band covered in blood. Remove this item and make your way to the opposite side of wooden Mia.

Examine the right upper-arm of the mannequin to discover a hidden compartment housing a small silver key. Grab this key and make your way to the door in the room with markings identical to those on this key.

In this room, you'll find a small medical sink, which can be used to wash the blood from the wedding ring. Engraved on the inside of this ring will be 05-29-11. This is the combination for the lock on the double doors.

2. Music Box Solution

Once you've successfully unlocked the double doors, make your way back out into the halls of House Beneviento. You'll likely notice one of the doors in the main hall creep open as you're walking by.

Enter this room to find a small music box with a bride and groom sitting upon a table. To access this puzzle, you'll need to re-examine the Mia mannequin for a specific item.

Inside the left knee of the mannequin, you'll find a small winding key.

Take this item to the music box to reveal its unique puzzle. You'll then encounter a series of movable slices of musical wheels.

To solve this puzzle, you'll need to line up these slices in the proper order before turning the winding key. Pay attention to the markings on the far edges of the music box.

These provide clues as to the proper layout of each piece. But to make things easier on you, the picture above is the solution.

Grab the tweezers from inside and move on to the next puzzle.

3. Film Projector Puzzle

After obtaining the tweezers from the music, make your way back to the Mia mannequin and examine the mouth. Inside, you'll notice a strip of film, which you can obtain by using the tweezers.

Take this piece of film to the study at the end of the hall closest to the elevator. You'll find an old film projector and a note on the table with the proper order for each of these film strips in this room.

Place the piece of film you took from the mannequin's mouth and arrange them in this order.

1. Monkey Doll
2. Village of Shadows Book
3. Baby Rose
4. Music Box
5. Wedding Ring on Hand

Playing the project with the film pieces in this order will open up a secret passageway behind a bookshelf in this room.

Make your way inside and grab the pair of scissors held by one of the many disturbing dolls in this crawlspace.

Use these scissors to cut through the fabric blocking your exit and make your way back to the Mia mannequin.

5. Doll puzzle (Mia's Body Mannequin)

Once back at the mannequin, use your newly acquired scissors to cut through the bandages on the mannequin's chest. This will reveal a circular opening with a brass medallion inside.

Collect this item and then examine the right elbow of the mannequin to reveal an additional medallion with three closed eyes on it. Finally, examine the mannequin's eye to reveal a symbol of a crew with its wings outstretched.

Pay close attention to the positioning of the crow's wings.

From the mannequin, make your way down the small left hallway from this operating room until you reach a door with medallions on it.

Place the brass medallion you collected from the mannequin in the biggest hole and use the clues we found from the eye and right elbow to rotate the other two medallions to their proper positions.

As a reminder, these are the three closed eyes and the crow facing to the right with its wings outstretched.

6. Hide and Seek with Donna

After experiencing what is easily the most horrifying encounter of the entire game, you'll eventually make your way back up the elevator to the main area of House Beneviento.

Here you'll need to play a twisted game of Hide and Seek with ever-terrifying Donna. This serves as the grand finale to this haunted house detour in Resident Evil Village.

To complete this puzzle, you'll need to find and stab Donna three separate times. Her first location is always upstairs in the bedroom to the right.

Unfortunately, the other two hiding spots are randomized for each playthrough.

The easiest way to track her position for the second and third locations is to use headphones and listen for her distinctive laughter, which will be a dead giveaway.

Stab this monstrous doll three times to end the nightmare and collect the piece of Rose.

Will you be able to escape House Beneviento?

There you have the solutions to solve the puzzle gauntlet of House Benevientio.

There are other threats to contend with within this madhouse aside from puzzles and Donna.

However, we won't spoil that here, as it's the greatest (and traumatising) horror experiences Resident Evil has pulled off in years that need to be seen on a blind playthrough to be believed.

Resident Evil Village is now available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, and PC via Steam.

FAQ

Are you looking forward to playing the upcoming Resident Evil Requiem? If so, are you planning to revisit Resident Evil Village or any other previous game in preparation?

If you have any thoughts on the matter, please share them with us in the comments below.

Cryptic puzzles and secret caches of goodies have long been a staple in the Resident Evil franchise, and Resident Evil Village is no exception. As you navigate Ethan Winters through the hostile environments of the game, you'll come across a series of padlocks that require six-digit codes. Here are the solutions to every lock combination in Resident Evil Village.

Village Workshop

07-04-08

After leaving the castle and talking to Duke about your next objective, you'll be tasked with tracking down a house in the village with a red chimney. Unfortunately, the path to this building is blocked by a small tractor. A small way up the hill from this obstruction will be the village workshop where you'll find the tool needed to lift this tractor. Unfortunately, it's locked in a cabinet that requires a six-digit code. On one of the workbenches in this building you'll find a photograph with the text "look outside" written on the back. Here you'll find the three sets of numbers needed to open the cabinet and grab the lift handle. Be prepared for a good ol' fashioned jump scare as you're looking out the window though.

House Beneviento

05-29-11

Our next lock combination appears in the haunting halls of House Beneviento. After you've encountered Donna and had all of your weapons stripped away, you'll need to examine the Mia mannequin on the operating table in the center of this room. On the left hand of this mannequin you'll find a bloody wedding ring. Examine the hand and remove the ring. On the opposite shoulder you'll find a silver key hidden in a removeable compartment. Grab this key and make your way to room across from the mannequin's head to clean the wedding ring in the sink. Engraved on the inside of the ring will be the code needed for this lock combination.

Maestro's Collection

27-09-17

The final lock combination in Resident Evil Village is also the only optional one in the game. When you were exploring the village searching for the red chimney, you may have come across a house that was locked with a distinctive violin shaped symbol next to the door. As you're leaving House Beneviento, you'll find the key with a violin hanging off it needed to unlock this building on the table of a structure on top of a hill on the left where you'll find a typewriter and the ball puzzle for this area. Grab this key and make your way back to the locked house. In the back corner of this building you'll find a locked cabinet. The solution for this combination is on a child's drawing hanging on the wall of the kitchen as you first enter.

Looking for more help?

Looking for more Resident Evil Village tips and tricks? We've got an ever-growing catalog of guides to help make your time in this haunting world a little bit easier. Check out some of them below!

Resident Evil Village is out now for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, PC, and Stadia. If you're looking to maximize the horror, you'll want a good pair of headphones or a headset, so check out our list of the best Xbox Series X, Series S headsets.

• Resident Evil Village Guide: Where to find all the Goats of Warding
• Resident Evil Village Guide: 5 beginner's tips and tricks
• Resident Evil Village Guide: How to unlock infinite ammo
• Resident Evil Village Guide: Best ways to farm Lei
• Resident Evil Village Guide: How to get the magnum and its upgrades

Obviously, there are MAJOR spoilers ahead.

Resident Evil Village is here, and it's rather awesome. Resident Evil Village concludes Ethan Winters' story, which kicked off in Resident Evil 7, in a fictional Eastern European mountain town full of monsters.

Ethan has been through quite a lot. After rescuing his girlfriend from a mold zombie-infested swamp in Louisana, the couple moves to Europe under a new identity to start a new life, aided by the BSAA (Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance). Unfortunately, as you might guess, things don't exactly go to plan.

In this article, I'll share some thoughts about the game's final chapters and plot twists, and some tin-foil hat conspiracy theories about what the revelations could mean for any prospective Resident Evil 9.

Once again, I emphasize, this article has many huge plot spoilers.

Resident Evil Village: Full plot synopsis

Resident Evil Village kicks off with Ethan and his wife, Mia, in a new house in an unknown location somewhere in Europe. Set a few years after Resident Evil 7, the couple has had a child, Rose, and seem to be living a somewhat idyllic life, until they aren't. Series staple Chris Redfield storms the house with his Hound Wolf Squad, and guns down Mia in a hailstorm of bullets. Enraged, frightened, and confused in equal measure, Ethan and his daughter are forcefully taken away by the tactics team.

Ethan wakes up somewhere in the forest after some sort of attack caused their truck to veer off the road. The squad with Ethan has been killed, leaving few clues as to what actually went down. Ethan stumbles into the cold of the night, and eventually reaches a deserted village in the mountains nestled in the shadow of a gothic castle. It's not long after arriving that Ethan discovers something is very wrong. Blood coats the walls and floor, and signs of carnage and death are everywhere. Soon, Ethan is attacked by a horde of werewolf-like humans with murderous intent.

Ethan resolves to discover what happened to his daughter while hunting down Chris Redfield's team in the process. Battling through scores of werewolf "Lycans," Ethan eventually reaches the outskirts of the castle, only to be attacked by a group of shadowy lords that seem to hold dominion over the area. Heisenburg has the ability to manipulate magnetic fields, making iron objects hover through the air, transforming them into all sorts of weapons and projectiles. Donna Beneviento and her puppet, Angie, manipulate the pollen of a hallucinogenic mountain plant to induce dark visions. Lady Dimitrescu stands tall over the others, with superhuman strength and razor-sharp claws, while Moreau stalks the shadows, mutated and fish-like. They're led by Mother Miranda, a godlike figure with six black feathered wings who presides over the others with otherworldly authority.

They attack Ethan, subjecting him to all sorts of torments and horror throughout the game. Ultimately, each of them underestimates him along the way. Ethan escapes their clutches and discovers that it's maybe them who took Rose from Chris Redfield and is ultimately holding her captive. After dispatching a mutated Lady Dimitrescu atop the highest tower in her castle, Ethan discovers that Rose has been literally torn apart, separated into four flasks for some grotesque ritual. Wracked with despair, a mysterious merchant known as the Duke claims Ethan can restore Rose by gathering her parts and completing the ritual himself.

Each of the four lords of the village has a piece of Rose, and Ethan travels across the valley to kill each of them in turn. He battles the fish-like monstrosity Moreau in his aquatic domain at the dam and Bienviento in her hallucination-inducing cliffside mansion. He then takes the fight to Heisenburg in his factory, whom Ethan discovers has his own agenda. Heisenburg reveals that Mother Miranda created each lord through a series of failed experiments, trying to create the perfect "vessel" to resurrect her deceased daughter with the mold introduced in Resident Evil 7, called the mutamycete. Heisenburg created an army of half-man, half-machine cyborg zombies from dozens of villager victims to facilitate his goal to kill Mother Miranda, and have vengeance. He asks Ethan to join. As you might expect, Ethan declines with extreme prejudice.

Ethan battles through the factory and meets Chris Redfield, who explains that Mia is possibly alive. The "Mia" they gunned down was in fact, Mother Miranda, who is almost entirely comprised of the mold. This gives her the ability to manipulate her form, mimicking all sorts of shapes, and thus, people. Miranda mimicked the form of a corpse in the van and attacked the Hound Wolf squad, kidnapping Rose in the process. She plans to use Rose as her vessel to resurrect her daughter's consciousness. Rose's composition is somewhat unique too, being the daughter of Mia, who was infected with the mold prior to getting cured, and Ethan... who is actually dead.

It's revealed that Ethan died at the start of Resident Evil 7. In fact, if you go back and play it, you can hear quite clearly that Jack Baker stomps Ethan's skull with a sickening crunch at the end. Ethan's ability to withstand various types of damage is not merely gameplay armor, but in fact, is due to that he's literally made almost completely made of mold — the mutamycete.

Underneath the village is the origin of the mutamycete, some grotesque parasitic creature dubbed the megamycete, that spreads and grows like a gigantic sentient fungus. It infects and replaces the cells of its victims, creating the enemies from Resident Evil 7, the molded, and occasionally more advanced molded creatures, like Ethan and Mother Miranda.

Ethan defeats a gigantic, mutated Heisenburg using a polymer-alloy tank, and resolves to save Rose, and end Mother Miranda in the process. Throughout the game, the mutamycete growth has spread, while becoming more and more powerful. It eventually erupts out of the ground like a gigantic forest made of dark mold tentacles. Left unchecked, it could envelop the valley, perhaps across the entire world. It's at this point you take control of Chris to bring the fight to the mutamycete and remaining Lycans.

During the fight, Chris realizes that his former colleagues at the BSAA have also gotten involved, sending in a small army of their own to take on the Lycans, the Urias Strajer, and the mutamycete. Chris tracks the mutamycete growth underground, with the aim of placing a large explosive at its very heart. In Mother Miranda's underground labs, Chris finds the real Mia, who has been interred for some time.

Additionally, they discover that Oswell E. Spencer, the founder of Umbrella, met Mother Miranda decades ago right in this village. The pair studied the metamycete together, alongside other viruses and strange phenomena. Spencer left a letter for Miranda, noting his goals of world domination and his intention to use a virus to do it. It would appear that Mother Miranda is the source of Spencer's knowledge and inspiration, ultimately responsible for the carnage in the first few Resident Evil games.

After his battle with Heisenburg, Ethan is attacked by Mother Miranda, who rips out his heart. Being molded, Ethan survives, albeit barely. Ethan uses what little strength he has left (and all the accumulated ammo from playing) to take the fight to Miranda herself, who mutates into various forms throughout the fight. Interrupting her final ritual to steal Rose's body, Rose is ultimately restored, and Miranda is defeated, shattering into a thousand dusty pieces.

The megamycete continues to grow unchecked, although Chris manages to place a large explosive underground at its very heart. Ethan takes the detonator from Chris, and urges Chris to take care of the restored Rose for him. In the end, Ethan is killed in the ensuing blast, taking out the megamycete for good.

As Chris, Mia, Rose, and the remaining Hound Wolf squad members escape in a helicopter, the soldiers reveal that the BSAA are using bioweapon soldiers, rather than human soldiers. The soldiers look pale white and gaunt, like the Tyrant T-Virus models from Resident Evil 1 and 2. Chris notes that his squad may have to pay a visit to BSAA Europe.

In the epilogue, we see a teenage Rose, who seems to be doing well. She visits Ethan's grave, and a secret agent appears in a car to take Rose away. He jokingly calls her Eveline, in reference to the bioweapon girl from Resident Evil 7. Rose doesn't appreciate the comment, reacting angrily. She notes she has "abilities" that "Chris doesn't even know about," implying that her unique birth has given her some supernatural powers. We see the car drive away, but it is then stopped by a shadowy figure at the end of the road, whose identity remains a mystery but could possibly be Ethan himself.

Thoughts on Resident Evil Village's ending and major twists

I wrote in my review that I thought some aspects of Resident Evil's story were a bit clunky or under-explained. For example. it's not really explained why Rose needs to be separated into four parts in order to be transformed into Mother Miranda's daughter, Eva. It's barely touched upon why Chris doesn't just explain what's going on to Ethan from the outset. His teammates remark upon this as you're traversing the cave systems as Chris, saying "you should have told Ethan," and Chris even agrees, "I know," as if this was injected at the last minute to stave off criticism.

I also think the inclusion of Chris felt a little forced in general towards the end. I think the section where you battle the Urias Strajer would have been better if you were just Ethan, using his new-found mold powers instead. Instead of using a convenient polymer-alloy tank that's immune to Heisenburg's powers, wouldn't it have been cooler to have turned into a molded bioweapon Ethan instead? It would have made far more sense in context and would have seemed a little less contrived. The polymer-alloy tank had me rolling my eyes. Why would Heisenburg make a tank, specifically, that could kill him?

The game is, frankly, filled with an array of barely-sensical motivations from various characters, which you could explain away with insanity, I guess. Why does Mother Miranda steal Mia's body and play happy housewife when she could've just turned into some kinda creature and murdered them both to steal Rose? Why not just do the ceremony to replace Rose with her daughter outright to begin with? Why doesn't Mother Miranda know that Heisenburg is plotting against her, considering she can literally transform into crows and spy on everything?

These weird issues with the writing is ultimately why I deducted points from our review. Some of the haphazard explanations come in the form of text files, but they just heap on confusion. Mother Miranda has some motivation to "recruit" powerful molded entities from her experiments, but why?

Spencer notes in his letter that their goals diverge: Spencer wants to take over the world, while Miranda only wants to resurrect her deceased daughter. Why would Mother Miranda want to recruit males at all, to that end? It makes for cool gameplay since it would suck without the various bosses, but I feel like there must have been a better way to narratively tie all of this together.

I actually enjoyed the plot twist that Ethan was molded, however. It elevates Resident Evil 7's story a great deal as a result, explaining away why Ethan has his hands severed multiple times and is able to reattach them with relative ease. The hivemind-like qualities of the mutamycete also make for an interesting concept. I also liked that Resident Evil Village tied itself quite neatly into the events of the previous games via the connection between Miranda and Spencer. The iconography in the ruins surrounding the village, bearing the symbol Umbrella would eventually go onto use, carries some mystery of its own. Also, there's the whole angle with the shadowy bioterrorist group The Connections — what exactly is their endgame?

Indeed, Resident Evil Village leaves us with an array of unanswered questions. What exactly is the megamycete, and where did it come from? What's going on with the BSAA and their bioweapon-soldier usage? What the heck is going on with Rose? Where are the franchise's other characters?

What this could all mean for Resident Evil 9 (or DLC)

In Resident Evil 7 and Village, we learn that The Connections were behind much of the recent mutamycete outbreaks. Working with Miranda, The Connections created Eveline from Eva's DNA. The Connections built Eveline with the plan of creating a bioweapon that could infect soldiers in the field, and turn them into allies through mold-induced pheramonic mind control. Unfortunately, Eveline was psychotic, and used her bioweapon powers to spread the mold, creating "family members" from the corpses of the dead. Miranda bailed on The Connections at that point, resolving to find another way to revive Eva. Eveline would eventually end up in the swamplands from Resident Evil 7, infecting the Baker family and the surrounding wildlife.

Since we know the megamycete seems to hold the cognitive essence of the people it infected with the mold strain, there's certainly a chance that that "hive mind" of consciousness still exists within Rose. Rose remarks during the epilogue that "she knows" she's like her father, despite having never met him. This could explain why Ethan has visions of other infected characters, like Eveline, Jack Baker, and Mia. Is Rose currently aware of Ethan's consciousness? Does the metamycete hivemind still exist within her? Could she become malevolent in the future? The fact the secret agent types had a sniper rifle pointing at Rose during the epilogue certainly suggests they are afraid of her, at the very least.

There are a lot of ways Resident Evil 9 could take advantage of Rose's unique status. Given that Resident Evil 7 appears to hint at Mother Miranda in its original promotional art, I'd say that the overarching plot has already been planned out for Resident Evil 9 to some degree.

Given that the BSAA seems to have resorted to using bioweapons in its army now, there's a chance it could also be somehow compromised. The goal of various pharma companies throughout the Resident Evil canon was to ultimately create supersoldiers that could withstand irregular amounts of damage, and accept some sort of ultimate authority. If the BSAA has truly achieved this goal, they would be the first to do so without any major consequences, besides the potential legal and ethical issues. On the flip side, they could also have become evil as well. Blue Umbrella, comprised of former Umbrella scientists who want to make amends for the disasters from Resident Evil 0-3, are now working with Chris' strike team, Hound Wolf. Could the former central antagonists of the franchise now become good? With the BSAA and The Connections becoming the central villains? Time will tell.

Mother Miranda's mold-induced powers gave her the ability to shapeshift into any form and stave off aging. Her lab suggests she'd been there for over one hundred years, applying her research skills to a variety of projects. She created the "cadou" parasites from the megamycete, using them to infect humans and experiment on different mutagenic properties. Spencer preferred a virus as the method of infection since it self-propagates much more rapidly than a parasite can. However, the huge time period of Mother Miranda's activities suggests she could have been responsible for other strange happenings throughout the franchise — perhaps, even further back.

Ultimately, we have no idea on her exact age, knowing only that her daughter was killed by the Spanish Flu in around 1918, and became mortal sometimes after that from discovering the megamycete fungal growth.

Resident Evil 9 ultimately could explore two separate tracks, or perhaps both. The ending says "The Father's Story is Over," heavily implying the next game will be about The Daughter, i.e. Rose. Teenaged Rose seems to be interred with Blue Umbrella and Chris' group, but we have no idea how much time has passed since Resident Evil Village. I don't know if Chris would wait 15+ years to find out what's going on at the BSAA, which is now using Tyrant-like bioweapon soldiers. Eveline however, exhibited rapid aging. Could the time period be less than we expect?

I think Resident Evil 9 may potentially follow Chris heading to the BSAA to find out what the hell is going on there. After Jill Valentine was infected in Resident Evil 5, she spent some time in quarantine with the BSAA as they tried to figure out what effects Wesker's experiments had on her. Could Jill be in trouble, or perhaps even responsible?

If Resident Evil 9 does a time skip ahead with Rose as the protagonist, that potentially leaves the BSAA plot to be explored either via a Chris-focused DLC as we saw in Resident Evil 7, or as part of a separate game entirely. Resident Evil has done spin-offs before, with Revelations 1 and 2, which explore subplots. Revelations 2 followed Barry Burton and his daughter Moira, for example.

Historically, the Revelations games have been of a lower caliber and budget than the mainline Resident Evil games, but perhaps the modern Capcom has other plans. I wouldn't say no to a bigger-budget Revelations 3 that followed Chris to BSAA Europe, even if it was perhaps a bit more action-oriented.

The mainline Resident Evil sequel will hopefully remain true to the survival-horror formula we've come to know and love. The Connections are still out there, working their dark machinations. We have no idea what sort of powers Rose harbors, nor do we know if Blue Umbrella is a true ally or not. Resident Evil has many loose ends across the board and tons of potential exploration opportunities for future installments. I didn't even write about the game's mysterious vendor, the Duke, who seems to be molded too. What's his deal?!

Resident Evil remains crazy, but I love it

Resident Evil has never had the most sensical plot, with enemies that seem incapable of learning from their mistakes and narratives that contradict gameplay. But, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. Could Resident Evil be something more? Sure, and I would like that, but I also love fighting zombie werewolves, cyborg monstrosities, giant fish monsters, and flying psychic dolls. Resident Evil is a bit silly, but I every dimension of its wacky and wild plots, strewn through a lens of tense survival horror action.

I think Resident Evil honestly reminds me of the X-Files in some ways. The games seem to work better when they focus on smaller, more intimate localized stories, rather than the bigger plot hole-filled main story arc. Marrying believable scientific information with the fantastical beasts of the franchise would probably require mountains of additional dialogue. Resident Evil does a good job of explaining its universe generally if you're willing to read the text files that is. I'm still unclear on a lot of the different character's motivations, but hey, being infected with a mutagenic virus probably does a number on your cognitive reasoning skills. And maybe Chris just isn't that smart.

In any case, I love this bloody franchise. After the relative disappointments of Resident Evil 5 and 6, 7 and 8 feel like a big return to form, and I hope the Capcom of the modern era continues the trend.

What do you think of Resident Evil Village's ending? Hit the comments, and let's chat.

Resident Evil Village is available now for $60 on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. It's quite easily one of the best Xbox games of the year so far, and well-worth a look. Be sure to read our full Resident Evil Village review for more details!

Resident Evil Village has completely and utterly sunk its hooks into me. Between PS5 and Xbox Series X, I'm currently preparing for my sixth playthrough of the game and I easily see several more completions on the horizon.

While later Resident Evil titles like Resident Evil 5 through 7 heavily incentivized multiple playthroughs with new weapons and rewarding unlocks, none of them perfected the formula quite like the newest entry. As our resident Resident Evil nerd, I just can't stop playing. Here's why Resident Evil Village has the best replayability of the entire series and why it's on track to be the game I've beaten more times than any other.

The history of replayability in Resident Evil

Resident Evil has always been a franchise willing to reward its most hardcore audience. Even the earliest games offered fun and outrageous post-game content. Resident Evil on PS1, for example, allowed players who completed the game to change their outfits via a special bonus room and provided the infamous unlimited rocket launcher for players skilled enough to complete the game in under three hours. The unique challenges and unlocks in Resident Evil 1 set a precedent that would continue through every single mainline Resident Evil title.

This ingenious balance of fear and fun would be part of the reason why Resident Evil became one of the most beloved horror franchises. Fans like myself adored these silly alternative ways of re-experiencing games that were inherently designed to be stressful and horrifying. it was like the game was rewarding you for getting through the sometimes horrifying main game by adding some fun.

With more eyes and attention on every subsequent release, the team at Capcom seemed hellbent on ramping up the rewards with every sequel. Resident Evil 2 retained the unlimited rocket launcher unlock, but also introduced a suite of additional post-game bonuses like the gatling gun. Then there was the absolutely ridiculous Tofu Scenario, which tasked players with running through the streets of Racoon City as a giant brick of tofu.

With the release of Resident Evil 3, Capcom shifted the focus from weapon unlocks to a host of bonus costumes for Jill Valentine. As this entry drastically ramped up your firepower from the get-go, rad additions like Regina's outfit from Dino Crisis served as powerful incentives to chase the higher completion rankings. However, with the release of Code Veronica on Dreamcast, fans who completed this entry were treated to the first bonus game mode the series had seen. In Battle Game, players chose from one of five characters and completed a series of timed, arcade-influenced challenges. This post-game content had a unique collection of unlocks, which offered even more replayability for folks who just wanted any excuse to keep playing.

Replayability redefined

Then Resident Evil 4 dropped and things changed forever. Serving as a spiritual reboot of the series, Leon's escapades in Resident Evil 4 completely reimagined and ultimately redefined what a Resident Evil game was. Tense survival horror took a backseat in favor of over-the-top action and slick gunplay. Fans and critics seemed to agree that this was the ultimate Resident Evil experience and post-game content as well as a staggering focus on replayability played a huge role in this.

The bonus weapons of Resident Evil 2, the extra costumes of Resident Evil 3, and the bonus game mode from Code Veronica (which was rebranded as The Mercenaries) were all repurposed and re-envisioned with Resident Evil 4. This incredible title essentially served as a tribute to the greatest parts of all the Resident Evil games that came before it.

The massive success of Resident Evil 4 certainly went to the heads of the team with the releases of Resident Evil 5 and 6. Understanding the overwhelming praise the series received for its shift to more action-oriented gameplay, Resident Evil 5 doubled down on wild, Michael Bay-esque action sequences and almost completely abandoned any shred of its survival-horror roots.

While this was absolutely a big criticism for some, Resident Evil 5 set the new gold standard for replayability in the series. With fully upgradable weapons, a universal character inventory, amazing co-op, and collectible treasure, Resident Evil 5 quickly became one of my most played games of all time, despite my complaints regarding its genuinely dumb storytelling and character building. Resident Evil 6 doubled-down on RE5's action-focused double-down and ultimately ending up disappointing many long-time fans, leading to the much-needed refresh that came with Resident Evil 7.

What makes the replayability of Resident Evil Village so incredible?

Much like Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil Village serves as the greatest hits for the series. I even see Resident Evil Village as the spiritual reboot of Resident Evil 4. With a compelling balance of survival horror, inventory management, and over-the-top action, Resident Evil Village manages to recapture some of the potent magic that made Resident Evil 4 such a defining moment. And just like the 2005 classic, the latest entry boasts a robust catalog of engaging and exciting endgame content including unlimited ammo, Challenge Points, and The Mercenaries.

Challenge Points and The Extra Content Shop

I really enjoyed my first playthrough of Resident Evil Village, but even deep into my initial run, I didn't quite see myself inclined to finish the story five more times. That immediately changed when I completed the game and unlocked Challenges, Challenge Points, and the Extra Content Shop.

Supplemental playthroughs were now being rewarded in ways the series had never seen before. A massive collection of over 70 Challenges incentivizes weapon experimentation, speed runs, and gathering collectibles. Completing these Challenges provides Challenge Points, which can be used to purchase new weapons, unlimited ammo, and extras like concept art. With tangible rewards for basically every additional playthrough, I found myself obsessed with trying to tackle every Challenge available.

New Game+ and higher difficulties

While the Challenges certainly provide plenty of reasons to replay Resident Evil Village, the biggest hook for me was the robust options for New Game+. All collectibles, weapons, upgrades, and resources carry over between runs, giving you this ever-increasing sense of power. Remember those obnoxious daughters early on in the castle? Well, now you can make quick work of them with one bullet from your M1851 Wolfsbane. What about the horrific encounter with Lady Dimitrescu? No sweat. A few well-placed shots from your grenade launcher should wrap that fight up rather easily.

Resident Evil Village doesn't shy away from letting the player completely break the game and because of this, it stands firmly as the most fun entry since Resident Evil 5. Even the higher-level difficulties like Hardcore and Village of Shadows allow you to bring over outrageous weapons, making these otherwise grueling achievements more obtainable for the average player. And if you decide you want to experience a truly terrifying challenge, you can simply turn off unlimited ammo in the options or even start a completely fresh run with no existing equipment (which, subsequently, is a Challenge you can complete).

The Mercenaries and its new rogue-like elements

For players who want even more post-game action, the arcade-inspired bonus game mode The Mercenaries delivers a frantic way to re-experience some of Resident Evil Village's most iconic locations. For the uninitiated, The Mercenaries is a timed collection of challenge maps where players are tasked with eliminating enemies as fast as possible. The updated take on this long-running Resident Evil forgoes character selection in favor of a new skill system that adds some mild rogue-like elements to the experience.

As this mode adds even more challenges that can unlock wild extras like a double-sided lightsaber to the story mode, I found myself playing The Mercenaries far more in Resident Evil Village than I had with previous entries. If you're someone like me who loves the feeling of perfecting each run, you'll also spend way too much time with this post-game content.

Why I can't stop playing Resident Evil Village

Resident Evil Village is easily one of the best games of 2021 so far and I'm honestly a bit surprised by how much fun I'm still having even six runs in. Like Resident Evil 5, this isn't necessarily one of my favorite Resident Evil entries, but it's worth applauding Capcom for how much care they put into rewarding the time investments of its players. I'm not typically a hardcore completionist when it comes to most of the games I play, but the perfectly balanced amount of additional content and unlocks has me all-in on Resident Evil Village.

While I've beaten most Resident Evil titles several times each, I've never put this many playthroughs into any other game so close to launch. So once again, I tip my wide-brimmed hat to this team for delivering the best replayability the series has ever seen and realistically, some of the best replayability I've ever enjoyed in a video game.

How many times have you finished the game? Sound off in the comments below. Resident Evil Village is now available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, Stadia, and PC. And for even more scares, be sure to check out our list of the best Xbox horror games.

The Resident Evil series has always been more than just taking down monsters and getting scared, and Resident Evil Village is no different. As you explore the village and its surrounding areas, you'll be able to find and hunt down various animals, including fish, chickens, pigs, and more. With their meat, you can craft some major and permanent upgrades at Duke's Kitchen, located at the same cart that Duke is at in any given area.

Finding the animals is easy enough, but figuring out which upgrade you want to go for might be tougher. If you're looking at what exactly you'll need for them, then look no further. Here is everything you can make in Duke's Kitchen in Resident Evil Village.

Everything available at Duke's Kitchen

Herbed Fish

Reward: Health slightly increased permanently

Requirements:

• Fish (3)
• Poultry (2)

Bird and Beast Pilaf

Reward: Damage taken when guarding decreases permanently

Requirements:

• Poultry (4)
• Meat (1)

Three-Flavored Mititei

Reward: Health increases permanently

Requirements:

• Fish (4)
• Poultry (2)
• Meat (3)

Tochitura de Pui

Reward: Health greatly increases permanently

Requirements:

• Poultry (4)
• Meat (3)
• Juicy Game (1)

Ciorba de Porc

Reward: Movement speed increases permanently

Requirements:

• Fish (1)
• Meat (5)
• Quality Meat (1)

Sarmale de Peste

Reward: Health slightly increased permanently

Requirements:

• Fish (6)
• Finest Fish (1)

Where to find Fish, Poultry, and Meat in Resident Evil Village

In order to craft anything in Duke's Kitchen, you'll need the proper amount of ingredients. While some recipes just require a handful of fish or poultry, some of the later ingredients need more complex items, and higher amounts of normal ingredients. Here's where you can look to find every type of ingredient available in Resident Evil Village:

• Fish: Finding fish and chicken is easy enough in Resident Evil Village, as the map points out where they can be found. Checking your in-game map, you'll notice various pictures of chickens or fish located at certain areas. Exploring those areas will often result in you finding some animals to hunt down. It's currently unknown if there is a finite amount of animals in the game, though, so make sure that as you collect them, you aren't accidentally selling them to Duke.
• Poultry: Chickens are one of the most common animals to be found in Resident Evil Village, and you'll often see them roaming around small plots of land in housing sections of the main Village area.
• Meat: Much like poultry and fish, meat is pretty easy to find in Resident Evil Village. It won't pop up on the map, but you can find a couple of small, black pigs roaming about the "West Old Town" area of the map. There are also bigger pigs and goats roaming around certain sections of the map, so make sure to keep an eye out while you're exploring. Finally, if you go to the section of the map titled "Otto's Mill," you'll encounter a mini boss fight and be able to steal his huge collection of meat.
• Juicy Game: As you get deeper into the Duke's Kitchen upgrades, you'll eventually need more exotic animals and meat to trade in. The first is termed "Juicy Game," and can be found from a special blue bird that's found perched on a tree in the Graveyard section of the village.
• Quality Meat: Head to Luiza's House and hop out of the back window where you initially meet her and her father. You'll spot a well, and a white pig that you can take down for its prize.
• Finest Fish: The Finest Fish is a special golden fish that can be found right after defeating Moreau, one of the four mini-bosses in the game. Use the crank to lower the bridge near the Altar and take the boat heading South. You'll eventually get to a small pond that has a handful of fish in it, as well as one particular golden fish. Killing the fish is as simple as shooting it with a pistol or striking it a couple of times with a knife.

Your thoughts

Have you managed to fully purchase every upgrade in Duke's Kitchen? Are you struggling to find any specific animals? Let us know in the comments below. If you're looking for other Resident Evil Village beginners tips and tricks, we have those as well.

Resident Evil Village is set to release on May 7 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, PC, and Stadia. If you want to really experience horror, you'll want a good pair of headphones or a headset, so check out the best Xbox Series X, Series S headsets.

Slay Resident Evil Village will these top tips and guides.

• Resident Evil Village guides
  • 5 beginner's tips and tricks
  • All enemy types and tips for fighting them
  • House Beneviento puzzle guide
  • Where to find all the Goats of Warding
  • How to unlock infinite ammo
  • Best ways to farm Lei
  • How to get the magnum and its upgrades
  • How to unlock The Mercenaries
  • Everything in the Duke's Kitchen

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village has shipped three million units worldwide, less than one week since its launch.
• The series as a whole has sold over 100 million units since its debut in 1996.
• The three million unit milestone includes digital sales as well as physical sales.

Resident Evil Village, Capcom's latest entry in the massively successful survival horror series, has shipped more than three million units worldwide, less than one week after its release.

Capcom confirmed the milestone in a press release, revealing that the game has shipped three million units across the Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, PS4, and PC and that the series as a whole has sold more than 100 million units since its initial release in 1996.

The figure includes shipments to retailers, as well as digital sales, which is how Capcom usually counts it. This is comparable to the sales of both Resident Evil 7 as well as the Resident Evil 2 Remake.

A direct sequel to Resident Evil 7, Resident Evil Village expanded on the lore of the series and utilized Capcom's RE Engine to create gorgeous visuals, all the while expanding on the first-person survival horror elements that made Resident Evil 7 a stand-out. We liked it a lot too — in our review, we said, "stunning visuals, truly bizarre creatures, a memorable parade of eccentric characters, and truly satisfying gameplay make Resident Evil Village soar, even if a few quirks in the plot delivery deflate the spectacle."

The Resident Evil series has provided some of the best horror games on Xbox, and that trend continues with Resident Evil Village.

Despite being the franchise that helped popularize the undead in video games, zombies are the least threatening enemy to deal with in Resident Evil.

This series has featured all kinds of horrifying creatures to deal with, including bio-engineered mutants, cultists infested with alien parasites, and evil humans who have gained superpowers through viruses while still retaining their intelligence.

Resident Evil Village is no different, as its bestiary consists of gothic horror-inspired monsters, including vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein-esque cyborg zombies, and much more.

With such a stacked roster, you're going to need all the help you can get to beat these creatures of the night.

So we have compiled a list of every major enemy and boss in the game and have come up with tips and strategies that will give you the edge in hunting them down instead of being hunted by them.

Warning: There are major story spoilers ahead, including some unofficially announced enemy types and bosses, so read at your own discretion.

How to beat RE8 bosses and enemies

1. Common enemies

Let's start things off by taking a look at the common enemies you will be frequently facing. These freaks can be deadly even by themselves, but when grouped, they're a living nightmare.

Lycans

They might look like werewolves, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

While Lycans are the most common enemy type you'll encounter in Resident Evil Village, like zombies from previous games, they move very quickly, jump far, and can dodge attacks.

Like zombies, they can swarm at you in large numbers (wolves travel in packs, after all), so sometimes the best strategy is to run. They can also bite you if they get too close, so be sure to keep your distance anyway you can.

If you do decide to take them on in a fight, you'll manage as long as you have a decent supply of ammo or a shotgun.

On standard difficulty, Lycans take around seven handgun shots, but less if you can shoot them in the head.

Lycans (large)

These might look more advanced than regular Lycans, but they're mostly just Lycans in armor and with somewhat more dangerous attacks.

You take them down the same way you would a normal Lycan, except you need to be more careful about where you place your shots.

Luckily, you can crack their armor if you hit it in the correct place.

Moroaica

Here's a fun bit of trivia: all of the enemies you'll encounter in Castle Dimitrescu are female; men have all been harvested for their blood.

Women and girls, on the other hand, have been experimented upon by Lady Dimitrescu and Mother Miranda, turning them into blood-sucking monsters like the Moroaica and the Samca.

Moroaica are the most common enemy type in Lady Dimitrescu's area. They're a lot slower than Lycans, but they tend to appear in much more cramped areas, like the castle dungeons, so it's not as easy to run.

They also carry swords, so they can sweep at you from further away. However, because they shamble a lot more than run, their attacks are slow. They also travel in packs. If you run into one Moroaica, chances are there will be more.

Like Lycans, they also take a few shots to go down.

Samca

You'll spot the Samca once you start wandering around the outdoor areas of Castle Dimitrescu. They're like the Moroaica, except they have large wings and a long tongue, the latter of which is used to suck blood.

As you can imagine, they're tougher to fight than the Moroaica since they can fly and dodge your attacks. I found the best way to deal with them is to wait for them to fly in close and then shoot off rounds into their heads, whether with a handgun or shotgun.

They fly a little too quickly for the sniper rifle, but if you're faster with a long range weapon, it's worth it to try and get rid of them before they get too close.

Hauler

Heisenberg's Factory has a lot of enemy types, but Haulers are the most basic. As you can see from the design, a Hauler is a villager with a large weapon and a metal visor. The visor, however, is key here.

All of Heisenberg's enemies go through at least two stages of difficulty. Since this is the first stage of Heisenberg's experiments, you only have to deal with the visor, which protects its head.

Just shoot off or destroy it first before moving on to the rest of it.

Soldat Elris

The Soldat Elris are the next stage in Heisenberg's Frankenstein-esque creatures.

These have a chainsaw-like drill on one arm and a visor that protects their head. This is also the stage that introduces the reactor, which is filled with a parasite that powers them.

From now on, you need to shoot at the reactor first before taking out the enemy. Luckily, the reactor is on the chest here, so it's an easy target.

Shooting at the reactor with your shotgun or a more powerful gun stuns the enemy, although they will try to protect that area with their arms. Then, make sure you take out the visor for an easier time.

Soldat Zwei

Up next is the Soldat Zwei. Instead of just one drill, it has two, and the reactor is on the back instead of the front. Two drills means the Zwei's attacks hit a lot harder.

However, if you notice, there's no visor here, so its head is exposed.

Soldat Jet

Up next is the Soldat Jet. As you can guess from its pose and name, this is a Soldat with a jetpack, which it can use to hover and jump to you a lot faster than some of the other enemies.

It can also use the jetpack for charge attacks, so make sure you block or get out of the way.

It's covered in way more armor than its lesser brethren, so you'll need your grenade launcher to strip away some of it. Then, aim for the reactor once you've gotten rid of his armor.

A word of warning: Soldat Jet have been known to travel in pairs.

Soldat Panzer

This isn't even the Soldat's final form! The Panzer is completely covered in armor and is wielding not just one or two, but multiple drills. This is where you take out your grenade launcher.

A direct hit will start stripping the Panzer of its armor, which will expose the reactor on the front of his body. A few shotgun bullets directly at the reactor will eventually shut it down before it explodes.

2. Mini Bosses

Resident Evil Village has its fair share of mini-bosses that are far more dangerous than the common enemies.

They will require a lot more bullets, wits, and firepower in order to take down.

Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela

We retain the gothic, classic horror feel with these striking foes. While the enemies in the village are closer to werewolves, Lady Dimitrescu's three daughters, named Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela, are more like witches or vampires.

After a cutscene where they torture you, they'll be chasing you around the castle. Both the Tall Vampire Lady herself and her daughters will be stalking you as you try to find your way out.

Unlike their mother, they're a lot faster and can travel as a swarm of bugs, meaning your bullets are useless.

We won't spoil the reveal for you, but they do have a weakness, which you'll need to exploit in one-on-one fights.

It'll become obvious once you get there (or if you're knowledgeable on vampire weaknesses in folklore), but then you can use your guns to take them out.

Varcolac

If you thought the Lycans were scary, you haven't met a Varcolac yet. You meet the first one while you're going through the village on the way to the reservoir.

These are evolved Lycans that no longer harbor any human traits, and their fur is starting to turn white.

While their size might be terrifying at first, unlike their smaller Lycan siblings, they can't enter homes (they try, but they don't fit), so hiding is a viable option. Plus, if you hide long enough, it'll run away and begin avoiding you until you come closer.

If you want to face one in a fight, you'll need some of your stronger weapons, or at least just a shotgun. A good way to deal a lot of damage is to lure it towards you and make it step on a mine.

Urias

At first, I described this as a "gorilla man" but in actuality, Urias in Romanian just means "giant."

The Urias, a much larger werewolf-like creature, and his giant hammer in Resident Evil Village first appears in the first big Lycan fight, but you'll get to fight him one-on-one in Heisenberg's Stronghold...or sort of one-on-one.

He's extremely strong and is a formidable opponent on his own, but being the former leader of the village, he has a lot of loyal followers. Unload as much as you can into him before he jumps out of the way and sends out regular Lycans to fight.

Make sure to run around the fighting area to collect all the resources you can. You'll need a lot of firepower.

Urias Strajer

Oh did you think the Urias fight was over? Unfortunately, there are two. The Urias Strajer is Urias' older brother, both pre- and post-Lycan transformation.

The difference here is that, as the guardian of the Megamycete parasite, he's a lot bigger, a lot stronger, and a lot more terrifying. He's too much even for Ethan to handle, so you'll be fighting him as Chris Redfield.

You can unload as many bullets into him as you want — shooting him in the back where the tentacles are does stun him — but you need to use the Target Locator in your inventory to signal to your squad where to drop support fire.

Doing this three times on standard difficulty will defeat him.

Sturm

If you thought the Soldats couldn't have any more armor, you thought incorrectly.

The Sturm is the ultimate Heisenberg creation, a heavy armored mutant with a giant propeller made of chainsaws on the front of his hulking body, which it can use to blast through walls.

Unfortunately for this beast, those propellers are so large that they cut off its arms.

Like with the other Soldats, you can knock pieces of armor off of him with your grenade launcher or shotgun. However, you need to attack the reactor directly, which is on its back.

The easiest way to do this is to lure it into a charge attack and move out of the way so it gets stuck in a wall. Then, unload whichever weapon you have into the reactor while it's stuck. Do this a few times, and you'll destroy him for good.

The "Baby"

We apologize for putting this image in your mind once again (or for the first time, and in that case, we're very sorry). The "Baby" is a giant, giggling creature that attacks you in Donna Beneviento's doll workshop.

It's made from the Mia doll that you have to take apart to escape, and it'll chase you as if it thinks you're its dad.

You can't let this baby get you because if it grabs you, it will kill you instantly by eating you. To make matters worse, you won't have any of your weapons with you during this, so you can't fight back.

Your only option is to run away and unlock the elevator to escape before the "Baby" gets you. We recommend committing the layout of the doll workshop to memory at any opportunity, so you know where to go and what hiding spaces to take refuge in.

3. The Lords

While there is a major boss that is behind all the goings on in Resident Evil Village, you have to deal with her underlings first. These are the four Lords and represent four powerful families in and around town.

You'll have to take each of them on to find your daughter Rose and face Mother Miranda. What we enjoyed most was that each of them is completely different from one another, and all harken back to a past Resident Evil enemy type or something wholly new.

Lady Dimitrescu

We, of course, have to start with the Tall Vampire Lady herself. Lady Alcina Dimitrescu quickly gained the attention of the internet in her reveal thanks to her towering height (she stands at around 9 feet 6 inches tall), striking white look, and thirst for Ethan's blood.

She functions like Mr. X from the Resident Evil 2 remake in that she's an unkillable force that stalks you around Castle Dimitrescu. When she finds you, she'll use her long reach and retractable claws to get at you.

Like with previous bosses, she uses her size to her advantage, but you can also use it to her detriment. When she's ducking into a room, use that opportunity to run.

Despite her arguably being the breakout star of the game, she's not its big boss. She reports to Mother Miranda.

Even so, when you force her into final form, you'd better watch out because that's when the real battle begins. In this form, Lady Dimitrescu turns into a giant dragon-like monster with her human body fused on top.

Most of her body is invulnerable during this form, so you will need to shoot at what's left of Lady Dimitrescu's human form to deal damage while avoiding getting crushed by giant claws and teeth.

Donna Beneviento and Angie

Director Morimasa Sato told IGN that U.S. Capcom employees were most terrified of Donna Beneviento's design, and if you have an aversion to puppets, you might agree.

Donna Beneviento is a mysterious figure shrouded in all black with a veil and operates a puppet named Angie, who is wearing a dirty wedding dress.

However, when you first meet Donna Beneviento, it might seem like Angie is in charge. She's the first one you see when you wake up in the Lords' meeting. She's very enthusiastic while Donna is not.

House Beneviento is located on the outskirts of the village and rarely receives visitors. It's become overtaken by dolls that Donna has created and imbued with the power of the parasite, so they come alive.

You find out later that while she took the parasite into herself, just like all the other Lords, she split the power among her many dolls, with Angie being the leader.

To defeat Donna and her dolls, you will need to solve House Beneviento's puzzles, escape the "Baby", and stab Donna's Angie doll three times. Two of Angie's locations are random, while her first location is always in the bedroom upstairs.

Salvatore Moreau

Moreau is as grotesque as Lady Dimitrescu is striking. His design is reminiscent of mermen, although it's tough to see what he fully looks like thanks to a large cloak he wears.

The only parts of him that are visible are his large lower face, his feet, and hands. He also wears what looks like a small crown made of bones.

However, take off the cloak, and you'll see a pulsating mass with eyes coming out of the back of his head. That's his brain, which has grown and mutated thanks to exposure to the Cadou parasite.

Moreau lives in a reservoir near a deserted fishing village where rumors of a giant fish monster are rampant. They, unfortuantely, turn out to be true, although Moreau and the fish aren't separate creatures — they're one and the same.

He's the Lord with the least affinity with the Cadou parasite, and is therefore the most mutated. He says that the other Lords look down upon him, and as such, he's lonely.

You'll face a completely mutated Moreau at the end of the area, and it'll require a lot of weaponry to kill. To take him out, you will need to wait for Moreau's human body to appear out of the mouth of it's mutant fish form and shoot it.

Other strategies including planting landmines everywhere and luring Moreau near some explosive barrels placed all over the boss arena before blowing them up.

Make sure to take cover while fighting Moreau because it can produce acid rain that will melt you in seconds, and keep running so you don't get crushed by Moreau's massive weight in its mutated form.

Karl Heisenberg

Heisenberg was seen in multiple trailers before he was properly introduced. He has a unique look that looks sort of out of place in a rural Eastern European village thanks to his wide-brimmed hat, long hair, sunglasses, and large coat.

He carries around a giant hammer and a cigar, and has the power to levitate metal through magnetism like Magneto from the X-Men series.

Heisenberg holes up in his own personal factory that lies on the outskirts of town and is more technologically advanced than what you see in both the village and in the other Lords' areas.

He's the youngest of the four Lords, which seems to create a lot of insecurity. Lady Dimitrescu, specifically, shows she doesn't respect him. He has the most affinity with the Cadou parasite and can control all forms of metal.

However, he hates what Mother Miranda has done, putting hiim under her control, and seeks Rose as a weapon to take control back.

You'll need to make your way through his factory of mechanical horrors to fight him. When you corner Heisenberg, he will fuse with his creations to transform into a gigantic, robotic monstrosity.

Fortunately, you will be granted a make-shift tank courtesy of Chris Redfield to fight him with. Use the environment to take cover from Heisenberg's attacks and use your tank's guns to shoot at Heisenberg's glowing weakspots to tear his mutated form apart.

Mother Miranda

The Lords might be distinct and varying degrees of frightening, but they're not the Big Bad of the game, Mother Miranda, whom all the Lords report to.

Miranda is completely shrouded in mystery and possesses godlike powers that make all the Lords and enemies of the game obey her will. As for her backstory, while we won't spoil it, we will imply that it is quite shocking and ties back to Resident Evil's most iconic evil faction, the Umbrella Corporation.

In terms of gameplay, Mother Miranda is the final boss of Resident Evil Village, who will push players to their limit.

Mother Miranda has multiple forms during her boss fight. The first form has Mother Miranda transform into a demonic angel, where you will need to shoot her while avoiding getting slashed to ribbons.

Her second form is a giant spider-like form where she will try to skewer you and jump on nearby cliffs to prepare a devastating divebomb attack. We recommend using long-range weapons to shoot at Miranda during this form so you can keep hurting even when she's on cliffs.

Her third form has Miranda grow wings and throw out molten orb projectiles that you will need to shoot before they reach you because they deal a ton of damage.

At some point, Mother Miranda will conjure a giant projectile that will keep you in one shot. To prevent this, you will need to unload all your most powerful weapons' ammunition on her to interrupt the attack and stun Mother Miranda in the process.

Sometimes, when Mother Miranda switches forms, she will engulf the arena in complete darkness and attack you while you're blind. To combat this, move to candles to restore your vision, block Mother Miranda's charge attacks once you see her outline, and fire flashbang grenades to quickly restore light to the room.

Will you defeat the monsters of Resident Evil Village or become their next victim?

And that about covers every enemy in Resident Evil Village.

We hope that these tips and tricks we've provided will help you overcome your fears of these monsters and strike back at them to save Ethan's daughter in one of the most spine-chilling entries in the Resident Evil series.

Resident Evil Village is now available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, and PC via Steam.

FAQ

Are you looking forward to playing the upcoming Resident Evil Requiem? If so, are you planning to revisit Resident Evil Village or any other previous game in preparation?

If you have any thoughts on the matter, please share them with us in the comments below.

Resident Evil Village is filled with an array of incredibly powerful weapons designed to fend off the wretched horrors you'll encounter on your adventure, but nothing gets the job done quite like a good magnum. If you're aiming to slay Lycans with ease, here's how to get the M1851 Wolfsbane magnum and its upgrades in Resident Evil Village.

Before you can get the M1851 Wolfsbane

To get your hands on the devastating M1851 Wolfsbane, you'll first need to make your way through roughly half of the game and overcome the encounter with Moreau. In the section leading up to this boss fight you'll find a crank attached to a windmill. Don't worry about missing this particular item since it's necessary to progress the story. Once you've collected this item and defeated Moreau, make your way out of the reservoir and back to the first windmill with the typewriter.

How to get the M1851 Wolfsbane

From the windmill with the typewriter, you'll see a gate directly across from the exit that requires a crank to open. Use the crank you obtained from the reservoir area to access this optional path. If you look on your map, you'll see a shiny treasure chest labeled Moreau's Hidden Weapon. Continue along this path and make your way towards the treasure icon on your map. You'll need to fight your way through a small collection of ghouls and flying bloodsuckers and find a cabin perch upon a small hill.

The front door of this structure will be locked from the other side, so take a detour around the back of the house and crawl through a hole in the rear wall for entry. Prominently displayed on a table in this building will be a briefcase with the M1851 Wolfsbane inside. Grab your shiny new firearm, unlock the front door, and prepare for an encounter with a rather nasty Lycan. Not to fear, though! Your magnum should take this beast out in two quick shots.

How to get the M1851 Wolfsbane Increased Capacity Cylinder

For players with a hefty amount of Lei saved up, the Increased Capacity Cylinder for the M1851 Wolfsbane can purchased from Duke the shopkeeper. This upgrade for the magnum will become available in the shop once you've reached the main elevator in The Factory area of the game. It can then be purchased for 100,000 Lei.

Where to get the M1851 Wolfsbane Long Barrel

Obtaining the Long Barrel upgrade for the M1851 Wolfsbane is certainly cheaper than the Increased Capacity Cylinder, but slightly trickier to hunt down. When you first reach the factory, you'll start on level B4. Your main mission will be looking to restore power to the level in order to reactive a lift in order to make your way to the upper levels.

Once you've found the proper mold, created the COG, and powered back on the generator, backtrack slightly from the Foundry and make your way to the Operating Room. In the furthest corner of this room, you'll find the M1851 Wolfsbane Long Barrel in a briefcase. Just be prepared for an encounter with one of Heisenberg's metal monsters.

Looking for more help?

Interested in more Resident Evil Village tips and tricks? Check out our guides on how to unlock unlimited ammo as well as where to find every Goat of Warding statue hidden throughout the game. And for even more scares, why not take a peek at our list of the best Xbox horror games?

Slay Resident Evil Village will these top tips and guides.

• Resident Evil Village guides
  • 5 beginner's tips and tricks
  • All enemy types and tips for fighting them
  • House Beneviento puzzle guide
  • Where to find all the Goats of Warding
  • How to unlock infinite ammo
  • Best ways to farm Lei
  • How to get the magnum and its upgrades
  • How to unlock The Mercenaries
  • Everything in the Duke's Kitchen

Resident Evil Village is an awesome contiuation of the undead-filled survival horror franchise, now set in an unknown remote European village. It takes cues and pays homage to various previous Resident Evil games, perhaps most notably Resident Evil 4. Similarly to RE4, Resident Evil Village has a merchant who will trade currency called Lei for various upgrades and supplies.

Getting Lei can be a bit tough, especially to start with, so we're sharing some tips on gathering it throughout the game, to supplement our range of Resident Evil Village Beginner Guides.

Say hi to the Duke

Resident Evil Village's vendor-in-chief is the Duke, a mysterious gent who seems to be profiteering from all the chaos in and around the village. Here are a few tips on using the Duke effectively, and information on how his stocks change throughout the game.

• The Duke's inventory is tailored to your progression in the game. You can't grind tons of Lei and buy 5,000 healing potions, for example. There's a limited number of certain consumables in stock at any moment.
• You shouldn't buy consumeables from the Duke unless it's an absolute emergency. The game offers more than enough ammo and health to survive every encounter on normal difficulty.
• You should save your Lei for weapon upgrades primarily, focusing on power to start with to make your shots more efficient.
• You should also consider focusing your Lei on fully upgrading a small handful of weapons. If you upgrade a weapon fully, you unlock unlimited ammo for your next Resident Evil Village playthrough, making higher difficulties more manageable.
• Do not sell meat from killing pigs or goats, etc, unless you've finished upgrading all of your stats with the Duke. If you've got all of the stat upgrades already, then you can sell any meat you get for a bit of extra cash.
• Later in the game, you can find special "Treasures" to sell to the Duke for massive profits. More on that in the next section.

Finding all the Lei

Resident Evil's Lei currency can be found all over the game's sizeable map in various different incarnations. It can drop from enemies, you can find it in drawers and cupboards, and you can get it by selling items to the Duke. Here are some tips for maximizing your Lei earnings.

• The amount of Lei you can get in a playthrough is somewhat fixed, given that there is a set amount of enemies in the game.
• Each enemy has a chance to drop Lei, as do animals like crows. You can shoot crows to earn a fairly decent amount of Lei, but they fly away, so your aim better be pretty good!
• Sometimes enemies drop unique "treasures" like crystal skulls, which can be sold for extra Lei.
• When searching the map, rooms will turn from red to blue when they have been fully looted. Sometimes, crystals that can be sold for Lei can be hidden as a flickering object on walls. Look up for shinies.
• Some treasures are combinable, and can be worth up to four times more after finding all of the objects to make an item whole. Don't sell combineable treasures by themselves unless you accidentally sold another part previously. It will say on the item if you can combine them, with a square slot noting how many combineable items you need to complete the object.
• A few key items can be examined and dismantled for extra treasure items, so be sure to examine everything you grab.
• If you're focusing on a couple of weapons for upgrades (shotgun and magnum get my recommendation), you can potentially sell ammo from weapons you're not actively using for a bit of extra Lei.
• Bosses often drop unique crystal formations that can be sold for a huge amount of Lei.
• There are some optional bosses too, but those are spoilers, so skip the next section below if you don't want to read about them just yet.

Killing optional hidden bosses in Resident Evil Village

The next section has some minor spoilers, so you may want to skip this if you're playing for the first time.

Resident Evil Village has a few hidden and not-so-hidden optional bosses that can be worth a decent amount of Lei. They become accessible after completing certain parts of the game. Each of these is worth anywhere up to 15,000 Lei and beyond, making upgrading weapons a lot easier.

The first "hidden" boss is in the graveyard area, outside Lady Beneviento's area. The boss spawns when you bring a Broken Slab from the central graveyard near the drawbridge to Dimitrescu's castle. The Broken Slab becomes available when a mausoleum opens up at a certain point in the story, spilling attacking zombies in your direction. When you bring the Broken Slab back to the Beneviento grave area, an ogre-like boss will be there. The boss drops 15,000 Lei treasure. The Slab can also open up Claudia Beneviento's grave, giving you another treasure item to sell to the Duke.

The second "hidden" boss can be found via a hidden path before meeting Heisenburg. After completing Moreau's dam section, you'll be called to do battle with Heisenburg, who will lure you to his factory. Up the steps to his area, there will be a sign saying "Good Luck." If you ignore the sign and head to the left, you will find the Otto's Mill area. Inside is another another ogre-like boss, a bunch of hidden meat and fish, and other goodies to sell to the Duke.

That's a wrap!

Those are our main quick-and-easy tips for getting more Lei in Resident Evil Village. Lei isn't too hard to come by, but you can maximize how much Lei you can earn by playing efficiently, avoiding buying consumeables, and exploring every corner of each room.

For more Resident Evil Village guides, hit the links below. Resident Evil Village is available now for Xbox Series S/X, PS5, and PC, and is quite probably one of the best Xbox games of the moment, and certainly one of the best Xbox horror games. You should definitely give it a go.

• Resident Evil Village Guide: Where to find all the Goats of Warding
• Resident Evil Village Guide: 5 beginner's tips and tricks
• Resident Evil Village Guide: How to unlock infinite ammo

Slay Resident Evil Village will these top tips and guides.

• Resident Evil Village guides
  • 5 beginner's tips and tricks
  • All enemy types and tips for fighting them
  • House Beneviento puzzle guide
  • Where to find all the Goats of Warding
  • How to unlock infinite ammo
  • Best ways to farm Lei
  • How to get the magnum and its upgrades
  • How to unlock The Mercenaries
  • Everything in the Duke's Kitchen

Originally introduced as a bonus game mode in Resident Evil 4, The Mercenaries quickly became a staple in the mainline Resident Evil series. After taking a brief break from this arcade-inspired addition with Resident Evil 7, the fan-favorite mode is back in a big way. Here's how to unlock The Mercenaries in Resident Evil Village.

Completing the Story of Resident Evil Village

In order to access the extra game mode The Mercenaries, you must first make your way through the entire main story of Resident Evil Village. We'll avoid any major spoilers in this post, but expect your first playthrough to take roughly 8-12 hours depending on how much you explore the different areas of the game. It's worth noting that difficulty doesn't matter for this particular unlock either, so play on whatever mode you feel comfortable with. Once you've rolled credits, you'll unlock Challenges and the Extra Content Shop. This is where you'll be able to access The Mercenaries.

How to unlock The Mercenaries

Once you've completed the story and opened up the Extra Content Shop, you'll be able to unlock The Mercenaries from there with Challenge Points. This post-game currency is rewarded by completing various challenges in both the Story mode and The Mercenaries. This fast-paced bonus game mode can be yours for a mere 100 Challenge Points, which you will have plenty of after completing your first playthrough of Resident Evil Village. To dive in, simply access The Mercenaries from the Bonuses page on the main menu.

What to expect from The Mercenaries

The Mercenaries takes the incredible gunplay and over-the-top action of Resident Evil Village and cranks it up to 11. In a selection of smaller maps from the Story Mode, it's your mission to eliminate all targets as fast as possible while racking up kill combos and score multipliers. With some mild rogue-like character upgrades, each run will be slightly different, but it's in your best interest to memorize enemy placement and stage goals to finish with the best time. The Mercenaries isn't very scary, but it's a whole lot of fun.

Any questions? Sound off in the comments below. Resident Evil Village is now available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, Stadia, and PC. And for even more scares, be sure to check out our list of the best Xbox horror games.

Slay Resident Evil Village will these top tips and guides.

• Resident Evil Village guides
  • 5 beginner's tips and tricks
  • All enemy types and tips for fighting them
  • House Beneviento puzzle guide
  • Where to find all the Goats of Warding
  • How to unlock infinite ammo
  • Best ways to farm Lei
  • How to get the magnum and its upgrades
  • How to unlock The Mercenaries
  • Everything in the Duke's Kitchen

While Resident Evil Village is certainly more action-oriented than its predecessor, this entry (especially during your first playthrough) is still filled with the tense item and resource management the series is famous for.

Fortunately, in classic Resident Evil fashion, there are some extra goodies rewarded upon completing the game that can potentially alleviate the stress of running out of precious ammunition during terrifying encounters by unlocking infinite ammo.

The steps to unlocking infinite ammo can be a lengthy process, even after completing the game once. So, we're going to tell you all the steps to complete this task so you can worry about running out of ammo ever again in New Game+ playthroughs.

Here's everything you need to know about unlocking infinite ammo in Resident Evil Village.

How to obtain infinite ammo in Resident Evil Village

1. How to unlock the Extra Content Shop

Before you can experience the magic of infinite ammo in Resident Evil Village, you must first complete the game's story to unlock Challenges and the Extra Content Shop.

These post-game bonuses introduce a host of exciting new goals and incentives designed to encourage multiple playthroughs.

Completing the various challenges in Story mode and The Mercenaries will reward you with Challenge Points, which can be used to unlock new weapons, concept art, and infinite ammo for individual weapons.

How to unlock infinite ammo for a weapon

To earn the ability to spend your hard-earned Challenge Points on unlimited ammo for your favorite weapons, you must also find and purchase all available weapon attachments as well as fully upgrade that specific firearm in Story Mode during a playthrough.

Generally speaking, acquiring all upgrades for any given weapon involves a combination of purchasing upgrades from Duke and tracking down parts scattered around the game's various locations.

While this process is essentially the same for almost every weapon in the game, there are a few bonus weapons available in the Extra Content Shop, like the Dragoon, for which you can immediately unlock unlimited ammo.

The number of Challenge Points required for these unlocks varies quite drastically depending on the power of the weapon. For example, something like the LEMI start pistol is fairly inexpensive, but if you're looking to take advantage of unlimited ammo for the Magnum 1851, be prepared to shell out 95,000 points.

Here's where you can find all the upgrade parts for each weapon in the game:

LEMI Handgun

• High-Capacity Mag — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 9,000 Lei.
• Recoil Compensator — Located in the hallway between the Dining Room and the Kitchen within Castle Dimitrescu.

M1911 Handgun

• Improved Grip — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 12,000 Lei.
• High-Capacity Magazine — Located inside a box before the entrance to Salvatore Moreau's boss arena.

V61 Custom Handgun

• Drum Magazine — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 70,000 Lei (available only in New Game+).
• Gunstock — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 35,000 Lei.
• Long Barrel — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 56,000 Lei.

M1887 Shotgun

• Hair Trigger — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 8,000 Lei.

SYG-12 Shotgun

• Long Barrel — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 70,000 Lei (available only in NG+).
• Gunstock — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 88,000 Lei (available only in NG+).
• Red Dot Sight — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 46,000 Lei.

W870 TAC Shotgun

• Foregrip — Located inside a cave on the west part of the river from the Lone Road area.
• Improved Gunstock — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 22,000 Lei.

F2 Sniper Rifle

• High Magnification Scope — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 15,000 Lei.
• Cheek Rest — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 20,000 Lei.
• High Capacity Magazine — After clearing House Beneviento, enter Luthier's House located in the west part of the village area to find it in a locked cabinet. You will need to enter the birthday of Luther's daughter to unlock it (27-09-17).

WCX Assault Rifle

• Foregrip — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 80,000 Lei (available only in NG+).
• Red Dot Sight — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 140,000 Lei (available only in NG+).

M1851 Wolfsbane Magnum

• Increased Capacity Cylinder — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 100,000 Lei
• Long Barrel — Located in a briefcase inside the Operating Room of Heisenberg's Factory but the door will be locked. To unlock it, you will need to obtain Heisenberg's Key, then return to floor MB4, by then, the door will have power again to open.

S.T.A.K.E. Magnum

• High Compacity Magazine — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 180,000 Lei (available only in NG+).
• Improved Grip — Buy from the Duke at the Duke's Emporium for 120,000 Lei (available only in NG+).

Are you ready to unleash infinite ammo?

And now you know how to unlock infinite ammo for every gun in Resident Evil Village.

With this knowledge, your New Game Plus playthroughs will be so much easier and cathartic as you riddle enemies with endless bullets as payback for all the trouble they cause you in your first playthrough.

Resident Evil Village is now available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, and PC via Steam.

FAQ

Are you looking forward to playing the upcoming Resident Evil Requiem? If so, are you planning to revisit Resident Evil Village or any other previous game in preparation?

If you have any thoughts on the matter, please share them with us in the comments below.

Ever since the release of the original Resident Evil 4 in 2005, many Resident Evil games have featured hidden, destructible collectibles for players to find and smash to unlock special rewards.

These included the likes of Blue Medallians in Resident Evil 4 (and Clockwork Castellans in the Resident Evil 4 Remake), Mr. Everywhere bobblehead figurines in the Resident Evil 3 Remake, and today's subject - the Goats of Warding in Resident Evil Village.

Now, these goats can be a royal pain to find because of how darkly lit the game's environments are and how devious their hiding spots are.

So, to make your lives easier than ours were finding them, we have documented every location, all 20 Goats of Warding are hiding in. We'll also tell you the secret reward for collecting the Goats of Warding if you need extra incentive to find them yourself.

Warning: This guide will contain spoilers for some events in the game, so proceed with caution.

All 20 Goats of Warding Locations

Here's a map showing where all 20 Goats of Warding are located in Resident Evil Village. You can also keep reading below to get more details on where to find them.

1. Graveyard

The first Goat of Warding location is hard to miss. You'll find the wooden figure proudly displayed in a small wooden altar in the graveyard of the village.

Listen carefully for the wooden clicking sound the Goats of Warding emit. It will make finding the others much easier.

2. Vineyard

In the vineyard outside of the castle walls is a Goat of Warding hidden in the snow. Look for the human scarecrow in the back-right corner to find this one.

3. Church Roof

Shortly after visiting the graveyard for the first time, you'll make your way to a small church.

Inside, you'll notice that distinctive clicking, but the figure is nowhere to be found. Make your way outside and look for this Goat of Warding on the roof.

4. Fallow Plot

In the left corner of Fallow Plot, opposite the tall grass and horrifying werewolves, you'll find a Goat of Warding resting atop a stone wall with wooden shingles.

Just hug the left edge of this area, and you should be able to find it.

5. Castle Distillery

As you're making your way to the castle distillery, look behind you after climbing down the ladder from the Hall of Ablution to find a Goat of Warding tucked in the corner next to some candles.

6. Castle Attic

Tucked away in one of the back corners of the Castle Attic you'll find a Goat of Warding on top of a small stack of crates next to some books.

7. Lone Road

After leaving the castle, you'll make your way down Lone Road to meet up with Duke.

Off to one side will be a small stone building. Go inside, and you will find a Goat of Warding on the floor, hidden in the darkness.

8. Church Graves

Once you've returned to the village from the castle, take the Iron Insignia Key you obtained and unlock the graves behind the church.

In the snow behind one of the large graves, you'll find a Goat of Warding.

9. West Old Town

While making your way through some of the houses in West Old Town you'll find a Goat of Warding on top of a small shingled roof behind one of the larger homes.

10. House Beneviento

Before entering House Beneviento, take a left on the porch and follow a small path along the side of the cliff near the waterfall.

You'll see a Goat of Warding on the other side of the metal fence.

11. Suspension Bridge

After leaving House Beneviento, you'll again cross a rickety suspension bridge.

If you look to your right, you'll see another mostly broken bridge with a Goat of Warding resting upon it.

12. Windmill

When working to deal with Moreau, you'll come to a watery area with a series of windmills.

At the first of these windmills you encounter, hidden behind some chopped wood, is a Goat of Warding.

13. Moreau Chase

When Moreau is chasing you around the buildings, submerged in water, eventually you'll come across a switch covered in green sludge and worms.

From this switch, look to the left, and you will see a Goat of Warding atop a wooden pole.

14. Drained Reservoir

After you've drained the water from the reservoir, you'll find an optional path from the exit of this area that will lead you down to some fish and a Goat of Warding on top of some watery trash.

15. Otto's Mill

Before encountering Heisenberg, you'll notice an optional path from the village to the left that will lead you to Otto's Mill.

Inside is a terrifying enemy, but below this structure, in a wooden altar, is a Goat of Warding.

16. Stronghold

In the Stronghold filled with werewolves you'll find a Goat of Warding next to a few metal buckets as you are climbing the central spiral staircase.

17. Grinder Shaft

As you are making your way to the higher levels of the Factory you'll eventually come to Grinder Shaft.

Hidden above you in the clutches of a metal scoop is a Goat of Warding. You'll likely want the sniper rifle for this one.

18. Cargo Bay Control Room

Before making your way into the Cargo Bay of the factory, look for a small metal grate against the wall.

Make your way through this crawl space to find a Goat of Warding on top of a steel barrel.

19. Factory Elevator

After meeting Chris in the basement of the factory, jump into the makeshift tank and take the elevator up to the surface.

Keep your eyes peeled for a Goat of Warding as you make your way up. You'll need to shoot it with the tank's machine gun.

20. Megamycete Statue

When playing as Chris and fighting your way through the village, you'll eventually come to the Megamycete.

To the right of this is an area with some spikes and a statue. The final Goat of Warding will be at the bottom of this statue.

Reap the rewards for finding the Goats of Warding

And there you have every location for all 20 Goats of Warding in Resident Evil Village. Now you're probably wondering what the point of finding all these collectibles is, or even if it's worth the effort.

Well, the rewards I can guarantee are worth the effort because just finding one of these things will unlock the Cynic in-game award, 500 Challenge Points (CP for short), and one RE.NET icon.

If you find all twenty, you will unlock a Heretic award, 16,000 Challenge Points, and another RE.NET icon.

Challenge Points are a special currency that can be used to purchase special items or unlock bonus content from Resident Evil Village's Extra Content Shop (which is available after completing the game once).

You can purchase all kinds of goodies from there, including concept art, 3D models, Special Weapons, Infinite Ammo, and even Mercenaries Mode.

If that isn't a huge incentive to find the Goats of Warding, then I don't know what is.

Resident Evil Village is now available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, and PC via Steam.

FAQ

Are you looking forward to playing the upcoming Resident Evil Requiem? If so, are you planning to revisit Resident Evil Village or any other previous game in preparation?

If you have any thoughts on the matter, please share them with us in the comments below.

Resident Evil Village is an awesome entry in the legendary franchise, bringing us up to eight mainline games across various additional spin-offs. If you're familiar with Resident Evil (particularly Resident Evil 4), there isn't anything here particularly new to the franchise (aside from truly stunning next-gen visuals). That being said, there are a few things here and there that I do wish I'd known before diving in, and I thought I'd share those with you to stop you from making the same mistakes I did.

Here are five quick-fire tips on how you can overcome the spooky village, and ultimately save Ethan's family.

1. Combat tips

Combat in Resident Evil Village is somewhat similar to Resident Evil 7 in that it's from a first-person perspective. However, Ethan notes during the opening that he had some combat training from Chris Redfield in between the two games. This manifests with Ethan being able to run faster, and also perform a parry attack that came from the Chris Redfield DLC in Resident Evil 7.

• As you might expect, almost every enemy in the game takes extra damage from being shot in the head. Aim for the head.
• If the enemy doesn't necessarily have a head, the game usually highlights weak spots on bosses quite obviously, with red glowing parts and so on.
• The parry attack is important to learn, especially on higher difficulties. Press the block button (LB on Xbox) to block an incoming attack. Then, you can press it again to shove the attacker. Weaker enemies may even fall down.
• You don't always need to kill everything. Many enemies will give up chasing after a while, allowing you to flee and conserve ammo. This is more important on higher difficulties potentially. On Normal difficulty and below, you'll generally have enough ammo to fight practically anything, though.
• Explosives like mines and pipe bombs are great at clearing out multiple assailants. Gather them up into a group then let those limbs fly.
• The quick turn maneuver (down and B on Xbox) can be useful to quickly pull a 180 and run away from an approaching enemy.

2. Upgrading weapons and stats

This somewhat feeds into the combat tips section, but I arbitrarily decided I wanted to hit five subheadings so this gets its whole own section. Unlike Resident Evil 7, RE: Village has a more granular progression system, allowing Ethan to boost some of his stats slightly, alongside the more traditional weapon upgrade parts system from yesteryear.

• The Duke is a new vendor you meet near the start of the game. He sells some limited ammo, as well as crafting plans. He also sells weapon upgrade parts occasionally. Grabbing these can make your guns more potent and easier to handle.
• Like classic Resident Evil games, some weapon parts are also hidden and will require some exploration to find.
• After completing Castle Dimitrescu, you'll gain access to an expanded Duke inventory. He will start buying meat from you to prepare meals. Meals add permanent upgrades to Ethan's speed, blocking power, and health pool by relatively small amounts. They're still worth getting, though!
• The meat to upgrade your stats can be found all around the map, after completing the Castle Dimitrescu sequence. They may appear on the map as a chicken, or fish symbol, for example.
• Some meals require special "rare" ingredients that appear in some hidden locations, some of which are accessible only after certain story events have transpired.
• Prioritize only a few weapons to fully upgrade. Resident Evil Village has a large array of weapons, but if you manage to unlock every upgrade via the Duke, you will unlock unlimited ammo versions for New Game+ subsequent playthroughs. You can reliably get enough Lei to upgrade three to four weapons fully throughout the game, potentially.

3. Backtrack and explore

Exploration remains a big part of Resident Evil Village, with a relatively large maze of intersecting locations to peruse and loot. After the introduction and Castle Dimitrescu parts of the game, you will gain access to new areas, complete with the ability to backtrack. Upon completing other story areas, the connecting "Village" portion of the game gets updated with new items, and occasionally, new enemies.

• You no longer need to keep your knife equipped to break crates and boxes, as Ethan has learned how pockets work. Smash all the crates for maximum loot.
• While exploring, a room in the color red means there's an item in there you may have missed. Blue means that it has been cleared.
• Towards the middle of the game, the Duke will reveal the locations of special "treasures" he's been hunting in the local vicinity. Heading back to these areas can reward you with all sorts of goodies, although you may have to fight for them.
• Some treasures are not marked on the map. Others are in hidden locations. Be sure to explore off the main path where you can, shoot yellow-taped padlocks to access new areas, climb that random ladder; you never know what you'll find.

4. Farming Lei currency

This riffs a bit on the exploration and backtracking section a bit, but the main currency of Resident Evil Village is "Lei," mostly accrued via exploration. You can't really grind Lei, since there is essentially a set number of enemies and collectibles in the game, but here's how you can maximize what you can get in any given playthrough.

• Lei currency is what you use to buy items from the Duke. You can find it in multiple ways.
• Enemies occasionally drop Lei, but you can also get Lei from looting random cupboards, drawers, boxes, and more.
• In my first playthrough, I often wondered if some "red"-marked unexplored rooms were bugged. Later I realized that gems and other valuables can be hidden on the walls, flashing with a small white glow. Shooting these down gives you items to sell to the Duke.
• Some valuables appear in the "Treasures" tab in your inventory. You can examine them to see their cool models and flavor text, but some can be combined into even more valuable items. I accidentally sold many of these items before realizing I could combine them. Sad face.
• There are a few optional bosses in the game which reward mountains of Lei. It can be expensive on your ammo supplies to kill them, but they're typically in areas that are flooded with extra ammo anyway. Their locations are spoilers, essentially, but be sure to explore all the paths and areas you find in the game. I'll put up a separate article detailing where they are in the near future.
• Do not buy consumables unless it's an absolute emergency! It's a bit of a waste since the game gives you more than enough (at least on Normal) to survive. Keep your Lei for weapon upgrades, prioritizing damage above all else to make your ammo supplies more efficient over time.

5. Replayability and New Game+

Resident Evil Village takes cues from some previous Resident Evil games with robust post-game support. Here's an overview of what you can expect when you complete the game, and the things you can do to maximize your experience on your first playthrough.

• On your first playthrough, Resident Evil Village tracks your progression, similarly to previous games.
• Upon completing the game, you're rewarded with Completion Points based on your performance, and challenges completed throughout the game. These challenges are hidden until the first completion, however.
• Some of the challenges include things like speed-running boss kills, beating the game on certain difficulties, and more.
• The things you can unlock with Completion Points include special weapons, "cheats" like unlimited ammo, 3D models of in-game enemies and characters, concept art, and much more.
• You also unlock Mercenaries mode and a new "Village of Darkness" difficulty setting after the first completion.
• You can use special weapons you've unlocked in a New Game+ mode, even on higher difficulties. I feel like the "Village of Darkness" difficulty mode would be nigh-on impossible without some of these post-game weapons.
• Mercenaries mode is an arcade-style mode that returns from previous Resident Evil games, rewarding players for completing shooting challenges. These runs also come with their own challenges and completion points bonuses.
• To unlock the unlimited ammo weaponry, you need to fully upgrade the specific weapons at the Duke during a playthrough. It might be worth saving your Lei for upgrading more powerful weapons first like the shotgun and the magnum to maximize your effectiveness in this regard.

And that's a wrap!

Resident Evil Village is an incredibly fun game that celebrates 25 years' worth of horror history with multiple gameplay styles in a relatively beefy 10-hour campaign. The post-launch replayability is also impressive, with plenty of unlockable weapons and insane challenge modes that should keep completionists busy until the first real DLCs begin to drop in the future. I'd quite easily call it one of the best Xbox games of the now, and certainly one of the best Xbox horror games.

If there's anything else you'd like to know about Resident Evil Village, drop a comment below and I'll try to answer your questions. One final tip: play in the dark with headphones.

• Resident Evil Village Guide: Where to find all the Goats of Warding
• Resident Evil Village Guide: How to unlock Mercenaries mode
• Resident Evil Village Guide: How to unlock infinite ammo

Slay Resident Evil Village will these top tips and guides.

• Resident Evil Village guides
  • 5 beginner's tips and tricks
  • All enemy types and tips for fighting them
  • House Beneviento puzzle guide
  • Where to find all the Goats of Warding
  • How to unlock infinite ammo
  • Best ways to farm Lei
  • How to get the magnum and its upgrades
  • How to unlock The Mercenaries
  • Everything in the Duke's Kitchen

Resident Evil is a globally recognizable horror franchise with decades of history under its belt. After the series began to dip with Resident Evil 5 and 6, Capcom took the game back to the drawing board in some ways, revitalizing the franchise with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.

Back then, I described Resident Evil 7 as having risen from the dead, much like the undead creatures that stalk its dark hallways and decrepit corridors. The franchise found its footing by bringing back much of what made the classic games legendary while switching to a fresh first-person gameplay style, complete with a new protagonist named Ethan WInters

Resident Evil Village, essentially Resident Evil 8, is the continuation of Ethan's story. Following the events of Resident Evil 7, Ethan and his family decide to begin a new life in Europe, far from the horrors of the previous game. For a while, things seem to be going well, but it all goes south very quickly.

Resident Evil Village is another success story for the franchise, with some staggering technical prowess and a range of unexpected twists and turns. In some ways, Resident Evil Village feels like a celebration of the entire franchise, with various gameplay aspects of previous titles explored and amplified in grotesquely satisfying new ways. I suspect Resident Evil Village will be remembered as another major high point for the franchise, despite some odd story choices and muddled pacing. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Village, despite being quite petrified for most of it.

Resident Evil Village: Visuals, Sound, and Performance

Resident Evil Village continues Capcom's winning streak for technical prowess, with the RE Engine's most impressive outing to date. I reviewed Resident Evil Village on my Razer Blade 17 Pro, with an RTX 2070 GPU and Core i7-10875H, with 16GB RAM. I ran the game on custom settings at 1080p, maintaining a steady 60 FPS with ray tracing and other visual options maxed out.

Never once did my client crash to Windows, and I didn't experience any form of performance degradation even during the most intense sequences, save for one instance. One particular enemy's abilities flood the environment with hundreds of flies, which did indeed batter performance in some cases. If you're playing on a higher difficulty, this one particular enemy could get you killed by causing your frame rate to dip to a crawl. However, this only occurs at one point in the game, and is easily avoided, and may even be patched by the time the game goes live to the public.

On Xbox Series X, Resident Evil Village targets 4K 60 FPS, or "up to" 60 FPS with ray-tracing enabled. With ray tracing enabled, I did notice some performance degradation across the board, particularly in areas that were highly detailed. Texture resolution also takes a bit of a hit on the Xbox version, with the PC version offering far more fidelity even on my relatively modest RTX 2070 setup, albeit at lower resolution. There's potentially some more work Capcom can do to improve the performance on the Xbox version as tools improve, though. If you play with ray tracing disabled, you won't have any issues whatsoever.

Where Resident Evil Village shines above all else is in its world design. Resident Evil Village represents world-class, state-of-the-art world-building and art direction, and competitors may spend many years trying to catch up to. Gorgeous fog and smoke effects, ray-traced lighting with realistic dynamic shadows, and truly intricate levels of detail coalesce to make Resident Evil Village a stand-out and exemplary example of the medium.

Source: Windows Central

Resident Evil Village's soundtrack is subtle but powerful, intertwining with impressive ambiance and sound work to create a suitably haunting atmosphere. As I note in the next segment, each primary area of Resident Evil Village feels very much like its own character, with specific designs that are intrinsic to the characters they represent. The sound treatment follows suit, although I did find myself bereft of that classic save room music of yesteryear.

My only real gripe with Resident Evil Village's sound design pertains to the English localization, specifically how odd it felt to have inhabitants of a hidden, Eastern European village with modern American accents. I appreciate wholeheartedly that it would be an expensive endeavor, and am painfully aware that this is very much an anglo-centric problem. It's not a big deal, but it broke the experience slightly, particularly given how immaculate the rest of the game's design is.

Overall, Resident Evil Village is an absolute stunner of a game and proves once again that the RE Engine is not to be underestimated. Resident Evil Village slithers into your senses with some truly harrowing presentation, and you can feel the love Capcom poured into the game at every turn.

Resident Evil Village: Story and Setting (No Spoilers)

Without spoiling any major plot elements, Resident Evil Village delivers a compelling story for the most part, with some of the best and most memorable characters in the series. I do have some minor gripes, particularly towards the end, but RE:V is a meaty 10-hour experience that will be remembered as one of the most noteworthy entries in the franchise.

RE:V is largely set in an un-named settlement somewhere in Eastern Europe. The village is nestled high up in the mountains, and as a result, produces some truly jaw-dropping vistas and visuals. I don't think I've reviewed a game previously where it felt like I could get a screen capture every few minutes, owing to the meticulous detail and thoughtful design in the game's continuous world. This isn't an open-world game in the traditional sense, but the fact you can look across the map from the top of Castle Dimutrescu and effectively see across the various segments of the game is an impressive feat.

Indeed, Resident Evil Village is segmented quite nicely into different biomes, each with a unique theme, typically centered on one of the game's several antagonists. Ethan and his family are effectively kidnapped at the start of the game, for reasons unknown, and whisked away into the mountains against their will. Ethan's daughter is missing, and he sets off into the endless woods, following signs of bloodshed and gore along the way.

Source: Windows Central

Notably, series staple Chris Redfield seems to have switched sides. Redfield previously helped Ethan and his family set up a new life in Europe, but for reasons unknown, Chris turns traitor and attacks them. Ethan escapes the carnage, and resolves to save his daughter, Rose, and ultimately survive this new ordeal.

The village is deserted when Ethan arrives, in classic Resident Evil fashion. Signs of torture and struggle are everywhere, with strange guttural cries haunting the ambiance. It's not long until Ethan is set upon by lycanthropic beastmen, and is eventually introduced to the game's headline antagonists, each twisted in unique and horrifying ways.

The famous Lady Dimitrescu looks ripped straight out of a 1950s horror flick, complete with a monochromatic color pallet and vintage garb. Heisenburg can manipulate magnetic fields, creating weaponry out of scrap metal at a mere whim. Lady Beneviento mysteriously stands quiet, allowing her sinister marionette Angie to exact her will, while Moreau lurches off to the side, decrepit and more mutated than the others.

At their head is Lady Miranda, who the villages seem to worship as some sort of god. If Ethan is to survive, you have to deal with each of Miranda's "children" in turn, and ultimately escape the nightmare by any means necessary.

The game's antagonists really do steal the show here, even if their nature and motives aren't exactly clearly defined at times. Each boss has its own domains, complete with unique designs and themes, as well as enemies. Dimitrescu's castle is a winding medieval manor filled with hidden passages and haunted catacombs, teeming with failed experiments and the undead. Beneviento's manor is perched high up on a clifftop at the back of an ancient graveyard. Moreau is alone in an abandoned fishing village, and Heisenberg has set up in a factory outside of town that deals in unknown products.

Without giving too much away, some of Resident Evil Village's setpieces are truly demented and will leave even the hardiest horror vets agape. As you progress, the layers of the story unravel, revealing various twists and turns that tie Ethan's story to the wider canon. I felt like some of the motivations of the game's enemies don't necessarily make sense, and in some ways even contradict each other. It also feels like the writers realized some of these loose plot points at the last minute, and try to explain away some holes with a couple of quick lines of injected dialogue that felt otherwise out of place.

Resident Evil isn't necessarily known for its coherency at this point, and I had hoped that Ethan's story arc was an attempt to bring it back down to earth somewhat, so to speak. Alas, I can firmly say that this isn't the case with Resident Evil Village. Regardless, the spectacle is incredible and, well, just plain fun. Capcom embraces the madness of Resident Evil's wider plot, giving Resident Evil Village a demented parade of incredible "what the $%£" moments that will stay with me for some time.

Resident Evil Village: Gameplay

With Resident Evil's 25th anniversary coming up, it really does feel like Resident Evil Village tries to celebrate every dimension the franchise has explored with Village's setting, with enough meat to satisfy every sensibility. Each segment of the game represents a different period in Resident Evil's design history. Some feature more classic, darkened mansion-style mazes, complete with backtracking, secrets, and exploration while others lean on more linear action-oriented sections that riff on the likes of Resident Evil 4, 5, and even Revelations. I feel like Resident Evil Village takes what Resident Evil 6 attempted to do with its diverging styles, and executes it with far more grace and confidence.

Taking cues from Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil Village features a currency and loot system where enemies can drop treasures that can be traded into a mysterious Duke vendor, who can provide weapons and other goods. As a fan of the classic Resident Evil games, I often felt this design sapped a bit of the tension out of the game. If you can immediately tell when an enemy is dead because they dropped loot, it robs the fear factor of not knowing if you really finished off that zombie or not.

To make up for it, Resident Evil Village throws in a bunch of Mr. X-like enemies that are far more powerful, and won't go down unless you're willing to expend a mountain of ammo or utilize special environmental cues to your advantage. Other segments limit your access to the Duke, allowing Resident Evil Village to ramp up the tension and force you into a more classic ammo-conserving mindset. There are times when your best option will be to run away and even create barricades using objects you can find in some of the game's houses.

To that end, Resident Evil Village manages to explore the more tense gameplay styles of yesteryear while also rewarding the player for seeking treasure, exploring the game's many secret areas, and even hunting optional bosses. There are even special animals to harvest for permanent health upgrades, made from dishes provided by the Duke. Resident Evil Village provides plenty of reasons to backtrack to previous areas too, which often give hidden plot details or those all-important weapon upgrades.

Source: Windows Central

Ethan notes at one point that Chris provided him and his family with some military combat training for self-defense. Going back to Resident Evil 7, where Ethan wields a knife like an oven poker and moves with the same urgency as dial-up internet, the difference in combat efficacy is quite stark.

As a result, I'd argue that Resident Evil Village isn't as scary as Resident Evil 7 — at least generally. Ethan simply doesn't feel anywhere near as vulnerable. That being said, there are a couple of segments where Capcom kind of says "we can still do scary if we want to, here's the proof" — and you may wish they hadn't.

Even though Ethan is a bit more of a killing machine in Resident Evil Village (at least on normal difficulty), that doesn't make it any less fun. The gunplay in Village remains tight and satisfying. At first, you might feel like enemies are a bit spongey, but a few weapon upgrades later, you'll be popping skulls with reckless abandon. Ethan also has a new reactive attack which lets you knock enemies back after performing a block. Pulling this off correctly could be the difference between life and death in trickier spots, and will be key to remaining efficient in your resource management, particularly on higher difficulties. Indeed, after completing the game, an even more challenging difficulty is unlocked for the more extreme gamers among us.

The sheer diversity of the game's locations also extends to the range of enemy combatants. I really don't want to spoil what disturbing surprises lay in wait for you, but there are enemies and creatures in Resident Evil Village that I would never have expected to see emerge from Capcom.

There are your standard Resident Evil 4-style villager zombies, ranging all the way up to utterly insane sci-fi monstrosities that you might have sooner expected to see in Silent Hill or The Evil Within. And sure, they do push the boundaries of what you might expect would be theoretically possible in this universe, but I feel like that ship has long sailed, and they at least provide some in-game explanations for some of it.

Often I feel like games that try to do too much in terms of gameplay style often underdeliver in other areas. Resident Evil Village, however, strikes a good balance. The broad variety of weapons, the truly epic (and numerous) boss fights, the diversity of the enemies and locations, and the strong line-up of post-game content make Resident Evil Village a true joy to play, cover to cover. Some of the pacing gets a bit wild towards the end, but it's by no means what I'd call a deal-breaker, and honestly, it's almost self-referential at this point for the franchise.

Resident Evil Village, like Resident Evil 7, continues to foster my love and adoration for this legendary franchise. It's weird, wild, and barely makes any sense at times, but that's fine. I'm here for the ride, and what an amazing ride it is.

Resident Evil Village: Should you play it?

Source: Windows Central

Resident Evil Village is a truly great entry in the franchise that celebrates not just Resident Evil, but refers to various classic horror movies and other media. I noted a cheeky reference to The Ring, another nod to Jaws, an homage to Chucky, and various others. The game also ties in neatly to the wider Resident Evil lore, leaving you hungry for more after its bombastic conclusion.

As much as I enjoy some of Resident Evil's more bombastic and outrageous moments, some of the ways Capcom tries to create spectacle fall flat at times and almost come across as comical. It's a shame because it's proved time and time again across Resident Evil 7, the Resident Evil 2 Remake, and even Resident Evil Village that it's capable of dialing it back to make something a little more believable. That's mostly personal preference, though. There's absolutely nothing wrong with some of Resident Evil Village's more gratuitous plot moments if you're willing to suspend your disbelief.

Resident Evil Village is another great entry in what continues to be one of my favorite franchises of all time. As a young lad, I recall picking up the original Resident Evil for my 10th birthday (unbeknownst to my parents how violent it was going to be) and have been enamored with the series ever since. I've seen Resident Evil transition from its humble roots into a blockbuster franchise with mainstream attention. In a world where AAA horror games are so incredibly rare, Capcom continues to prove that not only can they work, they can thrive.

Ultimately, Resident Evil Village proves once again why this series is the most successful horror video game franchise of all time.

Update, April 27, 2021 at 6:15 p.m. CT: Capcom has clarified that Resident Evil Re:Verse hasn't been delayed and was not intended to release alongside Resident Evil Village.

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village is just around the corner, with a PC and consoles release date of May 7, 2021.
• Resident Evil Re:Verse, the multiplayer component of Village, is officially releasing later this summer.
• The game mode, which had players battle against each other in deathmatch-style game modes, isn't launching with the game.
• The announcement comes in the form of emails to Resident Evil ambassadors and an update to the Resident Evil Re:Verse website.

Players all around the world are excited for Resident Evil Village, the latest in the long-running single-player horror franchise. While Village looks set to terrify gamers everywhere and set the bar for the horror genre, Capcom is once again looking to bring multiplayer gameplay to Resident Evil with Resident Evil Re:Verse. This standalone multiplayer title was supposedly set to launch in tangent with Resident Evil Village (and is even included for free to anyone who purchases Village), but is now confirmed to be releasing Summer 2021.

Reports that Resident Evil Re:Verse first began when Resident Evil ambassadors began receiving vague emails that referenced a Summer 2021 release window for Re:Verse instead of the previous assumed release date of May 7, 2021. Now, the official Resident Evil Re:Verse website has been updated to reflect the release date change. Capcom has now released a comment on the release window, which you can read below.

In Resident Evil Re:Verse, 4 to 6 players would be pitted against each other in a deathmatch-style game. Players would first spawn as famous Resident Evil characters, but upon death would be revived as bioweapon characters in "revenge" style. Now, the multiplayer component of Resident Evil Village isn't launching alongside the game.

Resident Evil Village is still set to release on May 7, 2021, and even has an upcoming 60-minute demo that players can use to try out the game before it releases. If Resident Evil Village delivers on its promises, it'll almost certainly become one of the best Xbox games.

Update, April 27, 2021 at 6:15 p.m. CT — Resident Evil Re:Verse is coming this summer, but it's not delayed

Capcom has clarified that, while Resident Evil Re:Verse is indeed launching in Summer 2021, it has not been delayed. The game was never officially confirmed to be launching alongside Resident Evil Village on May 7, 2021. The newly revealed window of Summer 2021 is the first official release window for Resident Evil Re:Verse. The statement from Capcom follows:

"Today is the first time we've announced a launch time frame for Resident Evil Re:Verse. Previously we've only shared Resident Evil Re:Verse is thank you to fans and will be available for free for those who purchase Resident Evil Village. Any announced dates were associated with the game's beta tests."

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village is the eighth entry in the mainline Resident Evil horror franchise coming later this year.
• Capcom recently detailed the final demo times for Resident Evil Village but fell under heavy criticism for limited availability windows.
• Today, the times for the final Resident Evil Village demo have been extended from a 24-hour window to a full week.
• Players will be able to play Resident Evil Village for up to 60 minutes on their platform of choice during the week-long window.

Resident Evil Village is right around the corner, releasing on May 7, 2021, and players are eager to get their hands on it. At the last Resident Evil showcase, we learned the dates and times for the final demo for Resident Evil Village, which unfortunately only gave players a small 24-hour window in which to play Resident Evil Village for up to 60 minutes. After fan backlash and disappointment surrounding the similarly limited PS4 and PS5-exclusive Castle demo, Capcom has extended the final Resident Evil Village demo.

Now, players on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PC, PS5, PS4, and Stadia will be able to play Resident Evil Village once for up to 60 minutes at any point during a one week period. Because of the extension, the demo even overlaps the game's official release now (useful for those on the fence about buying Resident Evil Village).

The new times for the final demo for Resident Evil Village include:

• North America: May 1, 2021 at 5 p.m. PDT until May 9, 2021 at 5 p.m. PDT
• United Kingdom: May 2, 2021 at 1 a.m. BST until May 10, 2021 at 1 a.m. BST
• Europe: May 2, 2021 at 2 a.m. CEST until May 10, 2021 at 2 a.m. CEST

Hopefully, this means a lot more people will be able to play the Resident Evil Village demo, regardless of their schedule. If you're excited for Resident Evil Village but haven't pulled the trigger yet, we have an excellent breakdown on which Resident Evil Village edition you should buy.

Resident Evil Village is the next big title in the Resident Evil series, and with it comes a brand new set of terrifying enemies to go up against. Thankfully, there is a little bit of a light that can shine through the darkness, and it comes in the form of a vital upgrade system to your hero, Ethan Winters. This is a new feature that hasn't been in Resident Evil games before, so knowing how to use it can make the difference between life or death. Thanks to Game Informer, we can glean a little bit of what to expect with the upgrade system.

What is the upgrade system in Resident Evil: Village?

Resident Evil: Village will have you constantly looking over your shoulder and tip-toeing around to try and avoid those terrifying werewolves, vampires, and Lady Demetriscu stalking you around her castle. The upgrade system is a new way to help you combat these horrifying threats by providing upgrades to both your character and your arsenal of weaponry. From hunting animals to collecting coins and hidden treasures, you will always be on the lookout for these vital materials.

You have been able to upgrade weapons in previous titles, and the closest we've gotten to character upgrades were the unlockables in Resident Evil 7. This is a nice change of pace and should allow for more variety in how a player can tackle the game.

In previous titles, you would franticly run around, trying to solve secrets to find weapon upgrades or look around in the game environment, all the while being stalked by some form of a giant terrifying monster or having to deal with dangerous creatures. That's just a tad bit stressful, so now you have a grotesque and rotund vendor to visit for these vital upgrades.

What do I need to upgrade my character and weapons with?

Upgrading your character and your weapons will require a bit of hunting of both farm animals and shape-shifting Lycans. As Ethan, you will have to hunt animals such as fish, goats, pigs, and even some pesky chickens to gather meat. Be cautioned. They will put up a fight and attack! Be quick to put them down and gather the necessary materials.

Your weapon upgrades require something a little different: a currency called Lei. Horrifically, the currency is obtained by hunting the more dangerous enemies in Resident Evil Village, such as the werewolves (or Lycans, as they're called here), giant goatmen, and vampires. This will probably end up being a more common item acquired during your time in the village; just make sure not to spend it all in one place.

These same enemies can also drop other valuable treasures that can be sold in exchange for the lei currency. You should also keep your eyes open and search the environment for more hidden treasures that can be sold for lei. Even though you are already using precious ammunition to hunt some of the animals (to upgrade your character with... meat), that same ammunition is also needed to, well, hunt everything else in the game. Choose your battles wisely, or you may regret those bold decisions later on.

Where can I upgrade my character?

There is a vendor you can access that will provide all your upgrading needs, called The Duke, and he has his own setup called the Duke's Kitchen. This is where you go to upgrade both your character and your weaponry. Ideally, this is also a place where you can stock up on ammunition and other items if needed. Yes, you can actually stock up on ammo in Resident Evil this time!

This is where you can spend your hard-earned lei on weapon upgrades, cash in the meat you've hunted, and cook up some delicious home-cooked meals for character upgrades, or visit the shop to purchase ammunition or items that you may need in the dangerous times ahead. The Duke's Kitchen will be an essential haven for those looking for a break from the terrifying village.

Resident Evil Village is set to release on May 7, 2021, for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, and Stadia. If you want to try and stay alive as long as possible in Resident Evil Village, having a proper headset to hear your enemies is one of the best ways to achieve this. Check out our list of best Xbox One headsets for 2021 to find the one that will suit you the best.

The Resident Evil franchise as a whole is experiencing a revival, something that began with the success of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard in 2017. That game forsook a lot of the action-oriented elements that later games had taken and run with. Since then, Capcom has seen great success with the Resident Evil 2 remake receiving critical acclaim and outselling the original title. The Resident Evil 3 remake was released in April 2020, and while it had some action, it was still very horror-focused.

As a result, the recent (and-long rumored) announcement of Resident Evil Village came as no surprise. This game appears to be taking some significant departures from past titles while still retaining the strong horror element of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Resident Evil Village is currently slated to arrive on May 7, 2021. Witches, werewolves, a snowy village, and an absolutely beefy Chris Redfield are just some of everything that we know so far.

What is Resident Evil Village?

Source: Capcom

Resident Evil Village is the next Resident Evil game from Capcom. It's the eighth mainline game in the series, with the "VILL" in "VILLAGE" being bolded as a nod to "8" or Resident Evil 8. With that said, the official title is Resident Evil Village.

Resident Evil Village is ultimately a first-person survival horror game, tasking players to fight monsters with various weapons and scavenge for supplies in a dark setting. Resident Evil 7 was the first in the series to flip to first-person, and the tradition continues for Resident Evil Village, which follows the same protagonist as the previous game.

Resident Evil Village Trailers

Source: Capcom

Here is the announcement trailer for Resident Evil Village, which was shown during Sony's PS5 showcase, The Future of Gaming. You may need to sign in to an account to bypass YouTube's age-rating filter.

At a later showcase, we got to see another trailer showing more glimpses of the horror that awaits:

In the January 2021 showcase, a third trailer focused on what is inside that mysterious castle:

During an April 2021 showcase, Capcom revealed a fourth trailer for the game, showcasing more of the plot and mechanics.

Resident Evil Village story, gameplay and features

Source: Capcom

Ethan Winters, the main protagonist of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, is the protagonist here again. Resident Evil Village takes place a few years after the events of the Baker Mansion, as Ethan and his wife Mia are trying to live in peace. Chris Redfield shows up and turns Ethan's life upside-down.

Source: Capcom

As Ethan tracks Chris down and attempts to rescue his kidnapped daughter, he finds himself in a mysterious snowy European village with a foreboding castle — Dimitrescu Castle, home of several creepy individuals. The most notorious on social media is known as Lady Dimitrescu, notable for her immense height and vampiric traits. She commands her witch-like daughters (who can shift into swarms of insects) to hunt Ethan down. There's also a house of werewolf-like beings led by a man called Karl Heisenberg, among other antagonists that have yet to be detailed.

Here's everything else we know about the story, gameplay, and new features.

• The game is being developed using the RE engine.
• It's being developed for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC, and PS5.
• There are what appear to be werewolves (called Lycans), vampires, and witches.
• The game is a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, though Capcom states it will have more action elements.
• The press release from Capcom describes the village as being almost one of the characters.
• It uses a grid-based inventory system like in Resident Evil 4.
• There's a merchant known as "The Duke."
• There is a cooking system, where Ethan can harvest animal meats and cook to regain health and stat bonuses.
• Chris Redfield from Resident Evil 1, 5, and other entries will appear in the game.
• Resident Evil Village will also feature post-game Mercenaries mode, returning from previous games. Mercenaries is an arcade-style mode which lets you rack up points and gear for taking on repeatable gauntlets against waves of enemies.

Resident Evil Village Multiplayer RE:Verse

Source: Capcom

Capcom seems desperate to add some form of on-going service to Resident Evil, despite repeated failed attempts. In any case, maybe they'll get it right this time.

Resident Evil Village will come bundled with a separate RE:Verse mode, which is essentially a five-minute deathmatch mode for 4-6 players. In RE:Verse, you play as iconic characters from across the series. When your character is killed, you can respawn as one of the game's iconic bioweapon charactrers, in "revenge"-style gameplay.

Will Resident Evil Village be on Xbox One?

Source: Capcom

While it was rumored that a current-generation version was in development at some point, Resident Evil Village is only officially coming to next-generation hardware: the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PS5, and PC. This allows Capcom to take full advantage of the next-generation hardware, including vastly superior graphics and CPU tech alongside ultra-fast SSDs.

With all that said, Capcom recently stated at Tokyo Game Show 2020 that the team is looking into a version for Xbox One and PS4 but that "no promises" are being made. At the January 2021 showcase, Capcom confirmed that Xbox One and PS4 versions were coming. The Xbox One version supports Smart Delivery, meaning you'll get a free upgrade to the higher-generation version.

Resident Evil Village PC requirements

Resident Evil Village runs on the RE Engine like its predecessor, which proved to be quite performant in general. In terms of PC specs, Resident Evil guns for 60 FPS across all systems as a baseline, but also lists a range of additional visual enhancements you can achieve with ray tracing and higher-end cards for 4K. Capcom notes that more intense scenes may degrade performance, as you might expect.

Resident Evil Village Xbox performance

Resident Evil Village will match the PS5 on Xbox Series X, but also offer a range of other performance modes and resolutions across the entire Xbox portfolio. Here's what Capcom is estimating for performance, although exact capabilities will have to wait for a more thorough analysis. Capcom estimates an average 45 FPS for systems running ray tracing dynamic lighting modes, but the frame rates will be unlocked, so it may prove to be more performant than what has been listed.

We have no information on what type of sound features will be supported, but we expect you'll want one of the best Xbox headsets to take advantage of this game, for the maximum spook factor.

When is the release date for Resident Evil Village?

Source: Capcom

After Capcom initially stated a broad "2021" release window, a release date was announced during a showcase on January 21, 2021. Resident Evil Village is currently set to release on May 7, 2021. When it does arrive, it's likely to be one of the best Xbox horror games. We'll have a review up hopefully in time for launch.

Xbox Series X/S

Main

• Xbox Series X: Everything we know
• Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
• List of Xbox Series X specs
• What is the Xbox Series X release date?
• How much does Xbox Series X cost?
• Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
• Best Xbox Series X Headsets

The release of the highly anticipated survival-horror title Resident Evil Village is almost here. With just a few weeks until the big launch day of May 7, 2021, many PC players are likely wondering if their current rigs are powerful enough to render Lady Dimitrescu in all her glory. Whether you're looking to enjoy the game with or without stunning ray tracing, here are the system requirements your PC will need to run Resident Evil Village.

List of Resident Evil Village PC requirements (without ray tracing)

If you're not set on experiencing Resident Evil Village with ray tracing, the minimum PC requirements for this game are fairly modest. Getting your specifications closer to the recommended settings will certainly give you higher quality visuals and better performance, but the average user shouldn't need a drastic upgrade to dive in to latest entry in the iconic Resident Evil franchise.

Resident Evil Village minimum PC requirements (No RT)

• OS: 64-bit Windows 10
• DirectX Version: DirectX 12
• Processor: Intel Core i5-7500 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200
• Memory: 8GB
• Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB or AMD Radeon RX 560 4GB
• Storage: TBD

Resident Evil Village recommended PC requirements (No RT)

• OS: 64-bit Windows 10
• DirectX Version: DirectX 12
• Processor: Intel Core i7-8700 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
• Memory: 16GB
• Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 or AMD Radeon RX 5700
• Storage: TBD*

List of Resident Evil Village PC requirements (with ray tracing)

PC players looking to reap the lighting benefits of ray tracing with Resident Evil Village will absolutely need a decently capable machine and a GPU that supports ray tracing. Here are the suggested graphics cards and recommended specs.

Resident Evil Village recommended PC requirements (With RT)

• OS: 64-bit Windows 10 version 2004 or later
• DirectX Version: DirectX 12
• Processor: Intel Core i7-8700 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
• Memory: 16GB
• Graphics Card:
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2070 (4K/60 FPS)
  • AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (4K/45 FPS)
  • AMD Radeon RX 6800 (4K/45 FPS)
  • AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (4K/60 FPS)
• Storage: TBD*

Will my PC run Resident Evil Village?

Curious to see how your own rig stacks up against the minimum and recommended PC requirements for Resident Evill Village? Well, thankfully the DirectX Diagnostic Tool makes it quick and easy to see exactly what you have installed. Here's how to run the DirectX Diagnostic Tool to get your PC specifications.

1. Type dxdiag.
2. Click dxdiag from the list. Windows will present your PC specifications.
3. Head to the System tab for details on your CPU, RAM, and Windows version.
4. Navigate to Display tab for details on your GPU and VRAM.

Once completed, these tabs will break down the exact specifications for your PC. Be sure to compare this to the settings listed above to make sure you're good to play. And if you need an upgrade, head over to our collection of best graphics cards for some solid options.

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village, or Resident Evil 8, is just around the corner with a release date of May 7, 2021.
• Ahead of release, Resident Evil fans will be able to play the Resident Evil Village time-limited demo.
• The Resident Evil Village second demo will be available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, PS5, PS4, and PC.
• Players will be able to play for up to 60 minutes on their platform of choice starting May 1, 2021.

Capcom revealed crucial information about the second demo for the much-anticipated Resident Evil Village during the April Resident Evil Showcase. The 8th entry in the mainline Resident Evil series celebrates 25 years of some of the best horror games, and takes the series to an all-new location with new horrors to face. Today, it was revealed that players excited for Resident Evil Village will be able to participate in a time-limited demo of the game starting May 1, 2021.

Resident Evil Village also has a brand-new story trailer which showcases more horrifying threats.

Here's what you need to know about the second Resident Evil Village demo:

The second Resident Evil Village demo will be expanded to even more platforms, and will be available on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, PC, and Stadia. Players will be able to experience Resident Evil Village for up to 60 minutes on their platform of choice. The times for the Resident Evil Village demo include:

• North America: May 1 at 5 p.m. until May 2, 2021, at 5 p.m. PT
• Europe: May 2 at 2 a.m. until May 3, 2021, at 2 a.m. CEST
• Asia: May 2 at 8 a.m. until May 3, 2021, at 8 a.m. HKT

Finally, Resident Evil fans on PS5 and PS4 will have an 8-hour early access window in which to experience a slice of Resident Evil Village for up to 30 minutes. Players can pre-load this early access demo starting right now. The times for the Resident Evil Village early access include:

• North America: April 24 at 5 p.m. until April 25, 2021, at 1 a.m. PT
• Europe: April 25 at 7 p.m. until April 26, 2021, at 3 a.m. CEST
• Asia: April 25 at 5 p.m. until April 26, 2021, at 1 a.m. HKT

Resident Evil Village launches officially on May 7, 2021 for all of these platforms, and promises to be the biggest Resident Evil experience yet. You can pre-order Resident Evil Village right now, and Resident Evil Village has multiple pre-order editions to choose from.

What you need to know

• A new Resident Evil Village digital event is coming at some point in April.
• New game details will be revealed, though an exact day for the event has not been given.
• Resident Evil Village is currently slated for release on May 7, 2021.

Players will get to see more of Resident Evil Village fairly soon. In a press release, Capcom confirmed that a new Resident Evil Village digital showcase will be held in April. New game details will be revealed at this event, though there's nothing specific given beyond that or confirmation of the exact day this showcase will be shown.

Right now, a Maiden technical demo is available exclusively on the PS5, though Capcom has stated that a second demo will be available on all platforms before the game arrives, so Xbox and PC players shouldn't be left out for too much longer.

Resident Evil Village is the direct sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, with protagonist Ethan Winters returning in search of questions, following Chris Redfield to a mysterious European village and Castle Dimitrescu, home of the now-iconic Tall Vampire Lady.

Several different editions of Resident Evil Village are currently available for preorder and the game is set to be released on May 7, 2021. It'll be available on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PC, PS5, PS4 and Stadia. If you buy the Xbox One or PS4 version, you'll get a free upgrade at no cost to the corresponding Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S or PS5 edition of the game.

Is Resident Evil Village coming to Xbox One and PS4?

Resident Evil Village is going to be playable on Xbox One or PS4, despite Capcom previously saying it'd be available only on the newest consoles: Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PS5, as well as PC.

The announcement was made alongside preorders becoming available in January 2021, when Capcom shared a new trailer for the game and discussed what different editions of Resident Evil Village would be available for preorder. It's worth mentioning that the game supports Smart Delivery on Xbox and a free upgrade on PlayStation. No matter what version you buy, you'll get the best experience possible on your console.

Resident Evil Village What other benefits are there for the newest consoles?

The press release for the game explained that the developers are targeting "ultra-realistic graphics," which wouldn't be possible with lower amounts of processing power. This means you can expect the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PS5 versions to look better and run smoother than the last-generation versions. The newest consoles support ray-tracing and 3D Audio, so it won't just look better — it'll sound better too.

Capcom has also explained that the village itself is meant to be a major character in the game. Due to the ultra-fast SSDs in these new consoles, exploring the village and transitioning between areas will be much, much faster than on the prior systems.

Resident Evil Village is currently slated to arrive on a launch date of May 7, 2021. The game is a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, starring Ethan Winters as his daughter is abducted. To rescue her, he traverses a mysterious snowy European village and a castle filled with vampiric women.

If you want a taste of what this game looks and sounds like right now, there's a PS5-exclusive Maiden demo that you can download. Our editor Carli Velocci found it to be a short, thrilling experience and, in her impressions, shared that it was more of an audio quality showcase than she expected.

When is the Resident Evil Village release date?

As of right now, we know that Resident Evil Village is set to release on May 7, 2021. After initially sticking to a vague 2021 window when the game was revealed at Sony's Future of Gaming showcase, Capcom announced the release date in January 2021, when preorders for the various editions of Resident Evil Village became available.

What else do we know about Resident Evil Village?

Resident Evil Village is a sequel to the 2017 game Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Much like Resident Evil 7, Resident Evil Village has players again take on Ethan Winters' role in first-person. Ethan finds himself in a mysterious snowy European village, where werewolf-like beast creatures and what appear to be vampiric witches are all lurking. Longtime Resident Evil character Chris Redfield is also present in a big way, though the exact role he plays remains to be seen.

Resident Evil Village is currently slated to arrive on May 7, 2021. When Resident Evil Village arrives, it's coming to Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PC, PS5 and PS4. If you want a taste of how Resident Evil Village on PS5 looks and runs, there's currently a PS5-exclusive Maiden demo that's available to download and try. Our senior editor Carli Velocci shared her impressions of the demo, saying that it not only looks great but is a fantastic audio showcase.

What Resident Evil Village editions can I buy for Xbox?

Reisdent Evil Village is on the way, and depending on how it turns out, this could end up being one of the best Xbox games available. There's a couple of different versions of the game to choose from, which we break down below.

To start things off, there's the standard edition. This is the basic version of the game for $60. If you preorder it or any other version of Resident Evil Village, you'll get Resident Evil Re:Verse, a new multiplayer game, as well as two special items:

• Mr. Raccoon Weapon Charm
• Survival Resources Pack

If you're going digital and didn't play Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, consider the Complete Edition bundle, which includes both games at $80. You'll get the Gold Edition of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard with all its DLC but only the standard version of Resident Evil Village.

Next up, there's the Deluxe Edition. This copy of the game is available for $70 and includes the Trauma Pack, which consists of the following items:

• Samurai Edge - AW Model-01
• Resident Evil 7 Found Footage Filter
• Resident Evil 7 Tape Recorder Save Point
• Saferoom Music "Go Tell Aunt Rhody"
• Mr. Everywhere Weapon Charm
• Unlock "Village of Shadows" Difficulty
• The Tragedy of Ethan Winters Artwork

Finally, there's the Collector's Edition. The collector's edition includes everything in the deluxe edition, as well as the following:

• Chris Redfield statue
• Artbook
• Steelbook case
• Themed box to hold everything

Preorders have opened across retailers, though the Collector's Edition will likely sell out quickly. If you buy a copy of Resident Evil Village on Xbox One, you'll get a free upgrade to the Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S version through Smart Delivery. Do note that you obviously won't be able to play a disc on the Xbox Series S.

Resident Evil Village is currently set to release on May 7, 2021, for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC.

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village is the next mainline Resident Evil game.
• A description on Humble Bundle has leaked the name of a new multiplayer title — Resident Evil Re:Verse.
• Resident Evil Re:Verse will be bundled in with Resident Evil Village.

Previously, we reported on how Capcom was taking signups for a mysterious new Resident Evil multiplayer game. Now, we've got a better idea of just what this game is. In a leaked listing on Humble Bundle shared by @Wario64 on Twitter, Resident Evil Village is described as including Resident Evil Re:Verse, a separate game in a similar vein to how Resident Evil Resistance was bundled in with the Resident Evil 3 remake.

According to the description on Humble Bundle, preordering Resident Evil Village guarantees access to Resident Evil Re:Verse, as well as a pack of bonus items including a Mr. Raccoon Weapon Charm, Survival Resources Pack and the Resident Evil Village Mini Soundtrack.

We should learn more about this new pack-in game later today, as Capcom is holding a Resident Evil showcase at 2:00 p.m. PT to share a trailer, gameplay footage and more for Resident Evil Village. Resident Evil Village is current-generation exclusive to Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC and PS5 however, Capcom has stated it is looking into the possibility of a last-generation version for Xbox One and PS4.

Xbox Series X/S

Main

• Xbox Series X: Everything we know
• Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
• List of Xbox Series X specs
• What is the Xbox Series X release date?
• How much does Xbox Series X cost?
• Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
• Best Xbox Series X Headsets

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village is set to release on May 7, 2021.
• Pre-orders are now available on the Microsoft store.
• A demo is coming exclusively to PS5 but will be available on other platforms at a later date.
• The story follows Ethan Winters, the protagonist of Resident Evil 7, as he enters a mysterious castle to search for his kidnapped daughter.

Capcom kicked off the Resident Evil Showcase on Thursday with some great news for those waiting for Resident Evil Village. Producer Pete Fabiano announced that the game will be coming to current and next-gen consoles on May 7, 2021.

He also announced that pre-orders will be open on Thursday. A demo will also be available today, but it won't be available on Xbox — just on PS5. Other demos are coming at a later date this spring across platforms.

The Showcase showed off two videos: a new trailer that illicits a lot of questions and a gameplay preview. In the trailer, which starts off with Resident Evil 7 protagonist Ethan Winters arguing with his partner Mia, we see Ethan entering the mysterious Dimitrescu Castle, which is filled with all sorts of weird creatures.

The castle is owned by Lady Dimitrescu (a.k.a. the now very internet-famous Tall Vampire Lady), who seems to be apart of a group that has kidnapped Ethan's daughter. She also has a number of mysterious daughters who can transform into swarms of insects. There are a number of other creatures too, including zombies and werewolves. There's also a merchant called "The Duke," which is bringing back an iconic element of Resident Evil 4. In general, we got a lot of Resident Evil 4 vibes from the footage.

The gameplay trailer revealed that game will also be back in first-person. A number of elements from Resident Evil 7 will be returning as well, including the emphasis on blocking as part of regular combat and crafting (albeit it looks improved here). However, Ethan has a new kick that he can use to create distance between him and his enemies. The inventory has also been overhauled to look like an attache case, similar to what it looked like in Resident Evil 4.

The demo, called Maiden, is a stand-alone experience that "symbolizes the protagonist, a girl who's trapped in Dimitrescu Castle," Fabiano said. It was originally a visual demo, but it now features story elements and puzzle solving.

There will be multiple editions of the game available, including a physical Collector's Edition and a Deluxe Edition. Pre-orders for the regular game are now available.

After the Resident Evil Village showcase, Capcom spent some time talking about Resident Evil Re:Verse, which was leaked earlier this week. It's a multiplayer game that sets Resident Evil characters against each other in 4-6-player deathmatch. There will also be goodies for Division 2 players incoming in celebration of the franchise's 25th anniversary, including Leon Kennedy's RPD uniform.

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village is the next big game in the Resident Evil series.
• A showcase on January 21 is going to show a new trailer and gameplay footage.
• Resident Evil Village is scheduled to release sometime in 2021.

Resident Evil Village is an upcoming horror game from Capcom and the next mainline entry in the long-running Resident Evil franchise. Today, Capcom announced a new Resident Evil Village showcase taking place on January 21 at 2:00 p.m PT. We'll be getting gameplay footage guided by Brittney Brombacher (aka @BlondeNerd on Twitter), as well as a new trailer.

Resident Evil Village is a departure from past entries in many ways. It's a first-person game starring Ethan from Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, while the game takes place in a snowy European village filled with what appear to be werewolves, witches and Krampus-esque goatmen. Depending on how it pans out, this could end up being one of the best Xbox horror games available.

Resident Evil Village is currently a next-generation exclusive title, coming to Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PS5 and PC. Capcom is looking into the possibility of Xbox One and PS4 ports but no promises are being made. Resident Evil Village is currently slated to release at some point in 2021.

Xbox Series X/S

Main

• Xbox Series X: Everything we know
• Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
• List of Xbox Series X specs
• What is the Xbox Series X release date?
• How much does Xbox Series X cost?
• Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
• Best Xbox Series X Headsets

What you need to know

• Capcom has shared some new Resident Evil Village screenshots with IGN.
• One of these screenshots showcases a very Krampus-looking foe.
• Resident Evil Village is scheduled to release sometime in 2021.

Resident Evil Village is Capcom's next big entry in the iconic horror franchise and while we still don't have a release date, small teases and updates are being sent out. Capcom shared some new screenshots with IGN today, including one featuring a vaguely Krampus-like enemy, though he's missing the iconic horns.

You can take a look at all three new screenshots below (tap or click to enlarge).

Source: IGN

We've already seen the werewolf-like beastmen that apparently make up a major threat in Resident Evil Village but it's nice to get another shot all the same.

"We're really excited for fans to experience Resident Evil Village when it comes out in 2021. We feel it's an accumulation of all the best elements of Resident Evil games from the past 25 years, with everything fans love about action-infused survival horror plus new surprises. Of course, there are plenty of puzzles to solve and mysteries to unfold," says Peter Fabiano, producer on Resident Evil Village, in a statement to IGN.

Hopefully we'll be getting a release date sometime not too long from now. Capcom previously stated that Resident Evil Village was being designed for PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PS5. The team is looking into last-generation versions for the Xbox One and PS4 but "can't make any promises."

Xbox Series X/S

Main

• Xbox Series X: Everything we know
• Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
• List of Xbox Series X specs
• What is the Xbox Series X release date?
• How much does Xbox Series X cost?
• Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
• Best Xbox Series X Headsets

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village was revealed earlier this year.
• While Capcom has shown a couple of trailers, there's still a fair bit we don't know.
• The next update appears to be set for sometime this winter.
• Resident Evil Village is scheduled to release at some point in 2021.

The next big horror game from Capcom, Resident Evil Village, is still somewhat shrouded in mystery since its reveal earlier this year. After a planned August update was delayed, Capcom shared a new trailer in September. According to an update on the official website for the game, the next Resident Evil Village update is coming sometime this winter.

Bear in mind that "winter" is a broad and vague term, which means the update could be anywhere from December through the end of February.

During Tokyo Game Show 2020, the developers revealed they are trying to see if Xbox One and PS4 versions will be possible but they don't want to make any promises. For the time being, Resident Evil Village is only confirmed to release on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC and PS5.

Resident Evil Village is set to release at some point in 2021. The game is a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and follows Ethan Winters into a mysterious snowy village beset by werewolf-like creatures. Much like Resident Evil 7, it uses a first-person perspective, with an emphasis on freedom and solving puzzles.

Xbox Series X/S

Main

• Xbox Series X: Everything we know
• Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
• List of Xbox Series X specs
• What is the Xbox Series X release date?
• How much does Xbox Series X cost?
• Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
• Best Xbox Series X Headsets

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village was first announced in June as a next generation-only game.
• During Tokyo Game Show 2020, Capcom revealed that Resident Evil Village might come to Xbox One and PS4.
• The team isn't making any promises though.
• Resident Evil Village is set to release in 2021.

Capcom's main Resident Evil Village presentation is being held on September 27 but in the meantime, we've been given an interesting bit of news: Capcom is considering bringing Resident Evil Village to Xbox One and PS4, though the team did note that they "can't make any promises." The game was originally billed as only being available for the next generation of consoles, coming to Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC and PS5.

This news, as well as some very brief clips of gameplay, were shown in a special Capcom presentation for Tokyo Game Show 2020, which you can check out below.

During the quick gameplay presentation, the developers noted that Resident Evil Village is being designed with more freedom than Resident Evil 7: Biohazard provided.

Providing the game on current-generation platforms would open it up to a much wider audience, resulting in more copies sold. The possible downside is that the game might suffer in design from having to run on far weaker systems. We'll have to see what decision Capcom makes, especially since the Resident Evil franchise has crossed 100 million copies sold as of June 2020.

Resident Evil Village is set to release at some point in 2021.

Xbox Series X/S

Main

• Xbox Series X: Everything we know
• Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
• List of Xbox Series X specs
• What is the Xbox Series X release date?
• How much does Xbox Series X cost?
• Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
• Best Xbox Series X Headsets

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village will be shown by Capcom at Tokyo Game Show 2020.
• Capcom has shared more details breaking down the schedule of its full presentation.
• This presentation will be held on September 27, 2020.

Capcom has released more details for its upcoming Tokyo Game Show 2020 schedule, including details on the aforementioned presentation for Resident Evil Village. In addition to Resident Evil Village, part of the presentation will be focused on Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition.

You can see the full schedule for this section below, which will begin on September 27 at 8:00 a.m. ET:

• 12:00 p.m. – Opening - Translated
• 12:05 p.m. – "Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition" Presentation - Translated
• 12:30 p.m. – Additional Information 1
• 12:40 p.m. – "RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE" Presentation - Translated
• 1:10 p.m. – "RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE" Guest Talk Segment
• 1:40 p.m. – Additional Information 2/Ending

The show will be broadcast on the Capcom USA Twitch channel, with both English and Chinese translation offered. For another recent look at the game, you can check out the trailer shown during the September PS5 games showcase.

Resident Evil Village is set to be released at some point in 2021 on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC and PS5.

Xbox Series X/S

Main

• Xbox Series X: Everything we know
• Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
• List of Xbox Series X specs
• What is the Xbox Series X release date?
• How much does Xbox Series X cost?
• Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
• Best Xbox Series X Headsets

What you need to know

• A new trailer for Resident Evil Village was released during a recent PS5 games showcase.
• Several new screenshots have also been released.
• They provide another look at the werewolf-esque enemies and other things in the village.

Resident Evil Village is the next big game from Capcom and while there's still a lot we don't know, Capcom shared a new trailer at the recent PS5 games showcase. Additionally, Capcom has released several new screenshots giving a more detailed look at the werewolf-like enemies in the game, as well as a few other interesting things.

While this latest trailer and screenshots provide another glimpse at the game, we should be learning more at Tokyo Game Show 2020. Resident Evil Village is a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, with Ethan returning as the playable character. The first-person perspective also returns, with a strong focus on the survival-horror aspects and the mystery of the village.

Credible rumors point to goatmen and witches as enemies alongside the werewolves we've seen so far. Other rumors state that it will be the longest game ever developed with RE Engine, which Capcom now uses for many of its biggest games.

Resident Evil Village is set to be released at some point in 2021 on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC and PS5.

Xbox Series X/S

Main

• Xbox Series X: Everything we know
• Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
• List of Xbox Series X specs
• What is the Xbox Series X release date?
• How much does Xbox Series X cost?
• Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
• Best Xbox Series X Headsets

What you need to know

• Capcom originally stated it would be sharing more about Resident Evil Village sometime in August.
• August came and went without any news or updates.
• Capcom has now confirmed that Resident Evil Village will be shown during Tokyo Game Show 2020.

After revealing Resident Evil Village during Sony's Future of Gaming event earlier this year, Capcom had previously promised to share more on the game in an August update. August came and went with no news or even small tidbits officially released and now, Capcom has explained why. The August update has been delayed and instead, Resident Evil Village will be featured in Tokyo Game Show 2020 on September 27.

Resident Evil Village will be shown at 6:00 a.m. PT / 9:00 a.m. ET. We don't know exactly how much will be shown but it will presumably entail what the August update was supposed to be, with maybe even more than that. Resident Evil Village is currently surrounded by rumors, with credible sources stating the game is the longest-ever RE engine title and that there are vicious Goatmen enemies.

Resident Evil Village is a next generation-only title, currently announced for the Xbox Series X, PC and PS5. It's set to release at some point in 2021.

Xbox Series X/S

Main

• Xbox Series X: Everything we know
• Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
• List of Xbox Series X specs
• What is the Xbox Series X release date?
• How much does Xbox Series X cost?
• Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
• Best Xbox Series X Headsets

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village is the next mainline Resident Evil game.
• According to an alleged playtester, the game will feature goatmen enemies and a woman as a secondary playable character.
• Resident Evil Village is currently set to release at some point in 2021.

Resident Evil Village is bringing new the classic horror franchise to new locations with the next-generation of horror. While we're still waiting for Capcom to share more, we've received reports that the game will be featuring a second playable character besides Ethan — and sword-wielding Goatmen as enemies.

According to the Biohazardcast, a playtester tried a section of the game where you are controlling a young woman who doesn't have any weapons, just a lantern. This could be the woman seen at multiple points in the reveal trailer, who you can see below.

The playtester continued to explain that the woman was avoiding bipedal goatmen creatures in a large cave. These creatures carried swords and would also bite if they spotted the player. It's also interesting to note that the reveal trailer pauses for a moment on a large black goat.

While this hasn't been confirmed by Capcom, it certainly fits with the theme we've seen so far. Werewolf-like beastmen and witches were reported months before the reveal to be in the game and were explicitly shown in the reveal trailer.

We'll have to wait and see just what Capcom chooses to reveal next about this game. Resident Evil Village is set to release at some point in 2021 on the Xbox Series X, PC and PS5. According to a well-sourced leaker, Resident Evil Village will be the longest RE Engine game yet.

Xbox Series X/S

Main

• Xbox Series X: Everything we know
• Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
• List of Xbox Series X specs
• What is the Xbox Series X release date?
• How much does Xbox Series X cost?
• Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
• Best Xbox Series X Headsets

What you need to know

• Resident Evil Village is the next game being developed and published by Capcom.
• According to someone with a strong track record, it's the longest game developed using RE Engine.
• This would make it longer than Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry 5 or Resident Evil 3.

Resident Evil Village is the eighth mainline entry in Capcom's long-running survival-horror franchise. There's a still lot we don't know but according to an individual with a great track record, Resident Evil Village might be longer than players are expecting.

Aesthetic Gamer aka Dusk Golem has a history of sharing accurate details on upcoming Resident Evil games. Months before the reveal of Resident Evil Village, they accurately shared that it would be a first-person game starring Ethan and Chris, while taking place in a winter village that has werewolf-like beastmen.

Now, they've commented on the length of Resident Evil Village, saying that "if you're worried about really short RE games, you don't need to." They added that "RE8 will be the longest RE Engine game to date, & without saying too much the other stuff coming up should follow a similar trend."

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry 5 and Resident Evil 3 were all developed using the RE Engine. While none of them were exceptionally long games, this does mean that Resident Evil Village would be at least several hours long.

We'll be sure to provide further updates as Capcom releases additional information. Resident Evil Village is a next generation-only game and is in development for the Xbox Series X, PC and PS5. It's slated to release at some point in 2021.

Xbox Series X/S

Main

• Xbox Series X: Everything we know
• Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
• List of Xbox Series X specs
• What is the Xbox Series X release date?
• How much does Xbox Series X cost?
• Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
• Best Xbox Series X Headsets

What you need to know

• Capcom recently shared in a Q&A with investors that it hasn't decided on pricing for Xbox Series X and PS5 games.
• Other publishers have remained tentative regarding raising prices for next-generation games outside of Take-Two Interactive.
• Capcom has two next-generation games announced: Resident Evil Village and Pragmata.

The next generation of gaming is nearly upon us, with the Xbox Series X and PS5 confirmed to release in November and Holiday 2020 respectively. One of the major questions still up in the air is just how much next-generation titles will cost. Japanese publisher Capcom has weighed in to explain that it still hasn't decided just how much its new games will cost.

In a recent Q&A with investors, the company was asked about its policy for pricing next-generation games. Capcom stated that "We do not have a set policy at this time. We will consider our approach having analyzed both our strengths and weaknesses while closely monitoring industry trends."

So far, Take-Two Interactive is the only publisher to raise the bar, announcing that NBA 2K21 will be $70 on Xbox Series X and PS5. In its recent Q1 results call, Ubisoft confirmed that none of its games launching in Fall 2020 will cost more than $60. Electronic Arts stated in its Q1 results call that it will take different approaches for different games, noting the $40 price tag on Star Wars: Squadrons.

Right now, Capcom has two big next generation-only games announced. Resident Evil Village is due out at some point in 2021, while Pragmata is a new IP being aimed to release in 2022. Capcom has seen renewed success over the past couple of years, with Monster Hunter World recently crossing 16 million copies sold. Capcom also recently confirmed that 80% of its game sales are now digital.

Xbox Series X/S

Main

• Xbox Series X: Everything we know
• Best games coming to Xbox Series X/S
• List of Xbox Series X specs
• What is the Xbox Series X release date?
• How much does Xbox Series X cost?
• Why you can't preorder Xbox Series X yet
• Best Xbox Series X Headsets