Resident Evil Village fans have a lot to be excited about coming up. The Winters' Expansion is tentatively planned to launch on October 28 and with it, Capcom will launch a third-person mode, Mercenary Additional Orders, and the Shadows of Rose story DLC. The combination of Resident Evil Village and the Winters' Expansion will be re-bundled as the Resident Evil Village Gold Edition. Capcom has now announced further plans for this release, expanding its scope with new accessibility features, too.
In a message shared on Twitter, the official Resident Evil account confirmed that a free update will be released alongside the release of the Winters' Expansion for Resident Evil Village. This update will be focused on accessibility issues rather than content or fixes. Overall, the changes are small, but for certain Resident Evil fans with accessibility concerns, these small changes could dramatically improve the game.
The first improvement coming in Resident Evil Village's accessibility update is the addition of toggles for different subtitle options. The first option will be subtitle size, the second for subtitle coloring, and the third for subtitle background. These options will hopefully provide everything necessary for those with vision issues, whether it be color blindness or low vision, to see and read Resident Evil Village's subtitles with ease.
The next two improvements will focus on audial issues in Resident Evil Village. The second improvement adds the speaker's name ahead of their subtitles, which should help those with audial issues recognize who is talking. The third improvement then adds closed captions. Expanding on the idea of subtitles, closed captions should provide text descriptions of ongoing events in detail, and audio queues that don't involve voices in particular.
The fourth and final accessibility addition to be released alongside the Winters' Expansion is a permanent reticle. This is a target that will be placed permanently at the center of players' screens, allowing them to more precisely gauge what they're looking or aiming at. The ambiguity of what Resident Evil Village players are aiming toward can prove to be an imposition for some players with low visibility or other conditions. It's also a great option for players who just want an added bit of visual support for gameplay.
Altogether, these four accessibility additions are all going to improve the gameplay experience for a significant number of Resident Evil Village players. It's a shame that the features weren't available when Resident Evil Village launched, but better late than never. As noted, the accessibility features will be made available to Resident Evil Village players for free when the Winters' Expansion releases on October 28.
Resident Evil Village is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.