Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition should be a great treat for Resident Evil fans, releasing the weekend before Halloween. In Gold Edition, fans have many reasons to return to Resident Evil Village. The game has been given a third-person mode that looks to restructure it accordingly for the new over-the-shoulder framing, Resident Evil Village’s Mercenaries mode is adding characters and stages, and Rosemary Winters is made playable in her own third-person, narrative-driven DLC expansion.
Few details are known about the Shadows of Rose DLC beyond the fact that players will be able to experience Rose’s supernatural abilities in a strange, mirrored landscape that seemingly returns to Castle Dimitrescu. One thing has been made certain, which is that Shadows of Rose will conclude the Winters family’s narrative in the Resident Evil franchise. This is exciting because the door is open for Resident Evil to head in any direction it would like with Resident Evil 9, and there may not be any implications in Shadows of Rose.
Shadows of Rose May Strictly Be a Bookend for Resident Evil’s Winters Family
Resident Evil Village closes the curtain on Ethan Winters’ narrative. Having experienced the horrors of the Baker estate in Resident Evil 7 with Ethan beforehand, fans may have been pleased to see the franchise conclude his story in an empathetic way as he rescues and protects his daughter.
Because this narrative ended with Resident Evil Village, fans may be concerned that the series could return to an emphasis on action rather than survival-horror. It is possible that the franchise could establish another fresh-faced protagonist with their own intriguing narrative, but it could still be awhile until such details are announced.
In the meantime, Shadows of Rose will likely take advantage of all the iconography Capcom created for Resident Evil Village, as somewhat of a final tribute to it. Because this DLC will bookend the Winters’ narrative, it might be expected that Shadows of Rose will end definitively and not make any suggestions about where the franchise could go from there.
Shadows of Rose seems fairly low-risk in terms of a narrative-driven DLC, at least in terms of having fans’ expectations kept in check. Resident Evil Village’s conclusion ended with a couple of interesting narrative cliffhangers: one being Chris Redfield’s determination to infiltrate the BSAA headquarters in Europe, and one being a flash-forward to Rose as a teenager.
Capcom Doesn’t Have to Make Certainties with Resident Evil's Legacy Characters
Because Capcom decided on Rose’s cliffhanger as its narrative DLC for Resident Evil Village, it is now expected that Resident Evil 9 will follow Chris as its playable protagonist. Either way, Shadows of Rose will not want or need to elaborate on any characters other than Rose, and maybe her mother Mia.
Being set so far ahead into the future, Capcom would need to make definitive choices for its legacy characters that take place at least a decade-and-a-half later, such as whether Chris is still alive or not. The answers to these questions are unsolicited, and if any legacy characters are addressed it will be unfulfilling from a narrative standpoint. Players do not want to know if Chris is still alive, for example, because that would eliminate any stakes from his next outing. The same goes for any other legacy character, such as Leon, Jill, or Claire.
Therefore, Shadows of Rose being a standalone DLC entry and not a full-fledged sequel was a smart decision, because it can archive the Winters family’s narrative without significantly affecting any other narratives in the Resident Evil franchise. It is more likely that the franchise will continue forward from its present day events instead, meaning Shadows of Rose will be a standalone spin-off that possibly makes no connection to anything else relevant for Resident Evil.
Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition will release on October 28 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.