While the Resident Evil 4 remake was the star of Capom's recent announcements, the company has made it clear that it still has a lot in store for Resident Evil Village. Resident Evil Re:Verse - the six-player PvP multiplayer experience that was supposed to release alongside Resident Evil Village, is finally being released on October 28, 2022. Alongside it comes Mercenaries: Additional Orders, which will allow players to take control of Chris Redfield, Karl Heisenberg, and the Internet's favorite tall lady Alcina Dimitrescu.
In terms of Resident Evil Village's single-player story, a sequel to the main game titled Shadows of Rose will put players in the shoes of Rosemary Winters - Ethan Winters' daughter. Picking up where the epilogue left off, Shadows of Rose will follow Rosemary's attempt to rid herself of the mysterious powers she was born with. What's interesting about this new story is that Shadows of Rose is going to be playable solely from a third-person perspective. What's more, Capcom has announced that Resident Evil Village will include an optional third-person mode that allows players to experience the main game from over Ethan Winters' shoulders. While Shadows of Rose was made to be experienced from a third-person perspective, one has to wonder if Resident Evil Village will retain the same level of horror that the first-person perspective brought.
First-Person Allows For More Personal Horror
Before examining Resident Evil Village, it is important to look at what made its predecessor so successful. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard re-centered the franchise's focus on horror by putting players in the shoes of everyman Ethan Winters as he scoured the Baker household for his missing wife, Mia. Here was a character with no combat experience who was in over his head, dealing with powers he had no understanding of. The first-person perspective helped players immerse themselves in Ethan's experiences and made the scares more intimate.
Resident Evil Village continues this immersive horror experience thanks to its retention of the first-person perspective. The limited peripheral vision the first-person camera provides when compared to the third-person view heightens the unease players feel because they aren't seeing the entire picture. What a person doesn't see is scarier than what they can, and the fear that something might be lurking just out of view contributes to what makes the two most recent canonical entries to the Resident Evil franchise so terrifying.
First-person also immerses players in Ethan's experiences. When Ethan gets part of his hand bitten off by a Lycan or stabbed through the abdomen by Alcina Dimitrescu, players see how visceral and painful the acts are. Add this to the large-scale enemies brought about by the first-person perspective, and players have more reason to dread what is hiding around every corner.
Third-Person Can Diminish The Effectiveness of Scares
Having the camera cover more space detracts players greatly from the overall experience. Scares will be seen more easily since players have a good view from behind Ethan's back. The third-person camera also makes players feel more in control of the situation, as the wider field of view allows them to easily adjust to the appearance of dangers. To give an example, Resident Evil Village has an infamous field with head-high foliage that will be much easier to pass through thanks to players' newfound ability to see over it. Fighting Lycans in this area, as well as the village proper, will be much more manageable thanks to the increased peripheral vision a third-person camera provides.
Immersion also takes a hit in more ways than one. The aforementioned injuries that Ethan accumulates throughout his journey make players wince because they look like they are happening to the players themselves. By switching to a third-person perspective, the injuries will look like they are happening to someone else entirely, and threats seem much smaller since they have to be fit into a wider angle. The reason Alcina Dimitrescu looks much bigger than the Tyrant in Resident Evil 2 isn't just due to her height, but because she fills more of the screen in Resident Evil Village's first-person mode than the Tyrant does in a third-person camera.
Capcom isn't removing the first-person camera that made Resident Evil Village so immersive, but the game clearly wasn't made with a third-person camera in mind. Players who are going into the game for the first time should definitely start by playing Resident Evil Village using the classic first-person camera before switching to a wider third-person view for the novel experience. This way, the sense of dread will still be fresh in the players' minds while they explore the world from a new point of view.
Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition will release on October 28, 2022, for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.