One of 2021's biggest games was Resident Evil: Village, the long-anticipated follow-up to 2017's Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, a game that reinvented the beloved survival horror franchise as a tense, first-person, VR compatible modern title. Biohazard introduced many new elements to the franchise such as new protagonist Ethan and his wife Mia, the aforementioned first-person perspective, and a return to the survival horror roots of the franchise that Resident Evil: Village built upon to find major success in 2021.
One element that fans loved about Resident Evil 7 was Capcom's dedicated support to the title with brand-new DLC content for months after its original release, eventually concluding in the releases of the Not a Hero and End of ZOE DLC packs at the end of 2017, ending a full year of consistent DLC support for the game which had launched in January of the same year. During an E3 2021 broadcast a month after Village's release, Capcom confirmed that Resident Evil: Village would receive the same DLC treatment as its predecessor. There's just one issue, though: after almost a year since Village's release, there has been no update regarding the game's DLC content.
The Development of Resident Evil: Village's DLC
Capcom revealed shortly before the release of Resident Evil: Village that the developer had not created the game with the intention of supporting it with post-launch content, unlike its predecessor Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. This means that any Resident Evil: Village DLC content created following the game's release would not only have to be developed from scratch, but given the standalone nature of the game's storyline, it would also need to be conceptualized from scratch, too.
While this is a dramatic change from the development pipeline of Resident Evil 7's DLC, other studios have managed to create DLC for certain games from scratch following their release. Assassin's Creed Valhalla just received a major DLC expansion over a year from launch, for example. The difference here is that this DLC takes a lot of time to create, as developers are forced to dive back into the original work and find areas in which the storyline can split off for standalone content. This wasn't an issue with RE7, which was written with this type of content in mind, but Village is a different story, as it features a very definitive ending for many of its most important characters.
This is likely the biggest factor into why Resident Evil: Village's DLC has yet to release. Development has likely taken a lot longer than Capcom intended due to a small section of the game's development team needing to build the extra content from scratch. It's still somewhat surprising that no information has come since las June, however, as Capcom has had many opportunities to at least tease the DLC in some form or another. Perhaps it could be waiting for a quick roll-out closer to the game's 1-year anniversary, which is set to come this May.
What Could Resident Evil: Village's DLC Be About?
One possibility for why Capcom has been so silent regarding Resident Evil: Village's DLC that's hard to ignore is that development on the extra content could have grown bigger than the studio was intending. This has happened in the past with titles such as Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, which was intended to be a simple DLC add-on to Uncharted 4: A Thief's End but ended up becoming its own shorter installment in the main series. It would be unfair to expect this, however, as this is not what Capcom promised last June.
Despite this, nothing is known about what Village's DLC content will actually be about. Many fans have had theories that it could feature events not seen in the main game, or even set up the events of Resident Evil 9. One fan-favorite theory is that the DLC will tell the backstories of the four lords, Lady Dimitrescu, Karl Heisenberg, Donna Beneviento, Moreau, and maybe even Mother Miranda. Others have theorized that it could revolve around beloved recurring Resident Evil character Ada Wong, who was revealed to have been cut from the main game via some concept art. All of these are promising ideas that help keep excitement alive for this mysterious DLC content.
It's still difficult to tell what the status of Resident Evil: Village's DLC is. Development is likely progressing smoothly, but fans still have no idea what to expect or when to expect it. A safe bet would be somewhere around the game's first anniversary during May, though Capcom has been making a lot of appearances at PlayStation events, with Village itself being announced at a Sony event during 2020. These are the two times fans can expect to see Resident Evil: Village's DLC appear in the coming months.
Resident Evil: Village is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.