The Resident Evil franchise has undergone quite a few evolutions in the decades since the first game launched in 1996. After Resident Evil: Biohazard brought the franchise back to its survival horror roots, the first demo for Resident Evil: Village brings in a very welcome breath of fresh gothic air. You'll still scream in fear, but now you'll face lycans, as long as you were able to navigate the impossibly complicated demo playtime hours. Spoilers ahead.
While the first demo, titled "Maiden," was more of a visual showcase for how the newest Resident Evil could perform on next-generation consoles, last weekend's actual demo gave us our first proper look at the gameplay and story of Village. Though you could only play for a maximum of 30 minutes, I got just enough of a taste to know that I'm still very much sold on this game. Once again you play Ethan Winters, the protagonist of Biohazard, and he's now too old for this shit, as he seemingly likes to remind the player every couple of minutes. Rather than a silent protagonist just reacting to things like last game, Ethan now comments on his surroundings constantly, has more interactions with suspicious NPCs who instantly pull guns on him, and doesn't stop complaining that his life is absolute hell — which, fair enough.
From the moment you boot up the demo — which can happen in the blink of an eye when played on the PS5 — it becomes immediately clear that this is still a Resident Evil game, despite some changes. The snowy, mountainous village Ethan finds himself in looks more Eastern European and gothic than other games in the franchise, but the rustic setting still gives the same creepy vibe as the Baker ranch in Biohazard. But then you see the Baba Yaga-looking creepy old woman with a skull for a cane topper who sings cultish prayers who feels instantly distinct from anything we've seen before in these games.
Then there's the addition of the werewolves. You only see them briefly in the criminally short demo, but they sure leave an impression. Like the velociraptors of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the lycans you encounter hide in the tall grass of a wheat field, stealthily stalking you while making just enough noise to make sure your hands are trembling as you approach. This is where Ethan's experience dealing with creepy, pseudo-supernatural monsters comes in. The combat doesn't feel like a huge improvement over Biohazard, not that it needed to. I got to try both a handgun and a shotgun in the demo, but you can also use mines to attack from a distance, and run away and barricade yourself with heavy objects if that's your style.
Village is yet another title that uses the PS5's DualSense controller's haptic feedback and adaptive triggers to great effect. The controller reacts to the type of environment you're walking on, just like each weapon gives you different levels of resistance when you use them — making it harder to pull the trigger of the shotgun made me think twice before deciding to use it, while going all trigger-happy with the handguns. Though the demo doesn't give you a look at the hunting mechanic, or the selling of items to The Duke, what little crafting I got to do felt intuitive and easy to do.
Now, the "Maiden" demo was all about showing off how great Village would look in the PS5, so it's a pleasant surprise to see that the first gameplay demo doesn't suddenly show an unpolished game or anything. The titular snowy and creepy village looks stunning, and the PS5 played the demo at a rock-solid 60FPS as long as you turn ray tracing off (I didn't see a huge visual improvement with the ray tracing on), otherwise, it stays in the high 50s. None of this means anything if the tall vampire lady doesn't move in smooth 60 FPS, of course, but it's a promising start.
Now, if there's one big downside to the demo is how little actual gameplay there is. Of the advertised 30 minutes, you spent more than half of it going from one cutscene to the next, and as good as those cutscenes look, it'd be even better to actually be able to move or interact with the world of Village.
We're getting closer to the release of Resident Evil: Village, and the first gameplay demo does a great job introducing players to the ways in which this game pushes the franchise forward in terms of character, story, and spooky supernatural creatures. If nothing else, it made me very excited to navigate the confusing gameplay times once again for this weekend's part 2!