Resident Evil Village Review: Is Resident an open-world game? Is it scary?

Resident Evil Village 3rd Trailer

Resident Evil Village is a 2021 survival horror game developed and published by Capcom. It is the sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017). Players control Ethan Winters, who searches for his kidnapped daughter in a village filled with mutant creatures. Village maintains survival horror elements from previous Resident Evil games, with players scavenging environments for items and managing resources. However, it adds more action-oriented gameplay, with higher enemy counts and a greater emphasis on combat. We Have a review of it in resident evil village walkthrough.

Is Resident Evil Village an open-world game?

While Resident Evil Village isn’t a true open-world game, it does include locations you can roam freely. The central hub village is the game’s main open area, linking together major environments and optional side quests. However, with the exception of secrets and side paths, the game is mostly linear.

Resident Evil Village may be the closest we’ve gotten to an open-world Resident Evil game, but that’s not to say you’re free to wander wherever you like. It’s true that the central village is open to exploration, but it’s a far cry from the sprawling worlds you’d find in games like The Witcher 3 or Breath of the Wild. Instead, the village mainly serves to funnel players toward specific areas.

In other words, Village is more of a semi-open-world game. You can choose the locations you want to visit, and you will find various hidden nooks, crannies, and secrets. Still, the in-game progression is largely linear.

This is especially true when it comes to working through the story. Ethan returns the hub village several times throughout the campaign, but once certain bosses get taken down, their environments become inaccessible. Castle Dimitrescu, House Beneviento, Moreau’s Reservoir, and Heisenberg’s Factory all get locked off once their big baddies have been defeated.

In short, while you can explore parts of Resident Evil Village freely, it’s not a true open-world game. If anything it’s semi-open, since there are a few places to roam and secrets to uncover. Otherwise, it’s mostly linear, especially considering you’ll eventually be barred from accessing major locations.

Is Resident Evil Village scary?

In comparison to past titles of the legendary horror series, Resident Evil Village dimitrescu lacks a critical element – it isn’t very scary. That isn’t to say that the game is without its scares. But when stood up against its predecessor Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, a game many considered to be a return to form for the survival horror series, Resident Evil Village is definitely more forgiving on the senses and instead takes a much more action-centric approach to proceedings.

Set three years after the events of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Ethan and Mia Winters have been relocated to an undisclosed country in Eastern Europe by Chris Redfield and the reformed Umbrella Corporation. Despite having an infant daughter named Rosemary and a new lease on life, Ethan and Mia are still haunted by the horrors they endured in the Baker House and are struggling to come to terms with it. Just minutes into the game, all hell breaks loose as Redfield and his task force invade the Winters’ home and seemingly kill Mia before kidnapping Rosemary and knocking Ethan out. Redfield’s team are in the process of transporting Ethan and Rosemary before their truck is attacked and its drivers killed.

It is then that the player resumes control of Ethan and happens upon a remote and mysterious village overseen by the enigmatic Mother Miranda and her four “children,” supernatural mutant underbosses referred to as the “Four Lords” who include Alcina Dimitrescu, Karl Heisenberg, Salvatore Moreau, and Donna Beneviento. Instead of Resident Evil’s trademark reanimated zombies or Biohazard’s Molded, the player encounters a more Gothic theme of enemy types ranging from lycans to ridiculously tall vampire ladies at the various different locations in the village.

How long does it take to complete Resident Evil Village?

There’s actually quite a wide range of completion times to Resident Evil Village. So how long it takes to complete Resident Evil Village depends on how you’re going to approach the game. If you’re going for 100% and want to see every area, complete all the puzzles and find all the treasures, weapons and upgrades then you’re probably looking at 12-13 hours. Our first run through the game for review involved a lot of backtracking and exploring, and saw most of the map completed, and came in at 13 hours 20 minutes. Depending on how completionist you are, around 10 hours plus seems an average run time. But it could be a lot faster. For example, we know one person who played solely focused on story progression and who completed the game in six hours.

That will miss out a lot of the side content like treasures, extra weapons and so on. It’s worth noting as well that the game itself has an award for finishing in under three hours. Although that will be impossible without some of the extra weapons and cheats like unlimited ammo you can unlock after completing the game. With the right gun and and endless supply of bullets you can rinse through enemies and the campaign in no time at all.

So there you go, that’s how long it will take to complete Resident Evil Village. The total playing time for most people will likely average around a little over 10 hours. But you can expect that to go a few hours either way depending on how much or little time you spend doing extra stuff.

How to Unlock Mercenaries Mode In Resident Evil Village

Mercenaries mode can’t be unlocked in Resident Evil Village until after you have completed the campaign. It is purchasable alongside a selection of other unlockables such as additional weapons, figurines, concept arts, and even cheats that can make subsequent playthroughs of the campaign a walk in the park. Once the story is over and you’ve returned to the main menu, head right on over to the Bonuses section and Extra Content Shop.

Here you will find Mercenaries for sale, simply purchase it with points earned from the campaign and you will be able to jump into the thick of things right away. However, you should also be aware that this optional mode won’t appear in the main menu. For some reason, it instead appears alongside other unlockables such as concept art and behind-the-scenes featurettes. This is fine, but it can throw you off guard somewhat given it’s a rather substantial part of the overall game.

To begin with, Mercenaries will only have a single stage unlocked, and you will need to achieve certain ranks in each subsequent mission to unlock the next stage. Village isn’t willing to give you everything without a little work, so you’ll need to master every stage before moving onto the next. We’ll have some guides on those soon, so keep an eye out for them!

How to survive the attack in Resident Evil Village

Grab the shotgun, and use the house

Head into the house and you’ll find a shotgun on the table inside, which will give you a firepower boost as long as your ammo lasts. There’s also some handgun ammo, gunpowder and a herb in there. This house is also a handy way to bottleneck enemies – you can hide in the porch and deal with them one at a time to last longer. Or, if you want to stay more mobile, there’s a ladder in a back room you can use to get out under the floor – gather the lycans in the house, then leave through the hole in the floor where they can’t follow to buy some time.

User the barrel to take a few enemies out

If you can get here on the map you’ll find a red barrel that will explode when you shoot it. If you can cluster enemies up around it you can take a bunch out. The risk being that you’re backing yourself into a corner. However the blast will knock most nearby lycans over, even if it doesn’t kill them, so you’ll have a window to escape with.

Basically, hang tight, try not to get killed and being able to survive the attack in Resident Evil Village is basically a case of waiting it out. When the bell rings and the bad things go away you’ll be free to carry on with the rest of the game.

What is the scariest thing in Resident Evil Village?

House Beneviento, the scariest level in Resident Evil Village, works because it knows that running and hiding aren’t fun for a whole game.

Is Resident Evil Village as scary as 7?

Both are classified as horror games, but both take different approaches to it. Resident Evil 7 follows the series’ earlier days more closely, while Resident Evil Village leans more towards the later games. Both games create atmospheres thick with horror tension and both even deliver genuine scares from time to time.

Is Resident Evil Village inappropriate?

Parents need to know that this game includes lots of blood and Gore when shooting the werewolves and zombies. They can be dismembered and decapitated from a first person perspective if you shoot them in the right place. Also, there is some swearing.

Are there any Jumpscares in Resident Evil Village?

Jumpscares appear rather seldom in Resident Evil Village, mainly when exploring locations with dolls. However, there are far fewer of them than in Resident Evil 7, which tried to scare the player from the first minutes of the campaign, among others in the scenes with Mia and the Baker family members.