WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Resident Evil Village, available now.
While Resident Evil Village incorporates more action elements than its immediate predecessor Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, the video game still doesn’t skimp out on the scares as returning protagonist Ethan Winters explores a foreboding Eastern European village in search for his kidnapped daughter Rosemary. And in what is easily the most terrifying sequence in the entire game, Ethan finds himself trapped in a manor filled with killer dolls and a monstrous infant that will consume everything in its path. Especially harrowing from the game’s first-person perspective, the concept of players facing murderous dolls was originally planned for a much earlier Resident Evil game: 2005’s Resident Evil 4.
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Resident Evil 4 went through several different iterations during its development cycle before ultimately settling on the enormously successful version that was eventually released for the Nintendo GameCube. Officially entering in development in 2001, Resident Evil 4 originally featured Leon S. Kennedy infected with the Progenitor virus while investigating a European castle. In a departure from the franchise’s established formula at that time, Leon was combatting decidedly more supernatural enemies rather than T-Virus spawned zombies and monsters, including haunted suits of armor and a ghost armed with a large hook. One of the more disturbing sequences in this version of the game, with gameplay footage seen at Capcom’s 2003 E3 presentation, had Leon enter a room filled with baby dolls armed with knives, forced to fend for his life.
Ultimately, Capcom decided to completely change the gameplay engine for Resident Evil 4 to keep the franchise from growing stale and predictable. Some elements would resurface in Resident Evil 5‘s DLC expansion “Lost in Nightmares,” albeit starring original franchise protagonists Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine rather than Leon, who was absent from Resident Evil 5 entirely. Elements of the Progenitor Virus storyline were recycled as Chris and Jill investigated a mansion belonging to Umbrella Corporation co-founder Oswell E. Spencer, detailing when Jill went missing and presumed dead ahead of Resident Evil 5‘s main story; this expansion did not feature killer dolls or the more explicitly supernatural elements.
Resident Evil Village has Ethan search House Beneviento for a flask containing a part of his dismembered daughter, with the house belonging to Donna Beneviento and her ever-present puppet Angie. After an especially nightmarish sequence that has Ethan pursued by a ravenous, infantile creature in the house’s basement, Ethan takes an elevator back to the mansion’s main level. With the house now filled with creepy dolls, Ethan has to find Angie and attack her was the dolls laugh at him. Should Ethan take too long to locate Angie, they will come to life and attack him en masse, brutally slashing and stabbing him not unlike the dolls originally slated to menace Ethan in a different European adventure.
Resident Evil Village is a game that embraces more of the franchise’s extensive history than Biohazard, with a special emphasis on Resident Evil 4. The killer doll sequence in House Beneviento goes even further, delving into the unrealized aspects of Resident Evil 4‘s development history and reimagining them for a new generation and creating one of the most truly terrifying moments in any major video game title in recent years to great effect. And while gamers have been focused on Lady Dimitrescu in the months leading up to release, the horrors of House Beneviento is the sequence that will really haunt players after completion.
Developed and published by Capcom, Resident Evil Village is available now for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC and Google Stadia.
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