There’s no doubt that Resident Evil 7 was a great success upon its 2017 release. Unlike the previous few installments to the iconic franchise, RE7 brought the series’ gameplay back to its suspenseful horror roots.
That doesn’t mean the game was perfect, however.
Fortunately though, based on recent gameplay footage of RE7’s successor, Resident Evil Village, Capcom has learned from their mistakes, by fixing one of the previous game’s biggest problems.
Where RE7 failed was with the design of the enemies. Sure, the bosses were fantastic, but when it came to the grunts of the game, the more common enemy types players faced up against, the lack of creativity and originality was very apparent. These enemies, zombie-like fungal humanoids known as “The Molded,” all looked about the same. Aesthetically, we’re nothing special to look at. As the game went on, they became less and less imposing, which is exactly opposite what Capcom was going for.
While early trailers of Resident Evil Village showed that, again, the franchise would be introducing a fantastic new set of boss characters in the form of Lady Dimitescu and her daughters, for a time, it was looking as though this lastest installment was doomed to make the same mistake as its predecessor.
The first several trailers for the game showed lycans to be the primary enemy type players will run up against in the game. While at first, they seem quite scary, subsequent gameplay reveals showed the lycans to be numerous clones of one another, with identical looks and mannerisms. This is exactly the sort of problem that made the Molded from RE7 so forgettable.
Sure, they’re scary at first. But if the whole game was made up of only these enemies, they would certainly become much less terrifying after several hours of gameplay.
Any fear that enemies of Village would be generic and forgettable have since been quashed, however.
More recently released trailers and gameplay footage showcases a much wider range of enemy types, from creepy hooded zombies wielding medieval weapons to large flying gargoyles who attack from above.
Providing players with great bosses to fight isn’t enough for any self-respecting game. Over the course of the dozens of hours, it takes to beat a game, players need to face up against a varying host of enemies that continue to keep said players on their toes. Otherwise, gameplay can become stale, boring, and in the case of horror games, much less terrifying.
However, when a game mixes things up a bit and gives players a wide variety. of monsters and evil beings to face off with, as it appears Village will do, then the underlying sense of dread and anxiety of the horror is preserved.