Resident Evil Village has arrived and while the various demos over the last few weeks gave us a chance to sample the technology, we’ve now played through the entire game and have had a chance to fully process it. As a sequel to Resident Evil 7, this game retains the first-person perspective but with some key improvements. It’s also a remarkable showcase for the excellent RE Engine, with image quality, performance and ray tracing enhancements for the next generation of consoles combined with a dramatic boost in scale and scene complexity across the board.
This is what stands out the most to my eye – every scene feels carefully pieced together in a beautiful marriage of art and technology. Yes, the RE Engine powers the game but it’s the art team within Capcom that really steals the show. All areas are carefully crafted with an eye towards overall scene composition above all else. In exterior scenes, the distant background lends the world a sense of scale, mid-field objects are placed in a way to connect the background to the foreground and that foreground is packed with fine detail.
There’s also the sense that every surface is bespoke, with a huge variety in texture detail. Capcom’s latest does a great job of delivering both an exceptional sense of scale but also near-field detail. Every angle of every frame feels fully considered which is quite a feat given the first-person, exploratory nature of the game. The only catch? Actual texture detail at close-up range can disappoint, but juxtaposed against RE7, I still feel there’s a significant improvement overall. As a first-person game then, another key element is body awareness – essentially, how well the camera and virtual body work in tandem. If the act of moving and shooting feels poor, the illusion can fall apart. In that sense, I feel Capcom has done an excellent job – from the gentle bobbing of the camera to swaying of your pistol, basic movement looks and feels excellent. Look down and you’ll see your feet: the player shadow is projected from this model which you control. It’s especially effective when standing within an area that’s lit volumetrically.
Speaking of which, lighting in general is used exceptionally well. Outdoors, Capcom uses volumetric fog and lighting to great effect while indoors, a mix of direct and indirect lighting sets the mood. The way light spills in through windows, gently lighting the room is very effective. The mix of volumetrics, subtle indirect lighting and physically-based materials are absolutely critical to achieving a realistic, natural appearance, especially during the game’s signature overcast, gloomy moments. Once you start playing in this space, however, there are some mixed results to note. Ambient animation is used for things like trees, which sway gently in the breeze, torches and streams of water but the interactivity is generally kept to a minimum. That is, most of the breakable objects are designated as interactive items but if you just walk along unloading on random barrels or pottery, most of the time, they won’t react in any meaningful way. So, in that sense, the game world can feel a little static – par for the course with this series, but worth noting.