Resident Evil Village ‘Open World’ Gameplay Confirmed

Last week Capcom gave us our first official look at Resident Evil Village (RE8) and, I must admit, it looked pretty fantastic. While it did confirm a lot of speculation surrounding the game, however, there are still more than a few questions that it left unanswered. Not, incidentally, that I’m complaining. As much as I generally dislike scary games, at the same time, I don’t want to go into it knowing what to expect behind every corner and closed door! – Following an update to the Steam listing for Resident Evil Village, however, something rather unusual has managed to twig the attention of a lot of people. Namely, that following an update directly made by Capcom, the game now has the ‘open-world’ tag attached to it.

Resident Evil Village

Now, admittedly, the term ‘open-world’ is highly subjective and may reference the overall ethos of the environments presented. Looking at this more positively, however, it could be interpreted that Resident Evil Village will not have a linear storyline. As such, you will pick different paths, locations, and choices resulting in some very different endings.

It’s certainly a nice thought and something that would undoubtedly be welcomed by many as, generally speaking. At the same time, the Resident Evil franchise has offered ‘alternative’ playthroughs (such as Claire/Leon A/B) it has never (outright) gone as far as really exploring the potential of giving people different endings depending on their actions (or inactions).

What Do We Think?

One theory surrounding the ‘open-world’ tag is that while the gameplay will essentially remain structured by a linear story (with set locations for progression), Capcom is keen (not dissimilar to Dark Souls) in attempting to get people to explore many relatively unimportant areas of the castle and surrounding areas with the word “Metroidvania” apparently being used in-house to describe the kind of ‘open-world’ approach they’re going for.

With Resident Evil Village set to release on the 7th of May, however, whatever this may mean, we, fortunately, don’t have too much longer to wait before we can find out for ourselves!

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!