RESIDENT EVIL: VILLAGE

GAME

OUT NOW | PC, PS4/5, XBOX ONE/SERIES, STADIA

Talk about a cold open. Shifting from the sweaty Louisiana bayous of Resident Evil 7, Capcom pitches hapless protagonist Ethan Winters into a snowbound Eastern-European hamlet. Then it immediately turns up the heat, as he’s attacked by a group of snarling lycans, one chewing off two of his fingers as he escapes from the ravening pack.

If its predecessor was in thrall to The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Village draws from the series’ own history: this frantic set-piece is effectively a first-person Resident Evil 4. But it’s not long before this restless 10hour adventure changes tack.

It’s effectively an anthology of fear, representing different brands of horror. First, there’s a Gothic castle, in which Winters is stalked by the statuesque vampire Lady Dimitrescu and her three blood-hungry daughters. The game turns into a creature feature later on, before taking a trip to a factory for experimental killing machines.

But the standout is a mansion filled with blank-eyed dolls, in which your guns are confiscated. After an excruciating slow build, you’re led to anticipate an attack from a puppet army. Yet after a hair-raising Ringu homage, Winters finds himself cowering from a manifestation of his parental anxieties. Clumsy plotting and hackneyed action spoil the final act, but the chill of House Beneviento lingers. Chris Schilling