Resident Evil Village’s extraordinary new third-person mode looks like an entirely new game – and it turns out it took a comparable amount of effort to create. Speaking with IGN Japan, producer Masachika Kawata revealed that incorporating the oft-requested feature took a lot more work than blending a couple of coloured herbs.
“That took about as much effort as creating a new game,” he exclaimed, when asked about the work involved with the new third-person perspective. “Even the same game can be a very different experience when played in third-person.” This is what we observed from the most recent trailer: yes, the locations and encounters are the same, but the new perspective completely transforms the experience.
For Capcom, the biggest challenge was ensuring Resident Evil Village compares favourably in third-person to instalments originally designed with the over-the-shoulder perspective in mind. “We felt we had to make something as good or better than Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3,” he sighed. “Compared to the previous games in the series, Resident Evil Village has an exceptionally large variety of player actions. You can guard, you can move while crouching, and there is a lot of examining objects. We made thorough adjustments to ensure that those unique animations would look completely connected, and that it would be playable at a good tempo.”
Thus far, the results look incredibly impressive – but we’re looking forward to getting our hands on the DualSense and trying it all out for ourselves.
In the same interview, Kawata also revealed that the Winters family storyline will end with third-person expansion Shadows of Rose, but it looks like Capcom is sending Ethan and his daughter out in style. And look, if you prefer first-person perspective, there’s still the PSVR2 port to look forward to.
