Resident Evil Village Producer Explains Why Ethan Winters Returned

Resident Evil Village is the eighth mainline entry in the storied horror series, and will be hitting two generation of consoles come this May. The game is unique for a few reasons, and I’m not just talking about the very tall vampire lady. The game will be a direct continuation of the plot of Resident Evil 7 and see the return of Ethan Winters and his wife, Mia. Producer Peter Fabiano breaks down why that is.

Why the franchise is known for introducing a lot of characters, it’s not known for keeping them around. In fact, Ethan’s return will be the first time in the series where a new playable character was introduced and then returned in a direct consecutive sequel, not to mention the first time that a newly introduced protagonist after the first two games has made another appearance in a new game. Up until this point, only protagonists from the original two games returned, and would often do so with one-off new characters.

According to Fabiano in the latest issue of PlayStation Official Magazine (March 2021, issue 185), it really was a simple thing of the crew really taking a liking to Ethan as they ended development on RE7, and wanting to see his arc continue on. While there have been many character introduced via the RE canon, he was also the first one in a long time where he was the main focus and not a side character to one of the iconic cast. No doubt the massive success of RE7 didn’t hurt either, leading into a sequel they hope to be bigger and better.

“Concepting and planning was something going through our developers’ minds since towards the end of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. The team grew quite attached to Ethan as a character so we knew we wanted to continue his story arc. We wanted to continue to have players experience the game through the eyes of protagonist Ethan Winters. This is a continuation of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard after all.

“This really helped to keep our vision on target. And since we are constantly sharing information across Resident Evil teams, that really helped inform us in making what we consider the best survival horror game to date.”

Resident Evil Village will release May 7th for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC.