Resident Evil Village’s Third Person Mode “Took as Much Effort as Creating a New Game”

Resident Evil Village will conclude the Winters family saga with its upcoming Shadows of Rose story DLC, but while the new chapter is likely to be the star of the show where the upcoming Winters’ Expansion is concerned, there are other things to look forward to as well. The new third person mode for the base game, for instance, is looking like an exciting addition- and according to Capcom, developing it took about as much effort as developing a new game would have.

Speaking in an interview with IGN, producer Masachika Kawata revealed the same, while director Kento Kinoshita explained that given the greater number of player actions available in Resident Evil Village as compared to third person titles like the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes, making all the animations work in a third person perspective was a complicated process.

“That took about as much effort as creating a new game,” Kawata said. “Even the same game can be a very different experience when played in third-person.”

“You know, we felt we had to make something as good or better than RE2 and RE3,” Kinoshita said. “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.”

Of course, one would imagine that there’s some level of exaggeration there, but there’s no doubt that making a game that was developed as a first person experience work just as well in a third person perspective would have been a tricky process.

Resident Evil Village – Winters’ Expansion will launch for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia on October 28.