There are a lot of Resident Evil games, and with that comes a lot of history, lore, and absolutely bonkers science-fiction. Fortunately, Capcom has spent the last few years making digesting the series a bit easier, creating remakes of both the second and third entries in the series as well as giving new players a great entry point into the series with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Even more fortunately, everything you might need to know before going into Resident Evil Village, the newest game in the series, you can learn from these games and this helpful explainer, of course. As a heads up, this article will include spoilers for the previous games, particularly Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. However, if you’ve already played it, or are simply just eager to jump into Village, here’s a refresher.
First things first, it’s important to know Resident Evil 7: Biohazard marked a significant shift in the series by changing perspective in two different ways. Not only is Biohazard is the first first-person Resident Evil game, which significantly increased the “scary” factor of the series and reduced the action-adventure elements, it’s the first one where you play as a pretty normal guy — Ethan Winters.
Ethan Winters is the protagonist of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and returns to the series in Village. Prior to 2014, Ethan lived a normal life with his wife, Mia. However, in 2014, Mia left of a business trip, got stranded in a hurricane, and was presumably lost at sea. In 2017, Ethan received an alarming email from Mia simply asking him to pick her up from the Baker ranch in Dulvey Parish, Louisiana. Naturally, Ethan set off at once, so eager he didn’t even think to inform the authorities his wife had returned from the grave. If he had, he would have been informed the area was being heavily investigated after several missing persons reports.
Once Ethan gets to the ranch and enters the nightmarish liar of the Baker family, he learns quite a bit about his wife Mia. It turns out, Mia lied to Ethan about her career and has been working as a researcher for The Connections, a crime syndicate specializing in bio-weaponry, and it gets worse: thanks to her team, an E-type bio-weapon known as Eveline is on the loose. While Eveline takes on the form of a ten-year old girl, she has supernatural abilities that allow her to create fatal mold and control people she comes into physical contact with.
While Eveline was kept stable under Mia’s care for some time, the violent hurricane caused her to snap and rebel against everyone except Mia, who she had begun to love like a mother. While she kills several of the crew members on board, Eveline merely injects Mia with mold, in hopes of preserving her life and forcing Mia to be her to act as her mother. When the pair are knocked off the ship and wash ashore at the Baker family ranch, Eveline comes to before Mia can warn the family of her gifts, and takes control over everyone at the ranch other than the Baker family’s daughter, Zoe, who is immune to her mind control and but remains trapped with her twisted family.
A lot happens over the course of Biohazard, but what’s important to know is that Ethan and his wife are ultimately rescued by Chris Redfield, one of Resident Evil’s most iconic characters. Around since the series beginning, Chris is one of the main protagonists of the first Resident Evil game, the older brother to Resident Evil 2‘s Claire, and is currently working for the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance. However, while Chris has always been a “good guy,” all of that is called into question in the Resident Evil Village trailer.
Resident Evil Village takes place four years after the events of Biohazard, and Ethan and Mia are now new parents to a daughter named Rose. However, the two seemingly cannot escape their past and are once again dragged into quite the horror show, but this time the horror starts with none other than Chris, who allegedly murders Mia and kidnaps Rose. In Resident Evil Village, Ethan sets off on a quest for his daughter and the truth, and the great news is you can join him and see what happens next today.
Resident Evil Village is available now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, Google Stadia, and PC.