Resident Evil VIII gets May release date, massive preview, playable demo

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  • We’re suckers for classic leading women in giant hats. Unclear amounts of evil are just a bonus. Welcome to the new face of fear in Resident Evil VIII, coming May 7 to PC and consoles.
  • An all-woman, all-spooky posse haunts and hounds you in Resident Evil VIII‘s spooky mansion.
  • Towering over you once you’ve been knocked to the ground. She doesn’t seem to mean well.
  • First-person exploration and combat once again rule the day, much like in RE7.
  • Hmm, too far away.
  • OK, you’re closer, but it’s still too dark to get a clear look!
  • That’s clearer, but not necessarily better.
  • As Ethan, you and your partner from the last RE game contend with your child being lost to a mysterious village.
  • Sure looks like other classic-series mansions at first glance, doesn’t it? Albeit a bit more gilded.
  • “Hi, yes, we have your baby, lulz.”
  • Making our way through the village to the mansion.
  • Underground catacombs seemingly near this mansion.
  • Take a load off. As in, a load of your butt’s skin.
  • In-game screen of a terrifying new monster.
  • Capcom provided this clearer image of the hammer-wielding baddie, but it’s unclear how much this will resemble final gameplay.
  • Speaking of next-gen power: This real-time reflection may hint to ray-tracing effects coming to PS5 or at least a really nice implementation of screen-space reflections and cube maps to fake the effect.
  • A familiar face?
  • Oh, good, inventory management. Ugh.
  • A slightly new crafting interface in the game’s menus.
  • This gentleman, known as “The Duke,” will sell you items at a store throughout the mansion and its surrounding village.
  • Puzzles? In a Resident Evil game? Perish the thought.
  • Surprise: the new game’s demo will be live for PlayStation 5 owners today.

After receiving vague teases through last year, Resident Evil VIII: Village has finally emerged looking like a real game, thanks to a sweeping new gameplay reveal video that went live on Thursday. Its immediate resemblance to Resident Evil VII, which we granted a rare Ars Approved award to in 2017, has us quite excited—though things have clearly advanced for the series in four years.

First off, we now have confirmation that this sequel once again puts RE players into a first-person perspective and that it follows the direct chronology of RE7. The footage we’ve seen puts players in the shoes of Ethan Winters, RE7‘s protagonist, who is forced, once again, to find and explore a creepy mansion—though this one is far more palatial than the bayou-adjacent dump he previously explored. While searching for a missing family member, Ethan must contend with a new “family” of sorts: a mysterious, tall, and gorgeously attired matriarch, and her shapeshifting accomplices who seem to turn into waves of locusts and bleed through walls.

Though RE8‘s YouTube reveal is capped at 30 fps as of press time, Capcom sent us footage of the game running at 60 fps—presumably on PlayStation 5, the console that was shouted most loudly through the gameplay reveal presentation. RE8 will launch on May 7 on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. All platforms will eventually receive a free-download version of its playable demo, named “Maiden,” but only PlayStation 5 owners have gotten a release date for said demo: Today.

The above gallery offers the clearest hints yet that RE8 will play much like RE7, with a combination of creeping dread, conversational sequences, puzzle-solving, and first-person gunplay and combat. New this time is an emphasis on “blocking” attacks (though, if you ask me, I’ll stick to my usual zombie-survival strategy of running the hell away) and accessing an in-game shop. The gallery also includes a few hints to next-gen graphical flourishes, particularly a reflective pool that may very well see the series employ its first-ever ray-tracing effects. We’ve yet to see the game’s 60 fps reveal appear on YouTube just yet, so in the meantime, we’re embedding the 30 fps footage below:

Resident Evil VIII gameplay reveal.

This reveal also includes footage of a new multiplayer mode coming with RE8 in May, dubbed Resident Evil Re:Verse—which appears to offer deathmatch gameplay with characters spanning multiple series entries, along with transformations from humans to zombies after characters die in a match. How exactly that gameplay will work remains to be seen, though Re:Verse will receive a closed beta test in the very near future.

Listing image by Capcom

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1736667