Highlights
- Resident Evil Village's DLC, Shadows of Rose, takes the franchise in a new direction by introducing superpowers to gameplay.
- The abilities of Rose, the protagonist of the DLC, were implemented in a way that preserved survival-horror mechanics and resource management.
- While the idea of superpowered protagonists in future Resident Evil games is intriguing, it could potentially alienate some of the fanbase and compromise the series' emphasis on horror and firearms.
Resident Evil has never been afraid to rustle feathers in terms of its existing fanbase and what they’ve come to expect from the franchise. Each new genre-bending direction has had fans adore it or dislike it for whatever reasons they had, for example, but there has never been a wholly maligned genre choice for Resident Evil. Of course, the series has its roots in horror and a return to it was favorable for Resident Evil’s modern entries, but if Resident Evil Village’s Shadows of Rose DLC is a taste of what’s to come, then the franchise may never be quite the same.
Indeed, Shadows of Rose is still supposed to have only been a bookend for the Winters family’s saga. Leaping ahead a great distance in time to portray Rosemary as a teenager allowed her to meet her father, Ethan, and receive a kind of closure that fans also deserved. It is no more clear if this time jump is expected to be maintained in the present day of Resident Evil 9, but it would seem wasteful if Capcom designed Rose’s abilities in gameplay if the next game featured a powerless protagonist. Still, a superpowered protagonist is not something the franchise should lean on.
Resident Evil Would Be Branching into Odd Territory with Superpowered Protagonists
It’s not like it would be absolutely absurd, but creating a trend of superpowered protagonists following Rose’s debut would mean the franchise is headed in a completely new direction. The abilities Rose possessed were introduced in a fascinating way because they remained faithful to resource management mechanics and were not overpowered in the beginning, which meant it didn’t need to sacrifice its survival-horror gameplay approach.
Nonetheless, Rose could interact with the world in a way that no Resident Evil protagonist has been able to thus far, and letting a new protagonist in Resident Evil 9 have their own abilities might be too intriguing of an opportunity to decline for Capcom as a result. It is unclear how much longer Capcom wishes to perpetuate the Mold as a source of bioweapons in the future, but that would likely be where any other protagonists such as Rose would get their powers, too.
However, Resident Evil runs the risk of alienating too much of its fanbase if it decides to dive headlong into superpowered encounters, especially if they forgo survival-horror mechanics and create full-blown spectacle set pieces instead. Many fans may actually hope the series is headed in that direction, though, and it is now a real possibility. It might even be more agreeable to have a superpowered protagonist for Resident Evil 9 as opposed to rehashing one of the franchise’s legacy characters again, but it all comes down to how it would be structured and what the context of the installment itself might be.
Either way, Capcom would have to know that the fanbase it’s rebuilt with Resident Evil remakes and an emphasis on horror would likely be taken aback by a transition into superpowers rather than firearms. Shadows of Rose implemented Rose’s abilities well considering the context of the realm she was in and also helped tether her to her father in an emotional way, but future stories would need to be on par with this DLC chapter if superpowers were now going to become a common element for the survival-horror franchise.
It would be all too easy to make superpowers overpowered by replacing most weapons with them, but Shadows of Rose did also demonstrate that there are eerie, supernatural creatures that could be introduced as a byproduct of them, and that’s as compelling a reason to hold onto powers as any. That said, it is always neat when Resident Evil can explain the nature of enemies players go toe-to-toe with, and superpowers may muddy that water.
Resident Evil 9 is rumored to be in development.