Capcom finally showcased Resident Evil Village‘s long-awaited “Shadows of Rose” DLC, and an early look at one of that expansion’s horrifying new enemies already has some fans wishing Capcom had kept the new content under wraps for a little while longer.
For those who don’t know, Shadows of Rose picks up about 16 years after the main events of Resident Evil Village‘s campaign. It stars an older version of Rose Winters (who looks about the same as she did during Village‘s epilogue) on her journey into the terrifying realm of the Megamycete. In an interesting twist, Rose enters that realm equipped with only a handgun, a pocket full of ammo, and a few healing items. While Rose also happens to be able to utilize some of those devastating telekinetic-like abilities that were hinted at in Village, it still seems that Shadows of Rose will emphasize the “survival” part of the survival horror equation.
The Shadows of Rose DLC will launch on October 28th along with the rest of the content included in Village‘s Winters’ Expansion DLC package. If you just can’t wait until then, I highly recommend checking out this trailer for that DLC package that dropped during Tokyo Game Show.
Now, around the 1:20 mark of the trailer above, you may have noticed a terrifying new enemy that appears to be trying to drink Rose’s skin off of her face. As it turns out, that lovely fellow is called a Face Eater, and that is indeed exactly what he is trying to do.
“[The Face Eater] is a dangerous creature that lurks in the Realm of Consciousness, and can steal the life from other living beings,” says Capcom producer Tsuyoshi Kanda in a new PlayStation Blog post. “Once one captures Rose, she’ll take a significant amount of damage, so do everything you can to avoid them!”
Interestingly, Kanda also mentions that the DLC is filled with numerous “monstrosities” that can only be taken down through precision aiming, proper resource management, and the effective use of Rose’s special abilities. Given what we know about the Realm of Consciousness and the Megamycete, it makes sense that Rose will bump up against some nightmarish new creations during her time there.
However, those Face Eaters really do seem to be the stars of this particular show. We’ll have to wait and see how they operate in-game, but the brief glimpse of them we see in the trailer suggests that they are so much more than bullet sponges. Indeed, Rose barely has time to squeeze off a few shots before the Face Eater seen in the trailer breaks down a door, grabs hold of her, and starts doing the one thing that it seemingly does best.
In a strange way, I for one welcome our new Face Eater overlords. As much as I enjoyed Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village, I found those games’ basic monsters to be a bit lacking. Some of them are more memorable than others, but none of them really grabbed me (so to speak) in the same way that previous Resident Evil monsters like Crimson Heads and Lickers have. That particular era of memorable RE monsters just seemed to be behind us.
Now, though, it seems like Capcom might be interested in giving a little more love to more than just the stalker boss characters that have come to define more modern Resident Evil games. Even if the Face Eaters don’t become the new Necromorphs (the gold standard for spooky common horror game enemies), it’s nice to see the RE team highlight a foe that isn’t a giant vampire thirst trap.
With any luck, future Resident Evil games may even feature a wider array of nightmarish creatures that cause panic and confusion at the mere sight of them. That is, after all, what the best video game monsters are supposed to do.