Resident Evil Village had to downsize Lady D for her playable debut, says director

When Resident Evil Village‘s Winter’s extension Launching on October 28, survival horror fans will have the opportunity to revisit the spooky Eastern European hamlet for a coda to Ethan Winter’s story as his daughter Rose. Capcom is also planning to release a major update for village‘s replayable Die Mercenaries mode, which puts players in control of villains like Lady Alcina Dimitrescu and Karl Heisenberg, as well as veteran Resident Evil hero Chris Redfield. This is much more varied than the current version of The Mercenaries, in which players can fight against the hordes of the village as old Whatshisface Ethan.

Polygon spoke recently resident Evil village Winter’s extension Game Director Kento Kinoshita, who answered some of our most pressing questions about updates to The Mercenaries and what players can expect when they step into Lady D’s footsteps later this month. Read on for our full email Q&A with Kinoshita.

Polygon: Can you explain your process of adapting characters like Lady Dimitrescu and Karl Heisenberg for The Mercenaries? Both seem quite different from the type of characters players controlled in previous versions of the mode.

Kento Kinoshita: First of all, we thought the new additions should be popular characters as fans would like to play. We ran into a few issues, but our development team’s enthusiasm and problem-solving made it possible to add three incredibly popular characters. When we adapted them for The Mercenaries, we made a conscious effort to give each one its own distinctive feel. Chris is a hybrid character that combines long-range attacks (guns) with melee (fists). Meanwhile, Heisenberg wields magnetic power to unleash melee attacks. Finally, Lady Dimitrescu uses her large stature to deliver devastating blows that feel immensely powerful.

Will players actually have a 9ft vantage point when playing as Lady D? Or has she “shrunk” to roughly match the size of other characters?

Lady Dimitrescu’s size brought many challenges during development, but in the end we were able to implement her with a huge stature, taller than any other character. The Mercenaries require the player to be able to easily control their character and to allow for this we have adjusted their height to be a little under 8 feet. At this height, the player just avoids hitting the ceiling.

How did the idea of ​​throwing furniture as an attack for Lady D come about?

When we thought about what actions we could give Lady Dimitrescu, we first went back and looked at everything she had done in the story campaign. Most of Dimitrescu’s behavior in human form is either pretty basic or wouldn’t feel great when it comes to performing those actions as a player, but there’s that one scene where she throws a whole vanity that leaves such a lasting impression leaves. This moment really stood out and looked like it would be so much fun to do. In the design proposal, instead of sweating over details like “Where did the furniture come from,” just the words “You can throw a vanity” caused a lot of laughter and excitement from the development team. We just focused on making it a fun and interesting attack.

From the fan reaction to Lady D, what elements did you want to incorporate into her looks and abilities in The Mercenaries?

I addressed this in one of the previous questions, but while we knew it would be difficult to implement such a large stature, we decided it was too important not to. Also, we were able to express her two sides – the calm, dignified side and the excited, troubled side – with the Thrill Gauge system. Her three daughters were also very well received by the fans, so we decided to include them in one of Lady Dimitrescu’s actions.

In The Mercenaries: Additional Orders trailer, Chris punches SIX enemies at once. Does Chris Redfield have superpowers? Can he secretly Hadouken?

Initially, Chris Redfield’s Strike had an attack radius that suited his visuals better, but we received a lot of feedback that the Strike would often miss enemies because of this. To make sure it feels good and to help you land every punch you know you should hit, we changed it to attack a large area in front of you! Chris is human, so he doesn’t have any special powers, but we’re talking about The Chris Who Punched a Boulder here. His fists are definitely capable enough. Additionally, we gave each character their own unique abilities. We’ve included a wide range, including abilities that boost Chris’ fists, boost his gun attacks, and more. We hope you enjoy the variety in every run it offers.

Image: Capcom

Resident Evil VillageThe new playable characters from ‘s The Mercenaries all look very powerful. How did you balance them for the mode’s difficulty?

A big part of The Mercenaries is the sense of levity, so the new playable characters are all incredibly powerful. But to get a high score it is necessary to chain combos and quickly defeat enemies. We hope that players try to complete the different challenges that arise when doing this with each of the characters.

Will players be able to purchase items from The Duke while playing as Lady D, Heisenberg and Chris? If so, what type of items do they have access to?

The new characters can also purchase items and weapon upgrades from The Duke. Unlike Ethan, they can’t buy weapons, but they can acquire skills, which makes playing even the same character feel new depending on what you’ve obtained.

What’s your favorite newcomer? Resident Evil Village‘s The Mercenaries mode that people might not know about?

We’ve added around 20 different unlockables, including new stages and abilities, while adjusting the difficulty and frequency of these elements to keep you motivated to keep playing. The LZ Responder could be quite difficult to unlock in the original game, but with The Mercenaries Additional Orders it is possible to get it with the newly added characters. If you couldn’t unlock it before, why not try again?