***UPDATE****
Resident Evil 8 could lean heavily into the realm of folk horror, according to a new report from BiohazardCast.com, which claims that the sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard will be out by Spring 2021, and will be officially titled Resident Evil: Village.
The latest article, which corroborates with the information provided by yesterday's leak (seen below), suggests that Capcom is taking inspiration from the modern folk horror genre for its latest survival horror instalment, which apparently is set in Europe and gives fan favourite character Chris Redfield an "integral role" in the story.
There'll also be a new stalker enemy type, the Witch, who'll behave similarly to the Nemesis we've just encountered in Resident Evil 3 Remake by regularly haunting and hunting the player down throughout the events of the main campaign.
There's a few more interesting tidbits to be gleaned from the story, which cites a "anonymous emailer" as its source, so it's worth taking all of it with plenty of salt before Capcom makes an official announcement itself. With E3 2020 cancelled, who knows when that might be, but hopefully it's sooner rather than later.
See original story below:
Resident Evil 8 will be revealed in some capacity later this month, if the latest round of rumours are to be believed and if that wasn't enough, it's reportedly going to be quite the departure for the long-running survival horror series.
Resident Evil 8 rumours have continued to swirl for some time now, but this latest batch from noted Resident Evil and Silent Hill leaker AestheticGamer has given us perhaps our biggest insight into the upcoming title yet. AestheticGamer notes that his sources are indicating that Resident Evil 8 will release in 2021 for current and next gen consoles.
Okay, so the little game is done. This will be breaking this month with more details later not by myself, but I've needed to clear some stuff up. "Resident Evil 2021" is Resident Evil 8, but it wasn't always RE8. During most of its development it existed as Revelations 3.April 4, 2020
AestheticGamer says that this iteration of Resident Evil 8 is going to surprise people, if his sources are correct. "It is first-person, and many purists are going to hate it because it's taking some serious departures in the story/enemies and the like. Hallucinations, Occultism, insanity and not being able to trust others are huge thematics of the game."
Interestingly, previous reporting had suggested that Resident Evil 8 would be some time away still after its development was overhauled. Capcom has, reportedly, overcome this by retooling an in-development Resident Evil Revelations 3. According to AestheticGamer, "The reason I said RE8 was "years away" earlier this year is last year a RE8 was in development, & that one is years away. But Capcom didn't want a huge gap between RE7 and RE8, so that title got pushed to the side for now, & internal testing and such was super positive on Rev 3."
We reached out for comment from Capcom and were told "as always, we don’t comment on rumors and speculation".
Of course, if AestheticGamer and their sources are correct, we could be getting much more information about the future of Resident Evil before the month is over. Given Resident Evil 7 launched back in 2017, this has certainly been a long time coming – although whether this installment will continue the adventures of [spoilers for Resident Evil 7] Ethan Winters and Chris Redfield remains to be seen.
We'll be following this as the weeks continues, and in the meantime you can read our thoughts on the latest release in the series in our Resident Evil 3 Remake review.
