Resident Evil Village may be an all-new entry in the popular franchise but Capcom clearly isn’t averse to borrowing popular features from past installments.
As part of the developer’s big showcase yesterday, several minutes of uninterrupted gameplay footage gave audiences their first proper look at Ethan Winters’ upcoming adventure, including previews of the various UI elements players will use to interact with the world, most notably the inventory. As is to be expected, all sorts of curatives, miscellaneous tools and weapons will be accrued during the campaign and due to extremely limited space, you’ll often be forced to make tough decisions on what to keep and leave behind.
Thankfully, then, Village is far more generous in that department than recent releases and will adopt a feature that Resident Evil 4 fans will be no doubt be immediately familiar with. In what’s essentially splicing together old and new, Ethan’s deep pockets are presented as a grid-based system where items can be manually rotated and moved around for maximum efficiency, as you can see below.
While producer Peter Fabiano doesn’t go into any greater detail, one can only presume – based on the fact that Ethan is able to purchase various upgrades from a merchant – that the inventory space shown above will be expandable by spending currency found throughout the world, so you can likely expect to have ample room for larger weapons (rifles, shotguns, etc.) in the late game. Speaking of which, we’re still not entirely sure how long the sequel is intended to be, though all signs point to it being a markedly larger experience than 2017’s short-but-sweet predecessor.
Resident Evil Village arrives May 7th for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PC and, as confirmed yesterday, last-gen consoles.
