Resident Evil Village: The Winters' Expansion Review

ign.com:

After beating Resident Evil Village the first time, I was extremely satisfied with how the horror story played out from start to finish. When Capcom announced it was making an expansion, I knew it would be a tough act to follow. Unfortunately, the three parts of the Winters' Expansion aren’t up to it. Its new campaign is extremely short, rushed, and does little to improve on Village’s story, and the new way to play the main game makes it less scary than it was the first time around. The main bright spot is the update to Mercenaries, which gives the people more of what we want: Lady Dimitrescu.

Shadows of Rose is the extremely short new single-player story campaign included in the Winters' Expansion, is set 16 years after Village's events, but does little to move Village’s story forward. For less than three hours, you play Ethan Winters' daughter, Rose, as she tries to find a cure to remove her mold powers. Seeing and learning more of Rose's struggles while growing up was interesting, and you do get to revisit abridged versions of iconic locations from Village (most notably Castle Dimitrescu), but there are no critical revelations that would’ve changed the context of Village’s story or made Rose’s feel essential. Even the puzzles are more straightforward than those in the main game. Maybe this expansion is helping to set up the next Resident Evil story, but as of now, it feels like an afterthought at best.

Unlike Resident Evil 7 and Village, Shadows of Rose is played in a third-person perspective, which was a nice change of pace, but I was disappointed at the lack of fluidity the controls have. Compared to the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3, the Rose doesn’t feel anywhere near as responsive when shooting at enemies or