Resident Evil Village may not be available for a a few more months, but PS5 players can immerse themselves in the stunning visuals and creepy audio of the game starting today with a free demo exclusive to Sony’s next-gen console. The Resident Evil Village “Maiden” demo puts players in the role of a character the developers are simply calling the Maiden, and tasks her with escaping the dungeon of the creepy castle.
Revealed during today’s Resident Evil Showcase, this demo doesn’t feature any combat, blocking, or other gameplay features, positioned more as an opportunity for players to get hands-on with the visuals and audio that the team has developed for Resident Evil Village. They call it “a stand-alone separate experience from the main game that is a kind of short story set within the world of RE Village.” It’s reminiscent of the original Kitchen PSVR demo that ended up being a kind of prequel story moment that added a bit of context and flavor to Resident Evil 7.
The developers have confirmed that the Maiden’s story and Ethan’s story take place at different times. “The Maiden demo doesn’t take place during the main story of Resident Evil Village. Maiden was originally designed as a visual demo that would allow you to explore the inside of Dimitrescu Castle, but it evolved to include a short story and puzzle solving.” Of course, with the twisting narrative of the RE universe, its expected this will tie into the main Village story in some way. In fact, the developers pretty much confirmed it.
“Maiden is a demo that’s separate from Resident Evil Village,” they explained. “However, it does take place in the same world as RE Village does. When you play Resident Evil Village, or, perhaps, you come back to Maiden after playing the main game, you might discover the connections they have to each other.”
Being exclusive to PS5, the Maiden demo does take advantage of Sony’s next-gen tech. It uses the same ray tracing and 3D audio that they are using for the full game, so it acts as a sample experience of what PS5 players will get with Resident Evil Village. “For Maiden, or rather, for Resident Evil Village, we wanted to create a game with beautiful graphics, high frame rate, and short loading times that don’t spoil people’s immersive experience of the game. The technology we mentioned in the showcase aided the director in realizing his vision of how the game is played, and the art director’s vision of how he wanted the game to look.”
You can get the Resident Evil Village Maiden Demo on the PlayStation Store here.
At the time of this writing, we have been unable to find the Resident Evil Village “Maiden” demo on the PlayStation Store, but it’s coming at some point today, so keep refreshing until you see it. You may have better luck looking in the PlayStation Store directly on your PS5 console. While the Maiden demo will remain exclusive to PS5, other platforms will eventually get another Resident Evil Village demo, which should be available on all platforms sometime later this spring. The content of this second demo is unknown.
Resident Evil Village launches on May 7th, 2021 on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam.
[Source: PS Blog]
