The closing minutes of 2021's Resident Evil Village left us with a lot of questions: What is going on with the BSAA? How will Rose’s connection with the Megamycete affect her? Who is the mysterious figure walking towards the car during the post-credits cutscene? Sadly most of these questions go unanswered during Shadows of Rose’s roughly 4–5 hour playtime, and instead the game focuses on deepening our understanding of the characters and parts of the world we already know. It might do this expertly, as can be expected from a Resident Evil game, but the lack of answers to our many questions hurts Shadows of Rose’s chances of ever being essential to the wider story of the Resident Evil Universe.
One of the strongest assets that Resident Evil Village had was it’s atmosphere, and how each of the 4 main areas the player would find themselves in throughout their playthrough varied in tone and design. From the Gothic opulence of Castle Dimitrescu, to Heisenberg’s Dirty, Grimy, Rusty Foundry. Shadows of Rose picks up on perhaps two of the most well known and beloved areas among the fanbase: The aforementioned Castle Dimitrescu and the truly terrifying House Beneviento, and it spends it’s runtime really focusing in on what made these areas so iconic, so beloved, and so terrifying.
Resident Evil Village never spent too much time in one place; By the time the player had gotten used to the beautiful gothic architecture of Castle Dimitrescu, we were in the dungeons beneath it. Before we got used to the dungeons, we were making our way to the rooftops. Shadows of Rose slows this pace down though and really gives the environment the room it needs to breathe. This leaves the Castle Dimitrescu section feeling more like a “traditional” Resident Evil game than it ever did in Village; we spend time exploring and backtracking, we find items that will unlock more of Rose’s Mutamycete powers, which allow us to explore deeper into the castle, and all the while we’re taunted by the ever-present Masked Duke — A twisted, sadistic reinterpretation of Resident Evil Village’s unsettling but ultimately affable Merchant.
Where Shadows of Rose really shines though is in the next section, based in the fan-favorite environment from the main game: House Beneviento. Much like in the main game, Shadows of Rose’s House Beneviento relies on several tried-and-true horror tropes, and never really strays too far from the horror formula it sets up early. Dolls, dark corridors, and the addition of Mannequins (All of which are achieved through some very clever recycling of main-game assets) are all used to expert degree to craft an atmosphere that evokes memories of our original foray into the creepy environ but still feels unique, almost tailored to Rose’s personal fears. It takes a small handful of simple ideas, and it executes them well enough to create a truly terrifying atmosphere that will be enough to make even the most seasoned horror enthusiasts think twice about turning the next corner.
It’s not just the environments that shine in this story though. Rose herself is a brilliant protagonist — treading the fine line between “frustrating child character” and “child who is bizarrely unaffected by the horrific things She’s going through” with the kind of writerly aplomb we’ve become accustomed to in the more recent, character driven entries in the Resident Evil franchise. It’s nice to get the chance to explore her motivations a bit too, considering the only exposure we’ve had to her as a character before this was in the short post-credits cutscene from the main game that introduced her as someone who had clearly been through a lot, but didn’t expand on that in any way. Her Mutamycete powers are enough to give a fun spin on the gameplay formula as well, breaking us out of the over-the-shoulder-third-person-exploration-and-ammo-conservation gameplay loop that by this point could otherwise start to feel stale after the recent Resident Evil 2 and 3 Remakes.
Naturally though there are caveats, as there so often are. The narrative impetus that sets up Shadows of Rose’s story is among the most contrived I’ve seen in a long time, and the big “twist” in the story — the identity of a mysterious character — is so obvious as to be laughable. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the way that reveal was executed, it just felt like it had been a long time coming, and evoked more of an “oh finally” than the “oh my gosh, really?” that I think the writers were expecting.
Beyond the narrative are the characters, the stars of the recent Resident Evil games. Sadly though of the few new characters introduced in Shadows of Rose, it’s hard to say that any of them don’t feel contrived purely to serve this unnecessary back-story. Even the added depth we get for existing characters feels less like an added insight we wanted to see, and more like something that was added to the character purely so they had a paper-thin reason to exist within this narrative. The Masked Duke in particular feels like a wasted opportunity to add some flavour to this cast of characters, with the early trailers and pre-release material for the DLC hinting at him having some deep tie-in with the narrative, when ultimately he was just *there*. Doing what he needed to do, and filling his narrative purpose without ever feeling like a truly necessary part of Rose’s journey.
Around the time of Village’s release and the subsequent rumors of this DLC’s existence, various leakers and insiders seemed to believe that there were no original plans for a long tail of DLC support for Village in the vein of 2017’s Resident Evil VII, that the fact this DLC even exists was the result of Resident Evil Village vastly outperforming publsher Capcom’s expectations. I don’t know how true this is (I’m not some well-connected industry insider after all) but after playing Shadows of Rose, I believe it.
The atmosphere, characters, and gameplay of Shadows of Rose are richly realised, lovingly crafted, and easily onpar with what we’ve come to expect from this era of Resident Evil games. The second dip into areas we remember from the main game is brilliant too, giving players the opportunity to dig deeper into the world of Resident Evil Village, but the overall narrative lacks any real stakes and generally feels unnecessary and inconsequential to the wider Resident Evil universe.
Seeing the same cutscene from the end of Resident Evil Village roll at the end of Shadows of Rose felt both satisfying and disappointing in equal measures. On the one hand we see Rose in a new light — with added depth and an understanding of her experiences leading up to this moment, and particularly her outburst at the agent who calls her “Eveline”. On the other hand though we’ve not really learned anything from our time with her. The story of Shadows of Rose loops back to a familiar point without giving any answers, and it feels like that’s because the story for Resident Evil 9 (whatever that game’s subtitle will be) is already mapped out, and the Shadows of Rose DLC was an easy way for Capcom to keep the brand awareness up in the meantime without spending too much money or development time on something that could affect their plans going forward.
This is all speculation though, it’s just a shame to see what could have been a fascinating DLC story that added depth and answered questions reduced to this — a few hours of familiar if enjoyable mechanics in familiar if enjoyable settings, all just to impart a few minor nuggets or narrative information that could have just been gleaned from a handful of dialogue exchanges in the next title.
I enjoyed my time with the Shadows of Rose DLC though, and while it brings nothing new to the table in terms of the wider story or the world that Rose, Ethan, and their wild cast of characters inhabit, it was still an enjoyable romp through a sufficiently spooky world that deepens both the player’s connection with the characters, and the characters’ connections with the wider Resident Evil Universe.
