'Resident Evil Village' With Fixed Cameras Is As Terrifying As It Is Nostalgic

I’ll be honest, reader, I’m not much of a horror game person. It doesn’t matter what the camera angle is, if there’s spooky stuff afoot, I don’t particularly want to be part of it. 

The Resident Evil series, of course, is one that’s experimented with basically every camera angle you can imagine over the years. While its recent outings have adopted an arguably more modern first-person perspective, there’s something to be said for the series’ fixed camera era - a characteristic so intrinsically linked to those earlier titles.

While you're here, be sure to check out some of our favourite mods for Resident Evil Village below.

Now, one user over on Reddit has decided to bring together new and old, and has made it possible to play Resident Evil Village with a fixed camera angle. In a video posted on the r/residentevil subreddit, Atikapi demonstrated exactly what that looks like during the Lycan ambush sequence, and fans are loving it. 

This isn’t a full mod, mind you - Atikapi explained that they made it using a program called “REframework”, and using it, you place the camera down manually yourself each time. They also used the "Ethan's head restoration" mod, so that, you know, he has one. As they explain, the game obviously wasn’t made to look like this, so the animations are far from perfect, but it’s still really interesting to see how the game could have looked if Capcom opted for the nostalgic camera option.

Other users are loving it, too: “Even little snippets like this make me so badly want a fixed mode for some of the games. I love the games the way they are, and I know it’d be a lot of work since they’re built for the perspective they’re in, but even just releasing like a fixed camera mode DLC for one of the first person games would be amazing, and I’d pay for it,” wrote ManufacturerDry108. “Honestly, this is pretty amazing. I feel like it has a vibe much closer to the original games. Wonky, for the reasons you mentioned, but really cool,” said Ankulay.

Clearly, the lack of fixed camera angles in Village hasn't been an issue for fans, though, as it’s been an incredible success. As well as being highly critically acclaimed, it also sold almost six million copies in the past nine months. Not to be sniffed at. I suppose being in first person allows people to get more up close and personal with Lady Dimitrescu, which might be part of the reason why it’s so popular. Not judging.