Thread by @AestheticGamer1

OKAY here comes my 50+ Tweet Wall breaking down the Resident Evil 8 announcement trailer! I'm using the official RE YT channels vid to take pics, many will include red bars as don't care enough.

We start the trailer with an ominous message that this is the end of someone's story

I'm sure many have suspicions who "He" is here, but I'll clarify I'm keeping myself to trailer observations & speculation.

You'll notice a story motif in RE8 pretty immediately, which very well may be a leftover of its Revelations 3 origins, though this is an original tale.

Rev 1 & 2 had motifs of stories, specifically Rev 1 to Dante's Inferno & Rev 2 to Kafka. Here's a transcript of the story told at the trailer start:

"Long ago, a young girl went with her mother to pick berries for her father... who was hard at work. But the forest greeted

them with a dark, cold silence... the bushes empty. Yet, determined to find berries the rascal broke free of Mother's grasp and vanished into the trees. Mother's worried cries faded fast as the girl ran on over vine, under branch and into the forest deep."
The story is open ended

but it is shown first as it is an important motif to RE8.

It's revealed the story is being read to Ethan by who we may presume is Mia. Two notable things, it does seem like Ethan & Mia's VAs have been changed since RE7. I may be hearing wrong, but they sound different to me.

We see presumably Mia sitting by a fireplace reading a book in a nice house. There's a few hints at this through the trailer, but the game starts with Ethan and Mia at their home just relaxing together. It also seems Ethan & Mia moved to some rural place, Ethan comments he thinks

the story is creepy, and Mia comments it's a "local tale", Ethan comments back asking if she's really into this stuff, implying he doesn't like the local people. Mia comes back that he doesn't need to be so paranoid.

So already there's a LOT to breakdown about this.

Ethan and Mia are still married, they're living in a place with locale stories and tales, Mia seems into it but Ethan is not as fond. Mia's final line, "Don't be so paranoid," is also very intentional foreshadowing, this game has a LOT to do with paranoia and madness.

The game almost definitely starts off with Ethan and Mia chilling in their house at the start of the game before events start taking place.

Now, I'm going to go backwards in the trailer and go back over the brief scenes we see as the story is being told.

We get a nice look of some creepy dark snowy forest. I suspect they'll nail the audio design, and I can only imagine how creepy the village at night will be. Most of the rest of the trailer shows the Village in the day, but at the start we do see it at night. We then see shots

from within the shack that the forest leads to. There's a certain "cluttered hanging" look to most of the places we see. This also has to be early in the game as this house becomes the place Ethan first meets an old man and the Beast Men. Notably there's signs of struggle & huge

parts of the house torn out from something rushing through and tearing it apart. This house seems to be an early stand-in scene for a set-piece after Ethan begins to wander into the forest. We'll get more to this, but we then get to the scene of Mia reading the story, then to the

real meat of the trailer.

So Ethan pulls back a curtain and gets almost shot. Firstly, Ethan seems to be wearing a yellow-ish overshirt with a long-sleeved blue undershirt. His hands also appear to be bulkier than they were in RE7, probably put on just a bit of weight after

settling down with Mia. The old man here was camping in the room to hole himself in for defense. Ethan insists that he is friendly, to which the old man asks, "Who are you? Who sent you?"

There's actually a weird jump cut in the trailer here, I suppose there's a spoiler in their

convo that they wanted to omit from the trailer. The man is suddenly closer, hears something and then puts a hand to Ethan's mouth to shut him up. Ethan is asking the man what's going on before cut off, and the old man says, "They're coming."

NOW, interesting detail. Skulls.

There's weird deer or elk skulls being hung up over and around doors en mass here. It could be purely decorative, but it almost looks ritualistic or used as a charm rather than hunting trophies.

We also see our first shot of a Beast Men, notably in gameplay, not a cutscene.

Unseen but the old man also seems to give Ethan a handgun to defend himself with, before this scene Ethan did NOT have a gun, now he does, implying the old man gives him the gun for defense.

The Beast Men runs by quickly, the Old Man seems to hear them around the house and roof.

The old man seems to hear them above and shoots some bullets through the roof, goes to reload his shotgun but the Beast Man breaks through the roof and pulls the old man up with him from the house.

We jump cut to a different room, & Ethan is pulled through the floor by a Beast

Men into presumingly the basement, which may be where Ethan has his first real encounter with a Beast Man. The trailer then shows us a nice snowy path through the woods during the day.

Now, things are about to get disorganized & non-chronological as a lot of quick shots flash by

We see a shot above a gate of one of the key pieces of imagery fro the game, a strange fetus with BOW-like properties in a ring surrounded by black feathers. Capcom mentions they debated including this piece of imagery in the trailer as it's a huge spoiler, but we won't get into

what it may mean, except to mention it is placed above a wooden gate leading into the woods.

We also see a memorial of a girl with sword and shield. Notice the shield has a horned skull on it like the skulls the old man placed on the walls of his home? The skull obviously

symbolizes something or another to these people, and as it's held as a charm and as a shield they seem to believe the skull is a symbol of protection. This woman's monument also implies she was a hero to be remembered for this village.

We also get a good look at some houses.

We see the key piece of art, but in a different context. Someone has scrawled the fetus into a sigil on the ground with white paint, but with characters around it, tentacles growing out of the baby's back, and hid the sigil underneath a carpet. Wonder what it could mean?

THESE NEXT SHOTS ARE VERY INTERESTING, GOING TO SPEND A FEW TWEETS DECONSTRUCTING THEM.

We see a beautiful shot of the entrance to the Castle. You seem to travel through a graveyard in order to reach it. The door is adorned with one Resident Evil ass door lock, but with obvious

deeper meaning within the game's narrative. We see a demon & the same girl the earlier memorial depicted. We see clearly now the skull is a goat's on the shield (and hung up around walls here), and interestingly there appears to be an endless sea of feathers in the background

Both the woman and the demon's faces are missing, obviously needing two plates to be placed in order to open the door. The woman is a protector, ready to pierce the demon's skull the demon is a devourer and feasts upon a gigantic heart (I believe) in front of her.

To the right we see hands reaching from presumingly Hell, trying to grab a naked man and woman, being pushed into a pit by hands and falling into the hands to pull them down. To the left we see a mysterious cloaked figure with a spear, various naked impaled people on its spear

as a bunch of people kneel at the cloaked figures feet.

We then see a shot of a woman holding a baby. Her eye is covered with her hair, & she is nurturing the infant. The baby appears a bit later in the trailer too, included here.

A lot of rapid shots incoming, lots to dissect.

Villagers farming. Notably the "scarecrow" has horns like we see on the skulls, again suggesting the skull/horns is a symbol of protection to keep something away.

We see a guy protecting a bigger house entrance with a gun, keeping look-out for anyone trying to get near.

I don't have too much to say on this shot except I love it, and want to make a separate tweet for it, since that's some great art direction in this shot.

I guess I can mention the scarecrows have long teeth/claws hanging from them as well,

The man guarding the gate goes in, closing the door behind him.

And we see a woman dressed in all black ominously standing at the end of a hallway for unknown reason. I have a theory, but we'll get to it a bit later.

We get out first look at a woman we'll see multiple times in brief succession here in the trailer. Yes, she is an important character. Many mistake her for Claire, but she isn't Claire. Here we see her in the dark lifting a lantern, probably about to light it.

A villager see's a bunch of crows flying around in the air, and that seems to signify something to him, and a cutscene shot of him holding his gun, not pulling the trigger quite yet but preparing to on something within a cutscene.

We see drawn on the wall in a basement somewhere the sigil of the fetus again, tentacles growing out of its back, the white paint now obviously supposed to represent the feathers we see on the physical fetus display.

We see the woman that was ominously standing at the end of the hall dressed in black from earlier helping a man who is having trouble standing and seems to be in pain.

Now, this next shot is notable and stands out.

We see some sort of mechanism with the Umbrella logo in the middle, but shaped a bit like a cross. Each section has a different emblem in it. Closest we see a horse and horseshoe. We also see one that looks like a mermaid and one that looks like a old woman's face surrounded by

hair. The last one is too hard to make out here, but obviously this one is interesting for a few reasons, though what it could mean is anyone's guess.

We then see the woman who lit the lantern and a beat up man. The woman is shocked by something, the man tries to pull her away.

We then see the beat up man alone, looking around slowly as a bunch of crows circle him overhead.

Then a dead mule (?) laying in the snow, decaying.

We get shots of the woman holding her head and falling to the ground a bit with a pained expression on her face, then her obviously caught off-guard by a gun in her face held by someone at the entrance to a house.

We now see a black goat (I see "The Witch" inspiration Capcom) and then an old shaman-like lady. She has a giant staff and the woman seems to be here to get the goat.

I do believe she is a key character, and how we can't see her face in the next two shots in the next tweet.

The old woman's eyes are shadows, and she looks just a bit too happy. She is draped in heavy cloaks, and seems to fetching the black goat. This is the only shots of her we get in the trailer, but she obviously is important.

Now, before we continue as the trailer shifts to an obvious different segment of the game, it appears like the "guarded house" is a place to make babies. The guy with a gun in front of the gate that the woman enters seems to be protecting the woman nurturing the baby. It's VERY

obvious this village has some deep beliefs in protecting it's babies, the weird fetuses used, the skulls/horns used as a symbol of protection. There is obviously more going on here. I believe the woman in black nurtures mothers and children while villagers protect them.

We see an explosion that knocks back Ethan, causes a fire. Another closer man to the door falls over, Ethan seems to be falling next to someone still standing holding a shotgun to the door.

We see a finely dressed woman looking at herself in the mirror while on the phone with someone. Immediately giving the impression she places great importance on her looks. The room she is in also is furnished with gold and all sorts of decorations.

We see the woman stand with three girls dressed in black (witches), all looking down at someone on the ground who we play as. These three women are the "Witches", there are three of them and we see one dissipate into a swarm of insects as the other walks away, staring at you.

We see a fancy hall, obviously from the same building the recent woman and witch shots are from, with fancy armor, a chandelier, and demonstrates this village has a clear difference in standing between the common folk and those in charge. Very pretty location, though!

We get out first real look of the Beast Men, there seems to be a pack here. Some wield weapons and they seem to be tearing apart & setting a house on fire. One with a giant RE5 Executioner-style axe leaps down, obviously further mutated and has more fur and muscles than the rest.

They seem able to leap great distances (on and off the roof) and impale one of the survivors on a spear.

We then flash back to what may be the start of the game. We see Chris Redfield with a group of men in all black breaking into Ethan's home like a home invasion film.

That is Chris standing at the end, and the men in black seem to be working under him. We'll get back to this at the end of the normal trailer breakdown.

We see another shot of the woman from a few shots earlier.

We also see this mysterious dude leering in to take a look at you with his glasses off. Seems like quite a character.

We see the well-dressed woman feed upon Ethan's wrist like some kind of vampire. Blood leftover on her lips, and Ethan seeming to be unable to do anything about it.

We get to hear one of the shrieks of the Beast Men, nice sound!

We get the game's title, VILLAGE: Resident Evil, but the background here is real nice, showing off the village, a windmill, and a good shot of the Castle that looms over the village.

We then get a shot of an older and gruffer Chris, having just broken into Ethan and Mia's home with a squad, apologizing to Ethan, then putting 5 bullets into Mia's head. Ethan exclaims, "WHY!?" obviously distraught and confused, and then the trailer ends.

For the record, it is Mia, and she's wearing the same clothes as when she was reading the book earlier at the start of the trailer.

Now, only just a bit more to go over before I wrap this up. There's also a developer interview with a few shots.

Here we see people hanging up not just skulls, but actual severed goat heads from a tree. This also implies all the other skulls we see were originally heads before they decayed. To why the village loves killing goats and hanging their heads up so much? Anyone's guess.

Also the village isn't rural enough to not have power lines it seems.

We see a fun shot of Ethan turning off a faucet pouring out some gross water with some toothbrushes. Little short animations ala RE7 had for interactions.

We see Ethan does get a knife in what appears to be the old man's place, or had it before. Can use D-pad on controller again to switch weapons. I don't think anyone doubted you'd get a knife, but there it is.

And as others have noticed already, the inventory uses a "grid inventory" system ala closer to RE4 but with an RE7-esque style. RE7's healing juice returns. The inventory also seems to have four other options outside of items you're carrying (one is definitely documents), & there

may be a chance the game may not pause when you open up your inventory possibly as they show so much of the screen still when you open it up (inventory froze the game for RE2 for example, but not for RE7).

Okay! That was my trailer breakdown! Hopefully you all found it interesting, thanks for reading and now to wait for August for a fuller RE8 scoop, and discuss it in the meantime (I'm sure other small pieces will come out before then though).

(And yes, there's a currency as I know many noticed. You do get money in this game. I wonder where and how you can spend it? 🤔)