Shadows of Rose (シャドウズ オブ ローズ Shadōzu obu rōzu) is a DLC story mode exclusive to Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition. It was announced at Capcom's E3 presentation in June 2021, and was made available with the rest of Winters' Expansion and in Gold Edition on 28 October 2022.
The game mode is inspired by a cut addendum to the Village story mode in which the player was to briefly take the role of Rose. Like with the main game, Shadows of Rose's script was created in collaboration between Japanese and English-speaking writers; Capcom developed the story outline, with writer Haris Orkin providing native English dialogue.[1] It is also scenario designed by Capcom Japan employee Miwa Hara and Capcom USA employee Josiah T. Wilson.
This mode is produced by Masachika Kawata, and directed by Kento Kinoshita, and serves as the conclusion to the Winters' storyline.[2][3][4] Capcom has estimated a four hour completion time for this story mode.[5][6] It serves as the conclusion of the Winters family saga.
Synopsis[]
" 16 years after the events of Resident Evil Village... あの事件から16年… — Official website description |
Plot[]
It is the year 2037 - sixteen years following Ethan Winters' sacrifice rescuing his daughter Rosemary from the clutches of Mother Miranda. In that time Rose has been raised in protective custody under the US government, seeing her mother Mia Winters and Chris Redfield only sparingly. Over her life she has suffered from persecution over her nature as a Superhuman; children bully her constantly for being a "freak", and even her teachers must be reassured she isn't dangerous; these experiences have left Rose traumatised and self-loathing, blaming her own nature for causing the bullying in the first place. On the advice of Charlie "K" Graham, Rose is brought over to a government lab which is handling a surviving piece of Black God recovered from Eastern Europe. On his instructions, she is to attempt to mentally link with it and find a Purifying Crystal which can remove her powers completely.
After bonding with the fungus, Rose finds herself in the 'Realm of Consciousness', mental representation of the Black God's archived memories of the people it has consumed over the centuries. Rose wanders through the dungeons of Castle Dimitrescu, where she finds a number of trapped girls who are duplicates of herself; the girls are killed as the ground beneath them turns into Mold and consumes them, but Rose escapes upstairs, chased by "Face Eaters". As she reaches the castle's halls, she stumbles upon the "Masked Duke" preying on another Rose copy who tried and failed to recover the crystal. When Masked Duke spots Rose, he orders his Face Eaters to hunt her. During the chase, Rose is offered advice by a mysterious entity who acts as her "Guardian Angel", alerting her to dangers by writing instructions on the wall; she names him Michael after Saint Michael the Archangel.
Rose navigates the castle, searching for three metal masks (in bronze, silver and gold) which will reward her with the crystal. With Michael's help, she reluctantly begins tapping into her powers while Michael becomes weaker due to third party interference. After using all three masks, Rose finds the Masked Duke's prized crystal was a decoy all along, used as a means of encouraging sport amongst his prey. She is sent down to the dungeons as a prisoner, where Masked Duke brings out his most powerful Face Eaters. Unable to fight them, Michael compels Rose to jump off a cliff to escape them.
Rose wakes up just outside the garden of House Beneviento. With the Suspension Bridge destroyed behind her, she is lured in by a number of stuffed monkeys, based on the one she had as a baby. As she boards the elevator, her connection with Michael is severed by an unknown entity and she is taken to the basement of the property. There, she is robbed of her possessions and expected to perform a series of bizarre puzzles including performing surgery on a stuffed monkey, and collecting dolls to fit into dioramas. The first two dioramas depict Rose's life as she is bullied by three children Lucy, Catherine and Jimmy with the third depicts herself being burnt at the stake as a mysterious dark-haired girl looks on. As she completes these puzzles, Rose is unnerved by a mannequin resembling her mother and disturbing drawings depicting terrified children which spread all over the basement. Rose soon gets a phone call from the dark-haired girl, who teases her that "mommy" will be mad if she knew they were playing together. As she searches for a way out, the mannequin finally comes to life, pursuing her whenever she turns her back. Through careful planning, Rose escapes into the elevator.
Rose makes her way to the ground floor but her safety becomes an illusion as she finds herself reduced to a few inches in size. While navigating the hallways, Rose is forced to evade doll search parties, and the full-sized Mia mannequin which no longer freezes on sight. All of these are on the orders of the girl, who is trying to take control of the Black God and the Realm of Consciousness. Rose soon finds herself in a house, which she learns is the one her parents had when she was a baby. With brief help from Michael, Rose is led through the house and finally begins to feel like she knew her father as she learns the various things he did for her as a baby. This happiness is cut by the dark-haired girl, who reveals herself to be Eveline, or the remnant of her consciousness which had survived through Ethan and made its way into Black God. Eveline is disgusted by Rose, who she dismisses in various ways as weak, unloved, and undeserving of Mia's attention over herself. As they are both within the Realm of Consciousness, Eveline's illusionary powers leads Rose back to the entrance of House Beneviento where the two have a showdown. Although Rose manages to suppress Eveline with her abilities, the former is far stronger; before she can kill Rose, Michael makes his appearance and throws himself in front of Rose, who is thrown out of the house and off a cliff and into the next stratum
Rose comes to in the village, where she realises Michael is in fact the fragment of Ethan's consciousness preserved within this Realm. Fearing he is gone for good, Rose continues on her own, passing the corpses of many more duplicates of herself who have been preyed on by Face Eaters. Finding a hole in the ground, Rose jumps down and discovers a cultic monument depicting two goat-headed priests sacrificing a child for the Black God. Further she finds the Black God itself (or rather the Realm's representation of Black God) growing new Rose duplicates, which she learns is part of a research project by someone even more senior than the Masked Duke, with her counterparts being culled to track down those with superhuman abilities. Soon she finds the architect of these experiments - the archived consciousness of Mother Miranda.
Having had decades of study the Black God, the copy Miranda is well aware she is imprisoned within the Realm, and has spent the past sixteen years trying to escape it and try once more to bring back Eva. By chance, Rose's proximity to the Black God in the lab has allowed her to utilise the mold's quorum sensing abilities, with Rose's encounter with "K" being completely imaginary as a pretext to lure her inside the realm. Miranda had hoped to defeat Rose easily with her willing to relinquish her powers with the crystal and hijack her body, but her attempts are halted due to Eveline's own interference.
With the help of Ethan, Rose escapes Miranda's clutches and finds herself in a barren plane populated only by the crystal. Although she is now having second thoughts about carrying out her wish, Rose interacts with it and drains herself of her power. No longer a threat, Miranda takes her opportunity to strike, which Ethan interferes with. Now faced with a crisis where her powers are absolutely essential, Rose interacts with the crystal once more to save her father. In her showdown with Miranda, Rose gains greater and greater powers, even leaching them from Miranda until her consciousness perishes. Now having a moment of peace, Rose shares one last moment with Ethan as the stratums dissolve, and returns to the real world having chosen to keep her abilities. Following this, she takes a bus to Ethan's grave, where the agent picks her up.
Gameplay[]
Unlike the rest of Gold Edition, Shadows of Rose is only playable in third person mode.
Environment[]
The first environment explored in the game is Castle Dimitrescu, which will consist of the opening act of the story mode with Rose continuing on to other locations later on. There is also a swampland which appears at an undefined point.[6] The castle is is a darkly lit version of what is played in the main game; kept distinct from how it is in Village, doors that were accessible are now locked doors that may need keys or bolt cutters to open, meaning players familiar with Village must learn new routes.[3] When navigating the map, Rose will be given clues in the form of magical writing which appears on the walls.[7] To add pressure onto the player, Rose runs at a slower speed than Ethan and Chris, which is in part intended to compel the player to use her powers more so.[7]
Combat[]
One of the core elements of gameplay for this mode is item scarcity. Unlike Ethan and Chris in the main game, Rose is physically weak, can not use the Guard mechanic, and only has access to the LEMI and M1897 with limited ammunition for each.[4][5] In addition to these however, Rose also has the ability to stun enemies with her powers which can be used defensively or offensively and are improved over the course of the game.
Ammo and supplies are less plentiful in this expansion, with there being a greater focus on stealth and evasion in order to get past enemies.
Development[]
In the final months of development for Resident Evil Village, Division 1 manager Jun Takeuchi assigned producer Masachika Kawata and Kento Kinoshita to produce DLC content for the game, taking over from Morimasa Sato's main development team who had left for other projects by the start of 2021.[3][8] Although Kawata had experience producing Resident Evil games, Kinoshita was completely unfamiliar with the franchise, having previously worked at Division 3 on games such as Dragon's Dogma and the Monster Hunter series.[3][7][9]
Kawata proposed three DLC modes for the game, consisting of an expanded Mercenaries mode, a third person mode and an original story mode, with the contents of the first and third to be decided on by Kinoshita. Owing to the economical factors in releasing DLC at low cost, Kinoshita decided that all three modes should be sold at the same time as a bundle rather than having his team work on one DLC mode at a time.[7]
As major work had not been done on the story mode until after Villages release, Kinoshita was able to decide on the story based on audience feedback. Before release, Kinoshita devised four possible scenarios for the DLC, including a Chris centric story akin to Not A Hero,[7] and a Rose story tying into the main game's epilogue sequence. When fan reception post-release noted overwhelmingly positive attention to Rosemary, Kinoshita chose to go with his Rosemary pitch and build a story around the feedback.[4][6][7]
As the epilogue depicted Rose living a constricted life as a superhuman, longing to be a normal human girl instead,[6] Kinoshita wanted this to be a major part of her story, and devising a "world of consciousness" provided a means of showing Rose's powers in a way that would not hinder world-building. As this story and script were to be done by a separate team from the main game, the style was also different, with Shadows of Rose being built around the theme of a nightmare rather than the gothic fantasy of Village.[3][5][6]
Gallery[]
Promotional images[]
Video[]
In-game stills[]
Sources[]
- ↑ @antonyjohnston (Jun 19, 2022). I’m not involved with these new releases – the Rose DLC is written by @HarisOrkin – but I’m delighted to see VILLAGE enjoying such a long life, and continue to help pave the way forward for the franchise. 🤘.
- ↑ Interview with P. Kawada and D. Kinoshita, "Resident Evil: Village Gold Edition," Third-Person Perspective Implemented at the "Request of Fans" [TGS2022]. IGN Japan. Retrieved on 2022-09-18.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 『バイオ ヴィレッジ GE』開発インタビュー。三人称視点やローズの物語、新キャラのポイントは？【TGS2022】 (Japanese). Dengeki Online. Retrieved on 2022-09-28.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 『バイオ ヴィレッジ GE』追加シナリオ「シャドウズ オブ ローズ」プレイ映像&インタビュー (Japanese). Shueisha. Retrieved on 2022-09-28.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 『バイオハザード ヴィレッジ ゴールドエディション』開発陣インタビュー。「“シャドウズ オブ ローズ”のプレイ時間は4時間ほどを想定しています」【TGS2022】 (Japanese). Famitsu. Retrieved on 2022-09-28.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 ［TGS2022］“シャドウズ オブ ローズ”ではローズの成長が描かれる――「バイオハザード ヴィレッジ ゴールドエディション」開発者インタビュー (Japanese). 4gamer. Retrieved on 2022-09-28.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 イーサンの娘が活躍する 「バイオハザード ヴィレッジ」DLC「シャドウズ オブ ローズ」レビュー！ 開発陣へのインタビューも【TGS2022】 (Japanese). gamer.ne.jp. Retrieved on 2022-09-28.
- ↑ Famitsu's interview with the developers of "Resident Evil: Village Gold Edition".. Famitsu. Retrieved on 2022-09-27.
- ↑ Capcom interview with Kentaro Kinoshita.
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