Resident Evil Gold Edition
Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition is most certainly the definitive edition of this game that has something for new and old players! Playing with the new third-person perspective mode completely changes the combat and camera control. Subtitles have been improved to include speaker names and captions are now available.
Pros
- Opacity presets for subtitle background
- Third-person option for combat
- Captions are now available
- Permanent aiming reticle option
Cons
- No colorblind options
- Enemies can get overwhelming
Resident Evil is one of my favorite horror franchises of all time, and Resident Evil Village did not disappoint! It brought gothic horror to the series, including gargoyles, werewolves, and everyone’s beloved vampire, Lady Dimitrescu. Still, Village was surprisingly lacking when it comes to accessibility, especially for Deaf/HoH players. However, recently Capcom released the Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition with a ton of new content. There’s new DLC for the story mode, a third-person perspective mode, and much needed accessibility options.
Horror Installment
When I booted up Gold Edition, there were the basic language and subtitle options, but after that I immediately noticed big differences in what the menus offered compared to the original game. The next menu was titled “Accessibility Options” and it had many more ways to customize subtitles and even the display screen. Then came options to change the brightness and contrast in the game.
All of those features were located in the options menu after the title screen had loaded. However, Gold Edition implemented a nifty Accessibility Options tab where the more advanced subtitle options could be found. I still had to turn on subtitles manually, but it was very nice to be able to do that before the game actually started. That’s a big improvement from the original game.
Third-Person Combat
If disabled gamers with fine-motor skill impairments are hoping for a reprieve from the fast-paced combat of Resident Evil Village, they can think again. Gold Edition has kept the controls virtually the same from the original game. There are fully customizable control options for the mouse and keyboard, but the same limited aim assist is still here as a double edged-sword because of its lack of consistency.
There are still three different difficulty settings to choose from in the game, and they are Casual, Standard, and Hardcore mode. I would recommend Casual difficulty for any disabled gamer because there are many difficult moments with waves of endless enemies.
One of the most highly anticipated new features in this addition is the option to play in third-person perspective. Gold Edition, to its credit, made this readily available to me from the jump. I could turn this perspective on before the title screen or when choosing to start story mode. I personally loved fighting like this and I’m shocked how much the over-the-shoulder perspective changed the overall experience for me.
Movement was more fluid and I felt like I could control the camera much better. I’ll admit in third-person mode, shooting with a handgun was much less precise. However, the shotgun and revolver didn’t have this issue. The third-person perspective was my favorite new feature, and I hope Capcom continues to include it like they used to (at least as an option) in future games.
Reading In The Dark
Most of the accessibility added in Gold Edition will benefit Deaf/HoH players. Like I mentioned earlier, the accessibility options tab has a ton of new ways to customize subtitles. Subtitle size can be changed from Normal to Large with a noticeable increase, and subtitle colors can be changed to yellow. Subtitle opacity can now be activated with a nice dark background. There are even three different presets for opacity that can be tested out instantly. Speaker names can now be turned on if need be, which will give deaf players much more context in the story.
Having captions will be a game changer for many when deciding to pick up this edition of the game. One of my biggest gripes about the original Resident Evil Village game were the lack of captions and the phone icon (this allowed deaf players to know when a phone was ringing) which was strangely missing since the last game. Thankfully, I believe Capcom completely remedied this with the new captions in Gold Edition.
When turning on captions I noticed every line of dialogue was subtitled including background dialogue, ambient noise, and bell chimes! Playing the game again with captions on still gave me surprises because there were so many creepy noises I had missed. There’s a particular moment in the game that a phone is very much tied to the scares, and now for Deaf/HoH players this and many other moments can be enjoyed without obstacles.
New Content and Old Scares
Not only does the Gold Edition of Resident Evil Village bring new accessibility options, but it also has new story DLC. Shadows of Rose continues the story from the end of the original game, and it carries over all the controls and accessibility. The difference is that I only had the option to play in third-person when playing the DLC and first-person in Mercenaries mode.
Shadows of Rose threw a lot of fast-paced combat at me, which consisted of a lot of running and timed encounters in the first few hours. There were monsters that overwhelmed me and a strange black ooze that killed me when I stood in it for too long. The game frequently requires you to walk through it. However, it takes a good bit of trial and error to listen for the warning and figure out when to proceed.
The audio accessibility was implemented in Gold Edition not a moment too soon, as even more of the combat in the DLC require visual cues to be successful. If I had that much trouble, I can only imagine what deaf players deal with without captions turned on.
Unfortunately, Gold Edition offers very little else when it comes to accessibility for those with visual impairments. The game now lets players keep the aiming reticle permanently on, but there’s no way to customize damage display without turning it off and still no support for blind gamers. Also, item crates are still color-coded throughout the environment, and colorblind players will have trouble distinguishing them from the grayish backgrounds. It’s a shame because as much accessibility as the Gold Edition has brought, there’s still more work that could be done.
Conclusion
The Gold Edition completely overhauls the subtitles in the game, and deaf players should no longer have issues playing Resident Evil Village. Subtitle sizes have been implemented and captions are now available for background dialogue and ambient noise. The third-person perspective gives players more versatility of combat, but the game’s still lacking comprehensive support for those with visual impairments.
