After frustrating  its audience with a slew of action-heavy titles in the late 2000s and early 2010s, Capcom managed to totally revitalize the Resident Evil franchise with 2017’s terrifying Resident Evil 7. A slower, more atmospheric take on the survival horror formula, RE 7 returned to the series’ roots while simultaneously experimenting with new and innovative design perspectives which made the experience feel fresh and exciting despite its comparatively limited scope.

Preceding the game’s release was a comprehensive and surprisingly detailed demo—one of several released in the months leading up to RE 7’s debut—which, though players couldn’t have known it at the time, served as something of a remix of the final game’s introductory sequence. Fittingly titled Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour, the demo allowed players to acclimate to the game’s setting, enemies, and puzzle mechanics while simultaneously offering up all sorts of cryptic hints and details and going so far as to include multiple endings for the sake of replayability.

Channeling Konami’s legendary P.T. demo, Beginning Hour was something of a game in and of itself, evoking the spirit of the then-forthcoming full release while simultaneously advancing a prequel plot of its own. This is worth remembering because, not quite five years later, the game’s immediate successor, Resident Evil Village, would take a much more restrictive approach, shoehorning gamers into playing during certain timeframes and apparently slicing gameplay segments right out of the main game.

It began in late January of 2021, when Resident Evil fans were granted a hands-on preview of Village via the Maiden demo. A fairly short atmospheric experience that heavily emphasized the not-so-latent horror of Castle Dimitrescu, it was a fascinating jaunt through a soon-to-be iconic Resident Evil location—or it would have been, had more than a select few gamers been able to access it.

Resident Evil Village’s Maiden demo was only available on the PlayStation 5, a console that had only launched two months prior and was—and still is—notoriously difficult to find thanks to internet scalpers and widespread shortages. Of course, footage of the gameplay was freely available online and this was far from Capcom’s first PlayStation-exclusive demo. Even the aforementioned RE 7 demo was available solely on the PlayStation Network for something like six months before it was released elsewhere—but, given the circumstances, it felt like a bit of a slap in the face to those hoping to experience the demo for themselves.

Fast forward two months, and things are arguably less player-friendly; April 17 saw the release of the “Village” demo which showcased the game’s rural setting, but, on top of being yet another Sony-platform exclusive, it capped the playtime at thirty minutes and was heavily focused on relatively hands-off scripted sequences. What’s more, it was only available for download over a paltry eight-hour timeframe, meaning that most players simply couldn’t access it due to scheduling inconveniences. Capcom may have expected most fans to simply watch their favorite YouTuber play through the demo in lieu of playing it themselves, but that doesn’t make it any less of a player-unfriendly decision.

Gamers on all platforms will finally get a chance to try the game for themselves when the next demo drops in North American on May 2, but, yet again, it’ll be limited to a specific timeframe, albeit a twenty-four-hour window of time rather than an eight hour one. Plus, once again, players will be restricted to one hour of total playtime, and, with two areas to explore in total, it’s likely that many players won’t get all that much out of such a brief experience. Given that this is six days away from the full game’s release, players on other platformers will certainly be justified in feeling somewhat neglected.

At the end of the day, the purpose of these demos is to generate interest in the game, and I understand that complaining about something as superfluous as brief snippets of gameplay isn’t entirely warranted. Yet, it’s regardless difficult to abide content that’s restricted by both time and platform, and, when compared to the much more fleshed-out Resident Evil 7 pre-release experience, it’s hard to not feel the least bit disappointed by what Village has offered us thus far.

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