Resident Evil Village’s The Mercenaries director on how Lady D plays

If Resident Evil Village’s Winters’ Expansion launches on Oct. 28, survival horror fans will have a chance to revisit the creepy Eastern European hamlet to experience a coda to Ethan Winters’ story as his daughter Rose. Capcom plans to also publish a major update. Village’s replayable The Mercenaries mode, giving players control of baddies like Lady Alcina Dimitrescu and Karl Heisenberg, as well as veteran Resident Evil hero Chris Redfield. That’s much more variety than the current version of The Mercenaries has, which lets players battle the village’s hordes as ol’ whatshisface Ethan.

Polygon spoke recently with Resident Evil Village Winters’ ExpansionKento Kinoshita was our game director. She answered all of our questions about The Mercenaries and the expectations players have when they enter Lady D’s heels later in this month. Read on for our full email Q&A with Kinoshita.

Polygon: Could you please discuss the process of adapting Lady Dimitrescu’s and Karl Heisenberg’s characters for The Mercenaries. These characters seem very different to the ones players had previously control over in the previous version of the game mode.

Kento Kinoshita:First, the additions must be beloved characters fans will want to take part in. We ran into some issues along the way, but our development team’s enthusiasm and problem-solving made it possible to add three incredibly popular characters. Each character was given its own personality when we adapted them for The Mercenaries. Chris is a combination character who uses both long-range (firearms), and close-combat weapons (fists). Heisenberg uses magnetic force to launch close-range attacks. Lady Dimitrescu uses her enormous stature to deliver devastating strikes that are incredibly powerful.

Are players allowed to be 9 feet tall when they play Lady D? Or is she “shrunk down” to roughly match other characters’ height?

Lady Dimitrescu’s height brought up a lot of challenges during development, but in the end we were able to implement her with a giant stature, taller than any of the other characters. For The Mercenaries, it’s necessary that the player can control their character easily, and to make that possible we did adjust her height to a little under nine feet tall. The player barely manages to avoid bumping into the ceiling at this height.

Was it Lady D who came up with the idea of throwing furniture to attack?

Before we considered what actions we might give Lady Dimitrescu we looked back at the entire story campaign. Most of Dimitrescu’s behavior in human form is either quite plain or wouldn’t feel great in terms of performing those actions as a player, but there’s that one scene where she throws an entire vanity that leaves such a lasting impression. It was a memorable moment that stood out. In the design proposal, just the words “you can throw a vanity” garnered a lot of laughter and enthusiasm among the development team, so rather than sweat the details like “where does the furniture come from?” we just concentrated on making it a fun and interesting attack.

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Which elements of Lady D’s fan reaction did you wish to see in Lady D?

In one of the questions I already mentioned this, and even though we were aware that it would prove difficult to achieve such an impressive stature, we felt it was important to mention it again. Also, we were able to express the two sides of her — the calm, dignified side, and the excitable, deranged side — with the Thrill Gauge system. Her three daughters were received very well by fans too, so we decided to include them as one of Lady Dimitrescu’s actions.

The trailer for The Mercenaries : Additional Orders features Chris striking SIX enemies in one punch. Are Chris Redfield capable of superpowers or is he just a normal person? Is he secretly Hadouken

Initially Chris Redfield’s punch had an attack radius that was more consistent with its visuals, but we received a lot of feedback that the punch would often miss enemies because of that. We changed the attack radius to cover a greater area to improve its feel and make sure you land every punch you need. Chris is human, so he has no special powers, but this is The Chris Who Punched a Boulder we’re talking about. He is certainly capable with his fists. Additionally, we’ve given each character their own unique abilities. We included a wide range, including abilities that strengthen Chris’ fists, strengthen his firearm attacks, and more. Each run offers a variety that we hope you will enjoy.

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Resident Evil Village’s The Mercenaries’ new playable characters all look very powerful. How did you balance them for the mode’s level of challenge?

The Mercenaries’ main focus is on exhilaration. The new characters can be incredibly powerful. But, to rack up a high score, it’s necessary to chain combos and defeat enemies swiftly. Players should try to tackle the different challenges presented by each character.

Players will be allowed to buy items from The Duke when they play as Chris, Lady D and Heisenberg. What kind of products will these players have access to if so?

The new characters can purchase items or weapon upgrades from The Duke. Unlike Ethan, they aren’t able to purchase weapons, but they are able to acquire abilities, which makes playing even the same character feel new depending on what you’ve obtained.

Which new product is your favourite? Resident Evil Village’s The Mercenaries mode that people might not know about?

There are 20 unlockables that we have added, along with new abilities and stages. We also adjusted the difficulty of each one to ensure there was no decrease in playability. The LZ Answerer could be quite difficult to unlock in the original game, but with The Mercenaries Additional Orders, it’s possible to obtain it while using the newly added characters. If you weren’t able to unlock it before, why not give it another try?