Resident Evil Village certainly doesn’t shy away from the fact that it borrows heavy inspiration from longtime fan favorite Resident Evil 4. From its setting of a remote village dominated by an imposing castle, to its increased emphasis on gunplay and combat over strict horror, there is no shortage of ways in which the two games resemble one another.
[WARNING: Spoilers for Resident Evil Village and Resident Evil 4 below]
Both the Romanian village in the latest series iteration and the unnamed Spanish village in Resident Evil 4 suffer the devastating effects of bioweapon attacks on their citizens prior to players showing up on the scene. In each case, normal people have been transformed into something inhuman despite retaining a somewhat outwardly human appearance, and in both cases, rather than simply being the zombies that Resident Evil’s Umbrella first began with, they’re something considerably more terrifying. These villagers play host to infectious parasites that alter their physiology and influence their minds.
In the case of Resident Evil 4, those alterations commonly result in hideous, scythe-like appendages sometimes bursting from people’s heads - though not everyone manifests the infection so prominently, and there are more severe manifestations over the course of the game. Resident Evil Village’s citizens-turned-monsters have a few forms of their own depending on where they’re found, from seemingly undead creatures to the werewolf-like Lycans, bat-winged Samca, and the Four Lords with their varied powers and monstrous forms.
RE4’s Las Plagas And RE Village’s Cadou Are Both Parasitic In Nature
A parasitic entity is involved in each case, and they both operate by infecting a host, making physical changes to it, and connecting it to some kind of hivemind that also links other infected persons. Yet despite the obvious similarities, their sources aren’t exactly the same. The latest game reveals mutamycete, or the Mold, as the catalyst for transformation, albeit one that Resident Evil Village’s Mother Miranda uses to create her own bioweapon in the form of the Cadou parasite. Las Plagas, on the other hand, comes from a parasitic creature whose origins are not as well understood. In Resident Evil 4, players discover that Las Plagas is a parasite that appears to have a much longer history than what Miranda has created, as generations of castellans were tasked with keeping it sealed away until (in very Miranda-like fashion) Osmund Saddler, posing as a holy man, found a way to capitalize on it at the expense of the populace.
Yet there is no way to say whether Las Plagas has any links to the Mold from Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village. While there are elements of parasitism and symbiosis in both cases - particularly when Lady Dimitrescu transforms into a gargantuan creature she seems to have fused with (or grown), and when Ramon Salazar from RE 4 performs a similar transformation into a nightmarish creature - it’s going to take more historical evidence (and likely another new game in the series) before anyone can know for sure just how these two entities might be linked. There’s still a chance that they share a common derivation, made arguably more likely given that they both have potentially natural origins.
With any luck, more will be revealed about the history of these fascinating and terrifying phenomena before whatever the inevitable Resident Evil 9 turns out to be, at least if Capcom takes advantage of the millions of sales Resident Evil Village has generated thus far. Making a DLC pack or two available to its growing audience of fans seems like all but a foregone conclusion. But until then, armchair theorists will have to satisfy themselves merely with continued speculation.
