Resident Evil Village (aka Resident Evil 8) is my most anticipated game on the PS5. I'm so excited about it that I'm even considering buying a PS5 to run the game at full capacity. (And I've given up on the PS5.) But I'm starting to worry about how big the game will be.

We live in a time when there can be a backlash because fans have high expectations for the length of the game. The economy is not doing well, so we need to spend every dollar we can, and I hope "Resident Evil 7: Resident Evil Village" does not succumb to that pressure.

There is a world out there where Resident Evil 8 will be long and wonderful. In fact, Capcom may well hit the big time with an epic story. But in the words of The Big Lebowski, this is my concern.

I've been thinking about the potential runtime of Resident Evil 8 for several weeks now. I love "Resident Evil 7" and its tight editing. And this past Tuesday, Peter Fabiano, Capcom producer and founder of Global Productions, told Official PlayStation Magazine that RE8 is "much more than what players experienced in Resident Evil VII Resident Evil. massive," he said.

As noted in the comments to a Reddit post about the news, some fans were very excited about it (though the post also addressed the lack of load times and 3D audio support) Redditor u/ClappinCheeks120 simply replied "Hell ya.", u/Abellewis31 shouted "Amen.", and u/Mastrownge declared "This is the way."

Replies on Twitter seemed to agree with my stance. Tempo and storyline matter" and @DejinerettSkomm tweeted, "Not sure about that, honestly. Often I feel like the quality of RE games is inversely proportional to their length," and @pitto tweeted, "7 was perfect. Stop bloating the game... Focus on quality, don't get carried away with length."

2020's Resident Evil 3 remake was great, but was criticized for its short play time; the site How Long To Beat measured RE3's main story at 6 hours, which some fans felt was not enough.

I don't want "Resident Evil 7: Resident Evil Village" to go in another direction: it's Lady Dimitresque. For those of you who don't know, Lady D is a 9'6" vampire who has so far stolen the show. People love her so much that Capcom itself tweeted an acknowledgment of her enthusiasm.

However, there is concern that if Resident Evil 8 goes on too long, we may learn too much about Lady Dimitrescu; many science fiction, horror, and fantasy stories tell too much about mysterious characters and provide unnecessary backstory and exposition.

How Long To Beat states that the main story of "Resident Evil 7: Resident Evil" is about 9 hours long, and the completists about 22 hours. This makes sense for a horror film that offers roller-coaster suspense; a season on Netflix rarely lasts that long. Similarly, every scene in "Resident Evil 7" feels necessary.

In the world of blockbuster video games, "RE7" is on the short side; 2018's "God of War" (21 hours full length, 51 hours complete group) and "The Last of Us Part 2" (24 hours full length, 40 hours complete group) are more common. Both games are great, but neither is a horror game (TLOU2 has its horror bits, but it's half drama), and horror is hard to sustain the mood.

Besides, the short development time of "Resident Evil 7: Resident Evil" probably means that the developers have less time to build it up.

The boss fights in "Resident Evil 7" are virtually perfect set pieces, from the unforgettable first fight in the prelude to the chainsaw showdown in the pit. And since I'm not particularly good at these fights, I spent a lot of time looking at every element of what was going on. Game design at its best.

Even the Venom look-alike, Mold's badass, is elaborately designed. When I first came across one of them, I had conflicting emotions. At first, I wanted to obliterate its presence, but on the other hand, I wished there weren't more of them lurking (and there were). Then I thought, "Damn, that was cool. There should be more of them."

With any luck, Fabiano is referring to the scale of Resident Evil 8, not the time it will take to complete. If the game is longer, it will probably only add a few hours.

If I were more optimistic about game development, I would believe that the powers that be at Capcom would either increase the size of their development team for such a task or give them more time to complete the game. I don't know, because in the world of games (until something goes wrong, as in the case of "Cyberpunk 2077") the details of the production cycle are not often made public.

The early material we have seen on Resident Evil 8, including the "Maiden" demo, suggests that the game will rival the quality of previous titles. We can only hope that "Resident Evil 7: Resident Evil Village" will be as jaw-dropping as its current Game of the Year nominations.