"Resident Evil Village" is not just a catchy game title, but also a description of the place where the game takes place. I got my first look at the town the other day, and it seems to be full of atmospheric horror potential. The village is not a real place, but it draws inspiration from a real town in Scandinavia and all the history it contains.

IGN has posted new screenshots of the game, as well as comments from the game's director, Morimasa Sato. While there is no guarantee that the Village Map will cover every location in the game, it should give prospective players a good idea of what to expect from the latest Resident Evil title.

The map itself is hand-drawn in sepia tones, and is displayed on a cluttered wooden desk with a golden frame; there are 12 named locations, four of which have titles that are larger and bolder than the others. This suggests that these locations may be central to the game's storyline, while others may be short or optional areas.

"Key" locations include Haus Benevient, Heisenberg's factory, Dimitresk Castle, and the reservoir at Mulleau. The locations seem to be quite ordinary for a Resident Evil location: mansions, factories, castles, lakes, etc. IGN compared them to similar locations in Resident Evil IV, which was also set in a secluded European village.

The small locales include a windmill, a fortress, a series of houses, a bridge, and an interesting "ceremonial site." (We imagine, from all previous Resident Evil games, that the ritual in question would be something bloody.) We'll have to wait to play the full game to find out exactly how the entire Village is put together, but there will probably be small transition areas between these locations as well.

The map does not convey weather conditions, but Sato noted that snow will play an important role in the player's movement through the Village.

"One year I went to Europe in the spring to cover a story, and the landscape was covered in snow due to an unseasonably cold spell. That inspired me to incorporate snowy landscapes into the game." We used snow not only as a visual effect, but also as an element of gameplay"

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Therefore, some outdoor areas are expected to have a unique winter atmosphere. The "gameplay elements" mentioned by Sato could be anything from obstructions to movement, blocked off areas, special equipment to aid navigation, etc.

In any case, fans of "Resident Evil 7: Resident Evil Village" know that the game will indeed be set in a Nordic village. And if there's anything we've learned from the last 200 years of horror movies, it's that remote Nordic villages are the perfect setting for scary stories.