Resident Evil Village DLC trailer offers glimpse of playable Lady D

Capcom announced a massive update for Resident Evil Village last month in the form of The Winters' Expansion, which includes a new story, a third-person mode, and what they're calling The Mercenaries Additional Orders, which adds three new playable characters in their own Mercenaries side missions. The latter component got a new trailer today, and with it, details on how playing as Lady Dimitrescu, Karl Heisenberg, and Chris Redfield will actually work.

If you watch the trailer above, you'll quickly discover that playing as Chris Redfield turns the game into an absolute bloodbath. He's a lot more aggressive and a lot better armed than Ethan Winters, and to emphasise this he has an "Onslaught Gauge" which fills up as he murders foes. Once the gauge hits its limit Redfield enters Onslaught Mode, which means he'll move faster, reload quicker, and enemies will die in a fraction of the time. It kinda looks like Resident Evil Village as a boomer shooter. I love it.

Karl Heisenberg's playstyle is also very aggressive, which is unsurprising. He's more melee-centric, though. With his extremely large electrified hammer he'll pulverise the undead, and if they're far away that's no problem, because his Magnetic Field ability will draw them within range of a good ol' pummelling. He can also summon a Soldat Jet, which works kinda like a rocket launcher.

But it's Lady D that most players will gravitate to first. If Redfield is the ranger and Heisenberg the tank, Lady D is definitely the mage. She uses her talons for close range attacks, and when her Thrill Gauge is full (via killing things, of course) she'll move faster, her talons will do more damage, and she can even summon one of her ghastly daughters.

It all looks like a great excuse to replay Resident Evil Village, which Andy Kelly described as "a grimly beautiful collection of killer horror set-pieces." The Winters' Expansion releases on October 28.

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.