Village maintains survival horror elements from previous games, with players scavenging environments for items and managing resources while adding more action-oriented gameplay, with higher enemy counts and a greater emphasis on combat.

[2] Compared to Biohazard, the game is more action focused, with protagonist Ethan Winters equipped with more combat skills due to military training.

[3] The game's primary enemies, the werewolf-like Lycans, are agile and intelligent and can wield weapons and attack in packs, forcing the player to rethink their strategy on whether to use sparse ammunition, use melee combat, or run away.

[5] The inventory management mechanic is similar to that of Resident Evil 4, featuring a briefcase and the ability to move and rotate items for better storage space.

"[18] Three years after the events of Resident Evil 7, Ethan and his wife Mia have been relocated to Europe by Chris Redfield to start a new life with their newborn daughter Rosemary.

Ethan evades a death trap set by Heisenberg and ventures into Dimitrescu's castle in hopes of finding Rosemary, with help from a mysterious merchant known as the Duke.

Witnessing Ethan's death, Chris leads Hound Wolf to extract Rosemary while a Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) assault force distracts Miranda.

Ethan, with his regenerative powers finally having reached their limit, sacrifices himself to detonate the bomb planted on the Megamycete, while Chris transports Mia and Rosemary to safety.

Rose finds herself in a replica of Beneviento's house, where she relives her traumatic childhood of constant bullying by her schoolmates, with the realm's leader blaming her powers gained from her father.

To comfort Rose, Michael shows her a realm similar to her house as a baby, where she finds a letter for her written by her father, saying that he loves her and will always be by her side.

Seeing her father in danger, Rose is reluctant to leave, but when she hears his agonizing cries, she breaks the crystal and embraces her powers, along with gaining some new ones, and defeats Miranda, finally destroying her existence once and for all.

[25] Without having RE7's release to judge its success, the team kept the initial designs around the core survival horror gameplay roots that had been in Resident Evil 4 (RE4) and had been a return to form in RE7.

[26] RE7 was released in January 2017 and was well received by critics and players, so the team decided to make the next game a direct sequel to RE7, keeping its protagonist Ethan Winters as the main character and retaining the same style of gameplay.

[17] As they continued to develop the village, Sato said they wanted to give players more freedom toward solving problems, and make it "a horror movie that you can play".

[25] In contrast to past Resident Evil games that generally have been linear progressions, the team created a more open world-style village, with optional and secret areas, designed to reward the player for exploration.

[27] Sato also stated that the village's snowy weather was inspired by the team's trip to Europe for research for the game, where they were met by an "unseasonable cold snap, the scenery was covered in snow.

In a Famitsu interview, producers Kanda and Peter Fabiano said that they considered the village a character, and wanted to reflect that in the stylization of the title so that players would remember it.

[24] According to art director Tomonori Takano, the developmental team drew inspiration from Resident Evil 4 as they wanted memorable characters to populate the village.

[21] Karl Heisenberg is characterized as an engineer with an extravagant dress sense inspired by men's fashion from the 1960s; his base of operations is not covered in snow unlike the other lords', likely due to the lower altitude of its location.

[21] Salvatore Moreau was conceived as "the most repulsive character on Earth"; his domain was originally inspired by a frozen lake the team sighted during a research trip in Eastern Europe.

[35] Chris's actions serve as a major mystery to the game, which Capcom felt was an opportunity to showcase the character's progression to fans who were already familiar with him.

[53] A collector's edition was made available for the console versions, featuring extras such as a Chris Redfield figurine, a hardcover art book, and a village map poster.

[72] Hornshaw praised the new direction, feeling its notable departure from Resident Evil 7 made it work as a sequel and opined that the game provided an excellent balance of action and scares.

Hornshaw commended the diversity of horror ideas and was impressed by how the game switched between them, calling each area "fun, intense, and, naturally, frightening in its own way.

[71] Ogilvie concurred, writing that the focus on exploration distinguished it from previous installments, and felt rewarding and motivating from new discoveries and the inclusion of a merchant character.

Hurley thought that the quality of the puzzles was "consistently low", particularly criticizing an example in which a map is given to find a locked door that the player passes previously in the game, and another that had the solution next to it.

[72] Hornshaw noted the movement system was unchanged from Resident Evil 7 and as a result felt "a little slow and clunky"; they opined it was better suited when surrounded by enemies rather than during boss battles.

[71] Ogilvie found that many of the battles fell "surprisingly short" and amounted to little more than dodging and shooting an enemy's weak points, noting that he would have preferred them to be more engaging and "epic-sized".

Richard Leadbetter of Digital Foundry noted the "tremendously high frame times" and "extraordinary" stuttering, especially during encounters with the maidens and other enemies with certain animations.

In July 2021, a pirated version of the game by an independent cracker was released, effectively stripping away the Denuvo and Capcom digital rights management (DRM) software.