WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Resident Evil Village, available now.

While it wasn't until near the end of 2017's Resident Evil 7: Biohazard that the video game's connection to the wider Resident Evil universe became clear, Resident Evil Village opens with a familiar face apparently turning into a foe. The game's prologue has domestic serenity cruelly interrupted when Chris Redfield and a strike team gun down protagonist Ethan Winters' wife Mia before his eyes before taking Ethan and his infant daughter Rosemary into custody. And as Ethan battles through a remote, Eastern European village to rescue Rose from the sinister Mother Miranda and her forces, the game's ending establishes the saga of Ethan Winters firmly into the franchise's canon while providing a path for it to go next.

As Ethan prepares for his final battle, Chris resurfaces and explains that the woman masquerading around Ethan's home as Mia wasn't his wife at all but Miranda using her connection to the mutative mold under the village to disguise herself. Chris had attempted to kill Miranda and took Chris and Rose to see if the two were infected by the mold only for Miranda to survive and attack the convoy, stranding Ethan near the village while kidnapping Rose. Due to Rose inheriting special properties from the mold through her parents' prior experiences with it in Biohazard, Miranda discovered the baby girl could serve as a viable host as the new body for Miranda's long-deceased daughter Eva, with her consciousness stored in the mutamycete, the massive heart of mold under the village.

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As Chris investigated Miranda's links to Eveline and the mold used to mutate the evil Baker family in Biohazard, along with the shocking revelation that Miranda had mentored Umbrella Corporation founder Oswell E. Spencer decades previously, he was able to rescue the real Mia, imprisoned in Miranda's lab, and escort her to safety. And as Ethan leapt into his final battle against Miranda, he learned a dark truth about himself: He had actually been killed by Jack Baker in Louisiana three years ago, with his body reconstituted mold bearing his memories and consciousness; this accounts for his unnatural regenerative abilities after suffering grievous wounds over the course of both Biohazard and Village. With his healing factor failing him because of his wounds from his battle with Miranda, Ethan entrusts Rose into Chris' care before detonating a massive bomb to destroy the mutamycete for good, along with himself.

As the survivors, including a reunited Mia and Rose, mourn Ethan's death, Chris learns that one of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) troops that had charged into the final battle with Miranda's forces was actually a bioweapon himself, with his corpse resembling someone infected with the T-Virus from the original Resident Evil games. Chris vows to avenge Ethan's death by raining retribution on those within the BSAA that have secretly employed bioweapons themselves, deciding to investigate the BSAA's European headquarters. In a post-credits scene set some time later, an older Rose in her late teens or early 20s visits Ethan's grave before hinting she has powers of her own and is working with Chris as she links up her handler after learning that she is needed to address a situation elsewhere.

Resident Evil Village's finale effectively delivers plot twists about how exactly the Ethan-driven adventures fit into the universe, the true nature behind Ethan's superhuman resilience and healing factor and sets up plenty of directions for the acclaimed survival horror franchise to go next in future installments. Ethan may be dead and gone but his daughter appears to have become a badass monster hunter like her father, with Rose having some unseen tricks up her sleeve to explored in the future now that Village is explicitly tied into the franchise's past. Where Rose goes from here could be explored in DLC, but it's just as likely fans will have to wait for the inevitable Resident Evil IX.

Developed and published by Capcom, Resident Evil Village is available now for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC and Google Stadia.

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