Update: More rumours have emerged. An earlier rumour said that Resident Evil 8 would feature a section set in a village. Now, it’s being said that its very title has “village” in it.

The new rumour comes from a leak received by Biohazard Declassified (via Twitter), who suggests that the title will be stylized so as to highlight the roman numeral “VIII”. They also reported that Chris Redfield will have an important role in the new game, and that “He appears in flashbacks surrounding Ethan, Mia, and apparently their baby”.

Rumor: RE8 is called RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE (notice the VIII)

– Chris to play a central role; has been redesigned
– New stalker enemy type: witch
– European setting, weird elements (hallucinations)
– Possible RE4 style inventory UI
– Planned for Q1 2021https://t.co/rOklTAjP7P pic.twitter.com/QCRQRRSecF

— Nibel (@Nibellion) April 7, 2020

Strangely, the leak also says that Chris plays an antagonistic role in these flashbacks, as he breaks into the home of the Resident Evil 7 co-protagonist and shoots at one of the three.

Finally, the game is supposedly set to release in Q1 2021.

As always, take these rumours with a grain of salt. If they turn out to be true, well, I just hope Resident Evil 8: Village is just a temporary title and not the one the game ships with.

Original: It looks like Resident Evil 8 might be coming out in 2021, and it won’t be in a form expected by Resident Evil fans.

According to Twitter user AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem, this upcoming Resident Evil 8 wasn’t originally planned to be the next main instalment in the series. Instead, it started out as Resident Evil: Revelations 3, but has now been given another year to be converted into Resident Evil 8. 

Okay, so the little game is done. This will be breaking this month with more details later not by myself, but I've needed to clear some stuff up. "Resident Evil 2021" is Resident Evil 8, but it wasn't always RE8. During most of its development it existed as Revelations 3.

— AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem (@AestheticGamer1) April 4, 2020

It seems that there was another Resident Evil 8 in development, but it’s “years away”. AestheticGamer says that Capcom wanted a follow-up to Resident Evil 7 to be released earlier, and with Revelations 3 receiving positive reactions from testers, it got the role. It’ll now be receiving changes to its story and characters, and will be a cross-gen title. 

The new Resident Evil 8 will apparently be first-person like Resident Evil 7, but will feature “Hallucinations, Occultism, insanity”. In a separate thread, AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem says that there will be a “sequence where you’re in a village with multiple routes trying to make your way to a Castle, being attacked by Beast Men, zombies in armour with swords, and a Witch that laughs a lot”.

The Beastmen are said to be “Human-Dog-Reptile hybrids”, which sounds incredibly grotesque, and it seems that the Witch is an unkillable enemy that transforms into an insect swarm after taking a number of shots.

sequence where you're in a village with multiple routes trying to make your way to a Castle, being attacked by Beast Men, zombies in armor with swords, and a Witch that laughs a lot. The Witch is unkillable but turns into a swarm of insects if you shoot at her enough, the swarm

— AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem (@AestheticGamer1) April 5, 2020

Despite the seeming fantasy/supernatural elements, they assured that it will “still very clearly be a Resident Evil game, just a different kind of Resident Evil game tackling some different things than they usually do”.

It’s still a pretty surprising direction, if true, and I wonder what the Beastmen and medieval zombies will look like. It seems that more will be revealed later this month, though it’s not quite an official announcement. We’ll just have to wait and see, then.