Resident Evil Village's antagonist Lady Dimitrescu has practically exploded online, prompting the team to explain some of the design decisions they took in creating her.
Capcom were pretty much set on the motif of castles and vampires but "did not want to be constrained by how vampires have been portrayed in various forms of popular entertainment."
Nevertheless, the list of influences includes some characters from popular entertainment, most notably Anjelica Huston's Morticia Addams from The Addams Family, an exquisite reference from an exquisite movie.
Which is not to say that Lady Dumitrescu will bring laughter and joy to those around her - the influences also list noblewoman and serial killer Elizabeth Bathory, and Japanese urban legend Hashaku-sama. We'll let you research those on your own, but suffice to say there's whole lotta killing involved there.
Resident Evil Village's art director Tomonori Takano has been delighted with the reception of Lady Dimitrescu and he now shared some of the design choices the team has made.
"The very first piece of concept art I drew was the scene in the trailer where Lady Dimitrescu ducks down to walk through the doorway”, Takano said. “From that moment, I knew I had to do that scene."
Takano says they've spent a lot of time analysing existing Resident Evil villains in order to see whether they're still scary or they were normalised enough to be viewed as ordinary, aiming to place Lady Dimitrescu smack-dab in the middle of scary.
Capcom
Interestingly enough, Capcom were taken aback with how "wonderfully" the fans reacted to Lady Dimitrescu. "I was particularly struck by comments like, ‘I want to be chased by her", Takano said.
You can find the full interview on IGN .
Resident Evil Village, Capcom's next Resident Evil tale
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