Resident Evil: Village, or Resident Evil 8 is the next main game in the series. While it has been announced by Capcom and could answer some burning questions about the Resident Evil series, it is not available yet to the public. But there was a copycat on Steam trying to fool people into thinking it was the real deal come early.

Developer Forest Games released a game called Biohazard Village on Steam as one of two titles to it name. The game bears a lot of resemblance to the RE series - in theory. It was described on Steam as “People turned into zombies. There is only you, your weapon and a huge number of zombies in the post-apocalyptic village. You must win to survive.” Sounds like the basic premise of some RE titles, though it is missing the leaked Resident Evil Village medieval zombies in armor.

The copycat Biohazard Village went up on Tuesday, September 2, 2020 and was taken down the same day. It may have cut a little too close to the original, sporting almost a pixel-by-pixel copy of the Village logo, even down to the Roman numerals used to make the “Vill” part of Village. As fans of the series know, in Japan, the Resident Evil series is called “BioHazard.” It didn’t even seem like the developers of this were trying to hide that they had tried to copy the much-anticipated unreleased Resident Evil 8.

While its other title, called Panic Station, still remains on Steam, Biohazard Village has been removed, most likely because of the flagrant use of Capcom’s Resident Evil 8 Village property. The game, which cost about $1.19 USD, was purchased by a handful of people, some of whom were streamers, so the game isn’t completely erased from the internet.

The gameplay is everything gamers could hope for in a knockoff, low-budget, B-version of an AAA title. The graphics are wonky and unstable, the zombies are comical, and the ammo is unlimited. The story follows a young woman with no background (or name) that is stuck in a very dark house while zombies invade, hoping to eat her brains. One thing it did get right was reliving all those times that Resident Evil tried to be scary and ended up being funny instead. Here’s a Let’s Play of the Biohazard Village in all its glory:

Since the world has been deprived of this humorous wannabe, fans of the horror genre will just have to wait for TGS 2020 Digital reveal of more Resident Evil 8 Village info.

Resident Evil Village is in development.

Source: Polygon