Resident Evil Village is back with new content for players to indulge in. Taking place several years after the events of the main story “Winters’ Expansion” follows Rose daughter of Ethan & Mia Winters now under the care of the government. Upon discovering that there may be a way to remove her abilities which were passed down from her father she goes into a dark and twisted alternative world where she learns more about her questionable past.

Resident Evil Village Winters’ Expansion is a 2022 downloadable content expansion, it is developed and published by Capcom. It is available on PC and current & last gen consoles in the Resident Evil Village Gold Edition.

Editor’s Note: Near complete spoilers for the base Resident Evil Village game as well as Winters Expansion may be present within this review.

Rose continues the story of the Winters family in Winters’ Expansion.

Rose Winters is nearly all grown up in the new Winters’ Expansion closing off the last remnants Winters family’s story that began in Resident Evil 7. Taking place before the final moments of the base game Rose Winters finds herself embarrassed at school due to her powers often getting out of control. Discovering a potential opportunity to finally have what she considers a great ailment removed she travels through the megamycete into an even more dangerous alternate world where a crystal which can absorb her powers exists.

Relive the base game with the all new third person mode.

THE GOOD: Sometime has passed since the events of Resident Evil Village when Ethan Winters sacrificed himself for his wife Mia and daughter Rose. Now nearing a young adult Rose has been under the care of the new Umbrella Corporation for years. With minimal control over her powers she gained from her father she frequently has incidents at school and views her abilities as a huge burden. A colleague of hers reveals that she may be able to relief herself of her blight by using the memory fragments left behind from a sample of the megamycete. Feeling it may be her only option to be normal Rose reluctantly obliges. Upon entering the megamycete Rose finds herself within the castle from the base game where monsters are present. She’s greeted by what appears to be a megamycete clone of herself who guides her through the castle’s basement. The clone is soon killed by one of the monsters leaving a defenseless Rose on her own for a short period of time before being saved by a mysterious force named “Michael”.

Following her meeting with Michael she encounters an evil version of The Duke who’s been torturing the Rose megamycete clones for entertainment. She escapes him and with help of Michael regains some of her abilities from within the megamycete memory. Rose traverses the castle to find the three masks to unlock the cage containing a crystal which will aide her in getting rid of her powers. However, the evil Duke’s crystal is revealed to be a fake (another method of torture) and he traps Rose where she’s forced to escape and later fight powerful brute versions of the monsters. After being forced out of the castle Rose ends up at the house near the graveyard where she has to “play” with a mysterious entity. This entity ends up being the last remnants of Eveline who attacks Rose following the games she made Rose play.

Michael appears in physical form saving Rose from Evelyn. Rose deduces that Michael is actually her father Ethan who’s using the last remnants of himself within the megamycete to help her. Rose finally acquires the real crystal and begins to take advantage of it as Mother Miranda appears revealing that everything Rose went through was her own doing including Rose being informed of the crystal. Ethan helps Rose fight Mother Miranda and after finally coming to accept her powers she defeats Mother Miranda and gives Ethan a proper goodbye. The final scene from the base game plays revealing the previous events took place prior to it.

Explore an alternative version of the castle stage in Resident Evil Winters’ Expansion.

The Rose campaign gives us a grand finale of the Winters’ epic journey with a now near young adult Rose taking over as lead. The story once again revisits the horror elements the franchise is known for in addition to the more action based gameplay which began with Resident Evil 4. I mentioned in my initial review for the base game that the horror vibes are mainly felt in the early hours of the game. Here with the much more condensed story it’s more properly realized, but I still can’t help but feel like the game is holding back just how much more terrifying it can really be. While we don’t really get to spend a whole lot of time with her I do enjoy Rose’s presentation as a character. She’s a lot more entertaining than Ethan from a character perspective that’s for certain anyways. She comes off as way more energetic and emotional compared to Ethan who admittedly often felt rather bland in especially what should have been emotionally impactful moments. Rose’s voice actress Jeannie Tirado does a great job of bringing Rose to life when need be and grounding her a bit as well.

In regards to the new gameplay mechanics much of what’s new is environment based. By that I mean you’ll be using most of Rose’s abilities to conquer puzzles and traverse to new areas within the castle as well as other trademark maps from the base game. Combat wise you have the standard gunplay, but you can also use Rose’s powers to stun enemies to either gain some distance for breather or deal extra hits of damage. The puzzles are what you’d expect in most cases like finding the correct core to unlock a new area or obtain a key item as well as placing a key item in it’s correct location, etc. It should be noted that this is an expansion campaign so anyone expecting another full game will be a bit disappointed.

New horror awaits the Winters family one last time.

THE BAD: Winters’ Expansion is a fine bit of campaign content for those looking for another excuse to give Resident Evil Village another go round. However, the story content is only about 2-4 hours long depending on your difficult & skill and unless you’re into The Mercenaries content or really want to replay the game with the new third person mode there really isn’t a ton of replay value.

A satisfying conclusion (?) to the Winters’ story.

OVERALL  THOUGHTS: Resident Evil Village Winters’ Expansion provides a very solid what I can only assume to be farewell to the Winters as we move on to Resident Evil REmake 4, Resident Evil 9, and whatever else Capcom may have in the pipelines for the franchise. While the content within the package is good it’s value will ultimately depend on what players want out of returning to the game. And with a max run time of about fourish hours for the Rose campaign there’s not a whole lot there to consume unless you’re super into Mercenaries or have some left over trophies/achievements as excuses for a run with the third person mode.