How Capcom designed Lady Dimitrescu of Resident Evil Village and why she’s so big online

How Capcom designed Lady Dimitrescu of Resident Evil Village and why she’s so big online

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Resident Evil as a franchise casts a long shadow in video games, but Capcom took it literally with Resident Evil 8: Village. The latest villain of the series, Lady Dimitrescu, is a 9’6 ”vampire whose fans have a fiery reaction to his exciting framework and stylish Edwardian fashion sense. Fanart, memes and cosplays of the character spread like the T-virus through the Raccoon city over the internet – to the great delight of Village’s developers. Here’s how she came to be and why she seduced so many people.

An enchanting vampire

‘In the early stages of planning, we decided to move on [a] castle and vampire motifs, ”says Tomonori Takano, Village’s art director, in a recent interview with IGN. “However, we did not want to be limited by how vampires are portrayed in different forms of popular entertainment.”

Takano started with the concept of an ‘enchanting vampire’ and says they draw inspiration from figures such as the famous 16th-century Hungarian nobleman and serial killer Elizabeth Báthory, the Japanese urban legend Hashaku-sama, and Morticia Addams from Anjelica Huston.Lady Demitrescu certainly does not look like a traditional vampire. While she’s pale and has bright yellow eyes, she’s more like she’s been out of her twenties than in an Eastern European castle (and she’d probably stepped on people completely). “The very first concept art I drew was the scene in the trailer where Lady Dimitrescu drops away to walk through the door,” Takano said. “From then on, I knew I had to do the scene.”

A towering reception

Takano’s instinct was right – when the scene appeared in a short preview in January, the viral reactions began to pour in. An early one from YouTuber Suzi Hunter put it pretty succinctly:

‘Like any good character that makes people horny, [Lady Demitrescu is] a combination of a bunch of different niche fetishes, ‘says Emily Gaudette, a pop culture and relationship columnist who wrote about the intersection of kink and pop culture. ‘Obviously she’s a vampire, and the fantasy of being devoured or consumed by a vampire is classic at this point. They desire something taboo about you – your blood, your life force – and they have to hurt you to get it, but the ecstasy of having your blood drawn is always surrounded as sexual. ‘

Gaudette says that the idea of ​​being physically overwhelmed by a woman is new and exciting to many men – which would help explain why there are so many memes and jokes about Lady Dimitrescu stepping on her, chasing or crushing her. “There was an increase in direct men who were ‘simps’ online,” she says. “It’s just a reversal of the typical heterosub / stupid dynamic.”

“A lot of memes I see are based on this idea that a gamer can intentionally lose to become through the giant, beautiful woman, and it’s kind of a sexual play that a sub / stupid couple can run into.”

Not your typical monster

It’s also worth noting how stylish Lady Dimitrescu is compared to other Big Bads in the Resident Evil franchise. One of the first scenes in which we saw her had her sitting in front of a mirror and putting on make-up. Takano says they did not “want to lean too heavily on gothic horror designs for the whole town,” and “incorporated elements of the era of the Great Depression into the overall design.”

Even compared to previous female villains in the Resident Evil series, Lady Dimitrescu stands out. She’s not an overly monstrous creature like Lisa Trevor or someone who’s conventionally attractive who turns into a monster like Alexia Ashford. Lady Dimitrescu sits between the two as something completely unique and original to Capcom.

Takano says it’s a sequel to Capcom’s new direction for the series that began with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. “We’d analyzed the characters and elements in the Resident Evil series so far to see if they were really scary,” Takano says, “or if they became so conventional that they lost their effectiveness in scaring players.” He said that even the longtime producer of the series, Jun Takeuchi, shared: “If we want people to be scared, we need to think beyond the stereotypical zombies.”

Resident Evil 8 Village Showcase screenshots

“I tried to forget the design logic of the past and started thinking about the best ways to create fear,” Takano says. For Resident Evil Village, we use similar concepts of ‘Evil’ as in Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, which was not based on normal people or zombies. ‘

According to Takano, the reaction was overwhelming, and even non-game stores like The Guardian took up the internet’s new 9’6 “obsession. ‘I do not think anyone [on the team] could have predicted how wonderfully fans reacted to Lady Dimitrescu, “says Takano. Personally, I was particularly struck by comments like, “I want to be chased by her.”

Of course, the next chapter in the Resident Evil adventure is not just about big ladies with even bigger hats. “What we have shown so far – Lady Dimitrescu, the town and the castle – covers only a portion of Resident Evil Village,” says Takano. ‘We have prepared many other elements that have created a much greater experience than Resident Evil 7 Biohazard.

But would we want to step through one of them? Only time will tell.

MattTM Kim is news editor at IGN.

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