Resident Evil Village Maiden demo launches on PlayStation 5: 4K checkerboarding, ray-tracing, and that tall, scary lady

Capcom surprised PlayStation 5 owners recently by releasing Resident Evil Village Maiden, a standalone demo for the upcoming Resident Evil: Village. The demo is brief: completion times vary from between 10 to 30 minutes. However, it gives us a good look at the technology underpinning the first ninth-gen exclusive Resident Evil game. 

And for gamers thirsting for the incredibly tall "vampire lady," Lady Dimitrescu makes a brief appearance. Her name, together with the fact that the Romanian Leu appears to be the in-game currency, means Village is likely set in Dracula's home country. 

What's particularly interesting, though, is how Village Maiden gives us a proper glimpse of 9th-gen console tech in action. Resident Evil: Village is an exclusive, and unlike most launch-day titles on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, it was built specifically with ninth-gen specs in mind.

Capcom stated earlier that the scale of their technical ambitions in this title was simply too great to work on the PlayStation 4. While the demo's brief, the next-gen difference is evident, with extremely high quality model and texture work, great material rendering and skin shading, as well as the addition of ray-traced reflections. 

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