How Capcom designed Resident Evil Village’s Lady Dimitrescu 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 has taken this quite literally with Resident Evil 8: Village. The series’ latest villain, Lady Dimitrescu, is a 9’6 ”vampire whose sky-high frame and stylish Edwardian fashion sense has sparked an ardent reaction from his fans. Fan art, memes, and cosplays of the character have spread across the internet, like the T virus through Raccoon City – much to the 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 the planning, we decided to go ahead [a] castle and vampire motifs, ”said Tomonori Takano, Village’s Art Director, in a recent interview with IGN. “However, we didn’t want to be limited by the way vampires were portrayed in various forms of popular entertainment.”

Takano started with the concept of an ‘enchanting vampire’ and says they took inspiration from figures such as the famous 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman and serial killer Elizabeth Báthory, Japanese city legend Hashaku-sama and Anjelica Hustons Morticia Addams.Lady Demitrescu definitely doesn’t look like a traditional vampire. Though pale and has bright yellow eyes, she looks more like a 1920s speakeasy than an Eastern European castle (and she’s probably stepped all over people). “The very first piece of concept art I drew was the scene in the trailer where Lady Dimitrescu dives down to walk through the doorway,” Takano said. “From that moment on I knew I had to do that scene.”

A towering reception

Takano’s instincts were right – when the scene appeared in a short teaser in January, the viral comments started pouring in. An early one from YouTuber Suzi Hunter put it quite succinctly:

Like any good character that turns people on, [Lady Demitrescu is] a combination of a lot of different niche fetishes, ”says Emily Gaudette, a pop culture and relationship columnist who has written about the intersection of kink and pop culture. “Obviously she is a vampire, and the fantasy of being devoured or consumed by a vampire is classic right now. They long for something taboo about you – your blood, your life force – and they have to hurt you to get it, but the ecstasy of draining your blood is always considered sexual. “

Gaudette says that for many men, the idea of ​​being physically overwhelmed by a woman is new and exciting – which would help explain why there are so many memes and jokes about Lady Dimitrescu kicking, chasing, or crushing them. “There is a proliferation of straight men who identify as ‘simps’ online,” she says. “It’s just a reversal of the typical straight sub / dom dynamic.”

“A lot of memes I see are about the idea that a gamer could lose on purpose to be cleaned up by the giant beautiful woman, and that’s the kind of fun sexual game a sub / dom couple can get into.”

Not your typical monster

It’s also worth noting how classy Lady Dimitrescu is compared to other (unintended) Big Bads in the Resident Evil franchise. In one of the first scenes we saw her in, she was sitting in front of a mirror with makeup. Takano says they “didn’t want to lean too much on gothic horror designs for the entire village” and incorporated “Great Depression-era elements into the overall design.”

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

Takano says this is a continuation of Capcom’s new direction for the series that began with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. “We’ve been analyzing the characters and elements in the Resident Evil series so far to see if they were really scary,” says Takano, “or if they had become so conventional that they lost their effectiveness in scaring players. ” He says that even the series’ producer, Jun Takeuchi, mused, “If we want people to be afraid, we have to look 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,” says Takano. “For Resident Evil Village, we use similar concepts from ‘Evil’ as we did in Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, which was not based on normal people or zombies.”

According to Takano, the response was overwhelming, and even non-gambling outlets like The Guardian took up the Internet’s new 9’6 ”obsession. “I don’t think about anyone [on the team] could have predicted how great the fans have reacted to Lady Dimitrescu, “said Takano.” Personally, I was particularly affected by comments such as, “I want to be chased by her.”

Of course, the next chapter in the Resident Evil adventure isn’t all about big ladies with even bigger hats. “What we’ve shown so far – Lady Dimitrescu, the village and the castle – only includes part 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 do we want to be caught by one of them? Time will tell.

Matt TM Kim is a news editor at IGN.

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