‘Resident Evil Village’ Modder Alters Reportedly Plagiarized Enemy

'Resident Evil Village' (Image courtesy of Capcom)

Capcom, the creators of Resident Evil Village, has recently come under fire regarding the design of one of the game’s enemies.

Richard Raphorst directed Frankenstein’s Army, which is a horror film from 2013. The Dutch director told Eurogamer that the Sturm monster in Resident Evil Village is a “one to one” copy of a character from his film. The game’s boss features a propellor in place of a normal head, while the film also contains a monster with a propellor attached to its face.

Raphorst elaborated on the similarities to Eurogamer. “It’s just the same scene as in my movie, except that in my movie you have to cut loose the fuel tubes. That’s the only thing that is missing,” Raphorst said. “But the whole thing is getting into flames and then it explodes, and then the way it rotates through the camera- it’s all the same, really. Even the environments, the whole colour palette. It looks like an animatic for my movie.” The aforementioned scene is available on Youtube.

Raphorst says Capcom never consulted with him in regards to the Sturm character. He hopes to receive credit in the game.

Pumpkinhook, a mod creator, created a new in-game model of the Sturm enemy. The mod was uploaded to NexusMods on June 30 and essentially changes the Sturm adversary into a basic white fan. The mod does not alter the actual gameplay in the Sturm encounter.

Capcom has not given any official response regarding the Sturm situation.

Resident Evil Village was released on May 7, 2021, for Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and PC. It is the successor to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. The survival-horror game has experienced a considerable amount of success, receiving scores of 9/10 from Gamespot and Destructoid. Capcom acted as both developer and publisher for the title.

Myles McPartland