Resident Evil Village: The evolution of Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters – IGN first

At 9’6 ” tall, Alcina Dimitrescu, better known simply as Lady Dimitrescu, became an instant global phenomenon when she was revealed as one of the main villains of Resident Evil Village. But how big are his feet? Read on to find out! Even without her vicious claws, Lady Dimitrescu’s size is so overwhelming that any man will feel weak and small when confronted by her, and Village’s main protagonist, Ethan Winters, is no exception. When you are hunted by Lady Dimitrescu, you lose your blood or you run for your life. An evil female humanoid of this size and power is something we’ve never seen Resident Evil – or any video game franchise, for that matter – do before.

April’s IGN First is packed with Resident Evil Village scoops, interviews, gameplay footage, and more. Today, we can exclusively reveal some never-before-seen concept art for the internet’s favorite new video game character, Lady Dimitrescu, with her three daughters.

Artistic Director Tomonori Takano was responsible for the conception of Lady Dimitrescu. Responding to strong demand from fans, he previously announced the size of this formidable character. Although the staggering 9’6 ”(2.9 meters) includes her high heels and wide-brimmed hat, Lady Dimitrescu still easily beats the height of any living human. Still, some of the tallest people in recorded history come close enough to give Lady Dimitrescu a sense of reality, which makes her all the more frightening.

But what about his shoe size? We asked Takano to measure this as well, and he came back with impressive results. Lady Dimitrescu’s shoe size is 44cm (17.3 inches), almost double the average women’s shoe size. She also breaks Jeison Rodriguez Hernandez’s Guinness world record for the world’s tallest feet of almost 4 centimeters. Takano designed Lady Dimitrescu’s shoes based on an actual pair of high heels, which he scanned and digitally resized to match the formidable size of the giantess.

But we didn’t go all the way to Capcom’s headquarters in Osaka just to talk about feet. Along with director Morimasa Sato, Takano shared with us how the dominant Countess of Castle Dimitrescu was born, and the two were overwhelmed to see their creation become an internet phenomenon even before the game was released. “We intentionally rendered the character design a little more extravagant than in Resident Evil 7, but no, we didn’t see that coming, ”Takano laughs.

Sato mentions that creating characters that leave an impression was a theme of the game from the very beginning, and reactions to Lady Dimitrescu’s reveal reassured him that it was the right choice. “The basic concept of a village game was decided in the early stages of development,” says Sato. “After that, we started to think about the characters. In order to create an attractive village with a sense of place, the characters who live there are extremely important. For the main enemy characters, we thought about what area each would be in and what kind of experience they could offer. “The approach of starting with the characters and building an experience from there may seem similar to Resident Evil 4.”

Also set in a village with a variety of locations, Resident Evil 4 is beloved for memorable characters like Bitores Mendez and Ramon Salazar. “There are quite a few other characters with a similar impact to Lady Dimitrescu in Village, so you can expect that,” Sato says.

Lady Dimitrescu might not be the only villain in Village, but, according to Takano, her conception dates back to the very beginning of the project. He remembers how the team started to prototype the character. “We reused Mia’s character model from Resident Evil 7 and made her wear a dress and a hat,” he explains of their first tests. “I thought that would be enough to give her a ghostly quality, but we couldn’t scare her. Then we decided to make the character model much bigger. This was the start of Lady Dimitrescu. The artistic director continues: “I drew a conceptual work of art in which she leans to go through a door. That’s when I felt it was going to work.

From there, the team created an area and experience to match the New Mistress, which became Dimitrescu Castle, a gothic vampire castle. “The original concept was a castle populated only by women,” recalls Sato. “We tried a lot of different things to make the Countess look scary and feel like a boss character. There were ideas to make her more creature too, but in the end we felt that a towering woman was the simplest but most powerful thing we could do.

Lady Dimitrescu isn’t just a tall, dominant, vampire-like woman. Her fashion was inspired by styles from the 1960s, and Takano hopes that will set her apart from other gothic villains. “I felt that just doing a Gothic aesthetic would lack a bit of originality, which is why I wanted to add a modern idea to that premise,” says Takano. “We looked at the fashion of the days when actresses like Audrey Hepburn were active, as well as the Addams family. We used these sources as clues to create a less conventional Gothic decor. “

Lady Dimitrescu isn’t the only femme fatale stalking Ethan in the castle – her three beloved daughters are too. Bela, the eldest daughter, is calm and has a strong head on her shoulders. Cassandra is a sadist who loves to kill. Daniela is the youngest and the craziest and most delirious of the three. “Ethan has a family he’s trying to protect, so we also wanted to have a family for Lady Dimitrescu, to create a contrast,” says Sato. “The concept started out as a castle with a hundred witches inside, but it was difficult to implement in a video game format, which is why we ended up doing it like that,” Takano says. “But actually when you play the game you might notice that the frame is still pretty close to that idea. All types of enemies inside the castle are female. With Lady Dimitrescu as the sect’s guru, we created this hierarchy of women. Men have their blood drained by these women, so you could say it’s the opposite of Dracula.

“Outside in front of the castle you can see bodies that have had their blood drained, looking like skinny scarecrows, and all of them are men. It’s a setting in which women are very strong.

This horror experience in which a relatively weak male character is terrorized by towering women seems to be inspired by a type of sadomasochistic fantasy rarely seen in video games. In the Resident Evil series, Lady Dimitrescu and her three daughters are a threat of a kind we’ve never seen before.

In order to guide the series in bold new directions, Sato says that during the planning stages, he encouraged the team to try out as many unusual ideas as possible. “We’re not the type of team that starts with a niche idea and starts to expand bit by bit,” says Sato. “When we try new ideas, we start by looking for something extreme. As we progress, the idea usually starts to deviate from pure horror. So in the end we have to bring the experience back to the horror.

According to Takano, the hundred witches in the original concept were to be mostly naked. A giant countess and her three creepy daughters is what that idea became once the team “brought it back to horror.”

For more on Resident Evil Village, be sure to check out Five Minutes of Play on PS4 Pro and stay tuned for more exclusive IGN Resident Evil Village content throughout April. An open beta of Resident Evil Re: Verse will begin on April 8, which can be pre-downloaded now.

Esra Krabbe is a writer at IGN Japan. He can’t wait for his blood to be drained by Lady Dimitrescu. Figuratively, of course.