This Resident Evil influenced first-person horror begins not within the titular village or even in the outskirts while enroute, but rather in the female protagonist’s litter-strewn apartment. Waking in a stupor, a news report on TV claims that a virus is rampant in the rural farming village that’s home to her doting mother. Wasting no time, Marina grabs her car keys and driver’s license and hits the road, little knowing the horrors she’s about to face – but not without solving a fuse box puzzle first. We’re definitely in familiar territory here.
Ebola Village presents a peculiar mixture of old and new, resembling Resident Evil 4 when it comes to its setting and visuals, but playing more like the PS1 era Resident Evils due to its reliance on finding coded keys, using save rooms, and juggling a small inventory. It’s presented as a modern title, and not a noughties throwback however, featuring realistic textures, environments with a surprising amount of intricate detail, and zombie-like enemies that take visible damage – with each bullet stripping a layer of skin, resulting in bloody and grotesque corpses. This gritty realism is marred somewhat by texture pop-in, right down to weapons that take a few seconds to appear in Marina’s hands when swapped out quickly.
Taking around 6 hours to complete, and offering a choice of difficulties, the titular village is split into small segments that you’ll be backtracking to constantly, with an abandoned house close to the centre featuring a save room and an inventory trunk. Most locations are formed of dusty outdoor areas along with an inaccessible house or two, and a couple of small buildings that can be explored fully upon finding the correct keys. There’s also a church with a cemetery, and a small dairy farm (or “Milkman’s Farm” as its humorously known) to explore, along with a regal two floored mansion much later on. There’s a hospital too, which initially seems that it’s going to be a large key location, but upon entering it’s actually no larger than a typical corridor. It does at least manage to avoid the ‘filthy derelict hospital’ horror trope.
Upon entering large locations for the first time a cut-scene often appears featuring a unique character, such as a mysterious cloaked individual and a demonic child – all of which are, bafflingly, never seen again. A few boss style characters do appear sporadically, although generally they only require around six well-aimed shots to take down, opposed to the 2-3 a typical zombie requires.
Quickly Ebola Village settles into a groove, and it’s one that’s quite enjoyable if a little predictable. While the village can be explored freely (a handful of areas are accessible from the outset) it won’t be long until coming across a padlocked gate, a door with a key symbol, or a safe requiring a combination. Progress will then halt until finding the item needed to progress, which will then eventually lead you to a new location with another padlock/locked door/or a safe requiring a code. If you overlook an item (which, in fairness, shouldn’t happen often as items are highlighted from afar) you will need to backtrack until stumbling whatever you’re missing. Occasionally, you’ll find items that seem important but can’t be collected yet. This is your cue to either make a mental note or place an ‘X’ on the map.
The storyline is outlined at an early stage, focusing on reuniting with Marina’s mother before finding a possible cure to the virus and a means of escaping the village together. You’ll get to learn a bit about Marina’s past too while visiting the home of her ex-boyfriend, and discover the alleged origins of the outbreak. Diary entries, some of which provide puzzle solutions, are formed of simple truncated sentences. Elsewhere, there are telling signs that English isn’t the developer’s first language. You’ll be seeing “This door needs key” often. Incidentally, one diary entry informs a puzzle piece was “discarded in the village”, but after scouring outside for a good thirty minutes, it was eventually found in somebody’s living room.
Further peculiarities plunge this into ‘B movie’ style territory, such as a one location (a house with its accompanying garden and a treehouse) set during nightfall, yet the connecting street is in broad daylight. It’s as if opening the gate to the property somehow puts the clocks forward twelve hours. And then back again upon exiting. Also be prepared to hear the infamous ‘stock crackling lightning sound effect’ countless times throughout, despite the weather being calm.
Nevertheless, Ebola Village is competent in the areas that count. The difficulty level is fair for the most part. I played on one of the easier difficulties, and aside from a few ambushes – including entering a small basement and being lynched by three enemies at once – I found it easy going. Ammo is bountiful, and as only two weapons feature, the inventory isn’t too tricky to manage. It auto-saves often despite featuring save rooms, so while it may brazenly borrow Resident Evil’s playbook, it does have a few modern touches.
Calling Ebola Village a “commendable effort” is the best way to summarise it. It was clearly made on a limited budget by a small team, yet it aims far higher than other horror games in the same price bracket. There’s no denying that the developers didn’t have lofty ambitions, especially when it came to the visuals. If you’re able to tolerate a few rough edges and have grown to admire the occasional spot of harmless shoddiness, then Ebola Village is worth a pitstop.
indie_games_studio’s Ebola Village is out now on PS5, Xbox Series and Switch. A PC version launched in May 2025. Published on consoles by Axyos Games.