This Feels Like the Best Milla Jovovich Resident Evil Game We’ll Ever Get

It’s increasingly common for Hollywood stars to appear in video games, taking on central roles and lending their likeness to the digital landscapes. In many cases, like the upcoming 007 First Light, it comes across as a fully committed performance set within that world. In others, like the recent Hitman: World of Assassins DLC missions that have included Eminem and Bruce Lee, there’s a certain level of self-awareness to the project that just adds to the fun.

IO Interactive is looking to find the perfect balance between those extremes with their latest mission, “Patient Zero: Requiem.” The storyline sees Agent 47 targeting Lilith Devereux at the Carlisle Estate in Dartmoor. The teaser for the DLC, released at the Game Awards, indicates that it’ll be a more tense and horror-tinted mission, with less of the apparent surreal 4th-wall-breaking elements that defined the Slim Shady mission. To help complete the transformation of Hitman into a Resident Evil-adjacent game for the mission, IOI has brought in one of the biggest movie stars associated with the Capcom horror series for her first game appearance — and it’s a perfect little treat for fans of both franchises.

Agent 47 Is After Milla Jovovich

The new mission is part of the latest Elusive Target mission from Hitman World of Assassins. This is the fourth free DLC for the game, with the next drop coming in February of next year. Milla Jovovich is no stranger to the world of gaming. A professed gamer herself, Jovovich is most famous for her work as the lead in the Resident Evil film adaptations. While her character Alice has yet to make the leap to the game universe, the films have made the actress synonymous with the series. It also means that her presence in “Patient Zero: Requiem” is especially notable.

The DLC sees Agent 47 tasked with investigating a manor in rural England and taking down a mysterious woman known as Lilith, who is the apparent key to stopping – or unleashing – a global pandemic. The teaser suggests that Lilith is already a carrier of some mysterious virus, as even “one touch” from her can be deadly. This all seems to be a self-aware allusion to Jovovich’s appearances in the Resident Evil series, given the general horror tenor of the teaser and the subject matter at hand. Even her role as the rising star of the Ether Corporation (assisted by the deaths of several colleagues) feels like a riff on the internal backstabbing and ruthless tactics of a figurehead from the Umbrella Corporation and a sly recreation of that series within the framework of the Hitman universe.

Resident Hitman

It’s a fun direction to take the series, feeling from the teaser like the closest thing fans will probably get to a Hitman/Resident Evil crossover. That is also why it’s fun to see Jovovich in an apparently antagonistic role, more akin to Lady Demetrescu from Resident Evil: Village than Alice. While it remains to be seen what the infection of the disease does to people and if Agent 47 is going to have to deal with some undead or zombie-like enemies, it is a fun new adventure for the World of Assassination DLC drops.

The series of adventures has pitted Agent 47 against some bizarre threats, alongside Mads Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre from Casino Royale, teamed up with an undercover Bruce Lee, and even helped Eminem put down the Slim Shady persona once and for all. The Milla Jovovich story seems to be a more tense narrative, however, with less of an overt fourth-wall-breaking narrative than the martial-arts tournaments or the mental hospital/recording studio of previous episodes. It’s also potentially connected to a prior DLC campaign, “Patient Zero.”

Given the disparate tones of the respective franchises and their differing perspectives on stakes, an actual crossover between Hitman and Resident Evil was likely never going to happen. However, this feels like the best chance players are ever going to get at seeing how Agent 47 and the Hitman series would deal with the kind of threat that brews all the time. It’s even called “Patient Zero: Requiem,” giving it a shared name with the upcoming mainline entry in the Resident Evil series. Having Jovovich on hand makes this unofficial crossover all the more entertaining.