Resident Evil Village Has a Resident Evil 5 Easter Egg

Resident Evil games are so plentiful that there’s always a good chance at finding an Easter egg in newer games that relate to older ones, and that’s the case with Resident Evil Village as well. The newest Resident Evil game has made its Resident Evil 4 inspirations clear and draws from that game both through references and through gameplay, but that’s not the only game that features an Easter egg in Village. Resident Evil 5 makes an appearance as well, though it happens during a moment that’s so quick that you’ll miss it if you’re not paying attention.

Spoiler Warning: This article contains spoilers for late-game moments in Resident Evil Village.

The Resident Evil 5 reference in Village comes from the second-to-last boss fight in the game whenever you’re dueling with Heisenberg. It follows an already hectic segment of the fight where Heisenberg arms himself with a metal exoskeleton and Ethan Winters returns fire with a Battle Bots vehicle outfitted with a chainsaw and a cannon. Needless to say, there’s a lot going on, so you may have very well missed the quip highlighted below whenever it happened.

After doing enough damage to Heisenberg, Ethan gets tossed out of his vehicle and nearly gets sawed in half by the boss. Heisenberg gets distracted by his factory exploding behind him and laments the loss of his metal army he was going to use against Mother Miranda. He vows to kill Ethan and to also get rid of “that boulder-punching asshole.”

That boulder-punching character is none other than Chris Redfield himself, the Resident Evil staple who periodically intersects with Ethan’s Village journey. Chris had just blown up the factory to dismantle Heisenberg’s army thus allowing Ethan to also escape death in his fight.

For those who might not have gotten the reference or those who missed it the first time around, it’s referring to the moment above from Resident Evil 5. During Chris’ final fight, he came up against a much more stagnant threat: A boulder. It blocked his path, and in order to save his partner, he punched the boulder into submission.

The move quickly became a meme attached to Chris and an example of the super manly direction his character took in Resident Evil 5. Chris isn’t punching boulders in Village, but his reputation followed him regardless.

How does Heisenberg know about Chris’ past boulder bouts, though? He was dutiful in his notetaking and was obviously pretty smart to have made such progress already, so it’s likely he knew all about Chris, the character’s past exploits, and probably even knew about other Resident Evil happenings. It’s a great Easter egg regardless, and it’s nice to see Resident Evil 5 be a game that gets a reference for once.