As a result, I only died a handful of times my first time through, and these deaths were primarily due to an unexpected environmental hazard or timing-based challenge, not combat.
It wasn't until about 75% through the game that things ramped up in terms of ammo scarcity and health management, forcing me to take the game more seriously. Ammo was never a problem, and, as a result, I barely touched the game's crafting system simply because I never needed to. However, in my first time playing Village on Standard, I rarely found myself in this sweet spot of tension. This is the secret sauce of Resident Evil's survival horror, and my favorite games in the franchise often naturally nail that dynamic without the need to adjust their difficulty beyond the Standard setting.
On Village's higher difficulty, Hardcore, you have to play smart in order to maintain enough breathing room to survive, and just a few bad mistakes will dwindle your resources and put you in danger.
For me, the ideal Resident Evil experience is one where you're constantly riding the line of barely having enough ammo and health to survive. While I adore Resident Evil Village, one of the few issues I had with the game was that I thought it was a bit too easy on Standard difficulty. As someone who plays too many Resident Evil games and knows all the series' tricks, you can imagine how my experience as a fan makes me somewhat overly ready for its myriad challenges.
