Resident Evil Village getting two new, very confusing multiplatform demos

As anticipated, this week’s Resident Evil Showcase brought news of a new gameplay demo for Resident Evil Village. Less anticipated, though, is how confusing it’ll be to actually play said demo.

Actually, make that demos, plural, since that’s the first wrinkle here. Though you’ll just be installing a single launcher, there are two different portions you’ll be able to play through.

Unlike the earlier Maiden demo, which told a standalone story, these two new demos are about exploring two environments that will appear in the final game. The first takes place in the titular village, while the second is set in Castle Dimitrescu, home to Resident Evil Village‘s breakout vampire-lady star.

Also unlike the Maiden demo, the Village and Castle demos will be available on multiple platforms, not just PlayStation. Sort of.

See, you won’t be able to just download the demo and then play through whenever you want. Instead, there’s are limited windows of availability during which you’ll be able to play, all but one of which are still exclusive to PS5 and PS4. And there are also time limits on the demos themselves.

Here’s how it all breaks down:

• From April 17th at 5 p.m. PT to April 18th at 1 a.m. PT, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 users will be able to try out the Village demo for 30 minutes.
• From April 24th at 5 p.m. PT to April 25th at 1 a.m. PT, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 users will be able to try out the Castle demo for 30 minutes.
• From May 1st at 5 p.m. PT to May 2nd at 5 p.m. PT, users on all platforms—that’s PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Steam, and Stadia—will have 60 minutes to try out both the Village and the Castle demo. The time can be divided up between the two demos any way you see fit.

Of course, if that’s too convoluted for you, you can always wait until Resident Evil Village launches in full. That’s on May 7th, for on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Windows PC, and Google Stadia.