Ebola Village is a rough, janky, strangely charming solo-dev survival horror that feels like a bootleg love letter to classic Resident Evil
Playing Ebola Village right after Resident Evil Village is about the worst possible timing you could imagine. One is an 11 out of 10 masterpiece, polished to a mirror shine, confident in every system it introduces. The other feels like it had a budget of a hotdog, a handshake, and a stubborn refusal to give up. And yet, somehow, Ebola Village still pulled me in.
This is not a good game in the traditional sense. It is clumsy, unrefined, awkwardly written, and often straight up broken. But it also manages something genuinely rare. It is so earnest, so transparent in its love for classic survival horror, that it becomes oddly compelling. You can feel the single developer behind it at every step, reaching for something far far bigger than the budget or tools allow. That ambition is what makes Ebola Village fascinating, even when it completely falls apart.
The setup is familiar to the point of parody. A deadly virus outbreak, bodies piling up, panic spreading, and a remote rural Russian village cut off from the outside world. From the moment you start, the inspirations are not subtle. Doors are locked behind card suit symbols, inventory space is limited, healing items are scarce, and opening many doors triggers a very deliberate throwback to the Resident Evil 1 door animation. It is not homage, it is borderline cosplay, and honestly, that is part of the appeal.
The story itself is thin and awkwardly told. You are dropped into the chaos with minimal context, and what little narrative there is gets delivered through stiff dialogue, badly translated subtitles, and sudden cutscenes that feel like they were bolted on at the last second. The game often freezes for a couple of seconds before abruptly cutting to a cinematic, which usually results in you laughing out loud rather than feeling tension. Your character react to horrific events with bizarre emotional flatness, and motivations are rarely clear. None of it feels natural, but it does feel sincere.
Gameplay is where Ebola Village becomes a weird mix of frustration and surprise. On PS5, aiming with a controller is rough. Aiming down sights feels borderline useless, and precise shooting is more luck than skill. Despite that, actually landing shots is oddly satisfying. Enemies react in exaggerated, janky ways, flailing around like ragdolls possessed by bad physics. It looks ridiculous, but there is feedback there. Bullets visibly tear into enemies, stripping away flesh to reveal muscle, guts, and eventually bone.
This damage system immediately reminded me of Dead Island 2, just filtered through a far cheaper, far messier implementation. It is nowhere near as polished, but the intent is there. You can carve enemies up with a knife, shoot limbs apart, and slowly reduce threats in a way that feels tactile, even if the animations are completely unhinged. It should not work, but somehow it does.
You are not just dealing with shambling zombies. Werewolves show up, for some reason, chainsaw wielding maniacs come charging at you, and you even fight a large white bull as like a boss fight. None of the encounters are finely tuned, and balance is all over the place, but the variety helps keep the three hour runtime from becoming completely monotonous.
Inventory management is straight out of old school survival horror. Space is limited, forcing you to make decisions about what to carry and what to leave behind. Keys, weapons, ammo, healing items, and puzzle objects all compete for slots. It is basic, but effective. The problem is that the UI feels clunky, and navigating menus never quite feels smooth. You are always fighting the interface a little bit, which adds tension in the wrong way.
Puzzles are another area where ambition outpaces execution. Most are just "key and lock" kinda puzzles where you have to find the right key or object to continue. There are also some code puzzles which require you to inspect objects or you can brute force.
The environments are one of the strangest contrasts in the game. Outside, the village often looks like asset soup. Textures clash, lighting is flat, and layouts feel artificial. But once you step inside buildings, the detail level spikes dramatically. Interiors are packed with objects, clutter, and some slight environmental storytelling. The problem is scale. A tiny cottage on the outside turns into a sprawling mansion on the inside, completely destroying any sense of spatial logic. It makes no sense, but it is also kind of hilarious.
Audio is rough across the board. Voice acting is entirely in Russian, which is fine in theory, but the English subtitles seem to be poorly translated and often inaccurate. Lines do not match what is happening on screen, and emotional beats rarely land. Sound effects are serviceable, weapon audio has some punch, and the music does an okay job of building atmosphere when it is not looping too obviously.
Technically, Ebola Village is unstable but not unplayable. Performance on PS5 is mostly fine, but you will encounter hitches, animation glitches, and the occasional awkward pause. Nothing completely broke my progress, but it never feels solid. Every moment carries the quiet fear that something might go wrong, which is not exactly the kind of tension survival horror usually aims for.
And yet, despite all of this, I kept playing. Not because the game suddenly becomes good, but because it is constantly surprising. Sometimes it surprises you with a decent idea. Sometimes it surprises you with a laugh-out-loud moment of pure jank. Sometimes it surprises you by almost working. It is the gaming equivalent of “we have Resident Evil at home,” and it fully embraces that energy.
There is a strange charm to Ebola Village that is hard to deny. Knowing that this was made by one person makes every rough edge easier to forgive. Attempting something this ambitious solo is impressive on its own, even if the end result is deeply flawed. This is “one of the games of all time” territory, but in a way that feels affectionate rather than cruel.
If it ever gets under 10$, Ebola Village is easy to recommend to a very specific audience. If you love survival horror, enjoy euro-jank oddities, or want something fun to stream and laugh at with friends, there is value here. It is not scary in the way it wants to be, but it is memorable in ways far better games are not.
Ebola Village is bad. But it is bad in a way that feels honest, passionate, and unintentionally entertaining. And sometimes, that is more interesting than being polished and forgettable. Thanks for reading.
The game was reviewed on a PS5 via a promo copy provided by PR. Ebola Village is available PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
