Ebola Village Review

Decaying from the outside in…

If you missed Ebola Village when it hit Steam a few years back, the homage-based survival horror shooter has just launched on consoles to mixed feedback. Punters query submission standards for its newfound platforms while others wonder why Capcom hasn’t sued the low-poly, flat-textured pants off developer Indie Games Studio and publisher Axyos Games for breach of myriad copyrights. Critics meanwhile ponder if this is what AI would make if you asked it to create a non-Resident Evil Resident Evil or, otherwise, just plain think it stinks.

All are right, of course, but for whatever reason we ploughed through the whole thing and came away satisfied that we didn’t let it beat us, and also that we got to see how less established or experienced devs consider the design of a Resident Evil, as well as survival horror in general. Don’t get us wrong, this is as janky a game as you’ll play and its art and overall design is a mess, but there’s an ebbing confidence that seeps into its makeup that can only be considered curious, that grabbed us enough to warrant completion of proceedings, painful as they were, even at the best of times.

So it’s not all bad, and comes with a decent and satisfying shooter component as well as some interesting fetch-quests and a fun puzzle or two (alongside a hyper-cheesey story you *kind of* want to see the end of), so let’s take a measured squiz at survival horror’s deformed attic-chained child, looking only to emulate its dining room-sat, society-accepted older sibling it’s been spying on through the vents, to see just how much attention it’s been paying.

Ebola Village

Genre: 'Survival Horror'
Developer: Indie Games Studio
Publisher: Axyos Games
Release Date: January 23, 2026 (on consoles)
Classification: MA 15+
Author: Stephen Farrelly
Date: January 29, 2026

Vodka in the Water

Ebola Village’s story is naff. It uses a real-world virus in place of the fictionalised T-virus of Capcom’s survival horror benchmarks and leans into conspiratorial planes of thought to contextualise its global spread. But that kind of actually doesn’t matter. The actual story here apparently revolves a lot around divorce and choices and death-bed love and loyalty. Mistrust of government, the global stage and living by any means necessary permeate the lived-in state of most domiciles you get into, while the overworld itself is a decaying mess of rubble and destitution. You could perceive this as a political statement or simply an easy way to stage the run down setting of a place requiring a certain tone. 

"Marina learns of this global breakout and spread of ebola and decides she needs to go to the village her mum and ex-hubby live in and, at least, save her mum..."

At least that’s what we got from it. It also could have been a game centred around any one other virus, or no virus at all, and still had the same beats. And it needn’t be personal or have any strings tied to hearts for tugging or the like. That it does is kind of… cute, but this is more or less a game around getting in, then out, of a village. An Ebola Village.

The quick and short (int) is: you play as Marina who hates her husband whom she is divorcing. Marina learns of this global breakout and spread of ebola and decides she needs to go to the village her mum and ex-hubby live in and, at least, save her mum. When she eventually gets to the village though (after running out of petrol), she is stuck there because a tree blocks any reverse to where she just came from and, every other vehicle in the village has been drained of its own petrol, meaning she needs to find all components to a tractor to fix it, pick up mum and leave everything else behind. It’s just that, also, there’s these zombies running around and houses are locked behind key-specific doors and a drunkard needs vodka to cure a hangover, but zombies don’t even notice him and the chickens… oh farmer, the chickens.

Ebola Creates Werewolves? Hrm, Makes Sense!

So, obviously, this is simply an exercise in both game-design and homage. Ebola Village is also actually the fourth entry in this knock-off series. And, to add to it all, Indie Game Studios is just one person (who clearly loves RE), but who also appears to be asset library shopping-happy in how they go about it.

This thing is visually all over the shop.

"Exploration is limiting, but in line with most survival horror titles and so it can actually work, if you park your brain..."

At best, Ebola Village is a contradiction of itself. The Seinfeld apartment conundrum cum game; square buildings that might generally fit, maybe, two rooms, suddenly have wings, closets, kitted-out bathrooms and basements. Meanwhile, a giant church and mansion are actually more limiting than your first safe Save Room while rain and thunder pummel the outside windows of most interiors, yet when you go back outside, no wet weather appears to have happened at all. Still, design of said interiors isn’t that bad, and you even have horde moments and a boss battle or two take place within them where said layout actually feeds gameplay in the positive. Exploration is limiting, but in line with most survival horror titles and so it can actually work, if you park your brain from any perspective of common logic.

But context and consistency are not the name of the game here. On the one hand (heh) when Marina visits her ex’s place, his bed has these protruding hands above the bed head as if torn from the forgotten set of the equally (and thankfully) forgotten Marilyn Manson, with no explanation or even mention of them. Meanwhile Marina’s full-game outfit is gym-person couture of the Jill Valentine collection, yet her first-person hands and wrists are clearly of the Leon S. Kennedy RE4 range, jacket and all. Very little in the game makes sense and it can become frustrating; but then it will throw fun puzzles at you, or invite you into its dark room to look at BHTS snaps of the accompanying short film of the same name, or give you a weird story element you kind of want to see play out.

It’s maddening how moreish it can become.

We Didn’t Think it Would Need Three Sub Heads 

At under $30 dollarydoos on all platforms, we’d be remiss not to tell you to spend your funds elsewhere because it’s hard to score this any higher than we have. But we’d also be remiss not to tell you we actually had fun throughout and found parts of the overall experience somewhat redeeming, if janky or borked or… other. There’s no sense of self in the overall title, either, despite that confidence in delivery we spoke about in our opening salvo, which just left us pondering for probably too long -- are we playing a spoof or send up? Is this AI? Does the dev have any modicum of situational awareness around the game’s proximity to Capcom’s IPs? Or is this simply someone who loves a series so much they couldn’t help but try their own spin on it?

"Maybe like us, after you bite (or get bitten) you too won’t let its myriad problems get the best of you..." 

We’ve all thought about some level of fan fiction before.

It’s beyond difficult to recommend this, but it does offer something (and naturally has its die-hard fans out there based on its Steam user reviews). And maybe like us, after you bite (or get bitten) you too won’t let its myriad problems get the best of you and challenge yourself to best it, out-of-context werewolves and all.

What’s Boss?

  • Look, some of its puzzles are fun, if tried
  • Shooter mechanics are actually pretty good
  • If you like cheese, this game's 'story' is full of it

Not Boss Enough?

  • Ummm, pretty much all of it but;
  • Poor overworld design
  • Buildings that make no sense outside to in
  • The order in which you do stuff
  • Inconsistent art
  • Lots of fetching (and loading) becomes tedious
  • Are we fighting a virus or the supernatural?
  • Clearly, CLEARLY steals from the best in the biz, even if it is homage
  • (No Merchant - if you steal, take it all, Indie Games Studio)

An ebola outbreak has created a global pandemic of... undead? Also, it can make werewolves! Yep, those Ruskies know what's up... anyway, a videogame ensues.

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About the Author

Written By Stephen Farrelly
Stephen Farrelly is a veteran journalist and editor with more than two decades experience in the worlds of gaming, entertainment, lifestyle and sport. He is a proud pug dad, loves art in all forms (particularly street and tattoo culture), and is the director of Swear Jar Editorial and Media Pty Ltd, this site's owner and publisher. When not dispensing words, he's also dispensing boutique beers as a taproom fixture at Bracket Brewing in Marrickville, NSW...
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