Interview: CAPCOM On How Resident Evil Village Became A TikTok Sensation

THE GAMER caught up with Capcom and QYOU to talk about the success of Resident Evil on TikTok.

Lady Dimitrescu was an unexpected viral sensation for Capcom, with Resident Evil Village’s most iconic villain causing the internet to degenerate into millions of thirsty gamers simply waiting for the big tall vampire lady to step on them. Given she isn’t even in the game for that long, her focus in all of the marketing materials feels unusual in retrospect, but it’s easy to understand why the publisher struck while the iron was hot. This especially extends to TikTok, where Capcom took major advantage of the thirst culture behind Lady Dimitrescu while working with influencers and cosplayers to really drive her appeal home. It was ridiculously effective, and I recently caught up with Capcom and QYOU, the agency responsible for its foray onto TikTok, to talk about its surprise success.

“We discovered that a segment of our audience was gravitating to TikTok as a primary source of creative video content, with strong interest in the game and especially its popular character Lady Dimitrescu (aka Tall Vampire Lady),” Capcom global brand manager Tak Inoue tells me. “As a relatively new platform for us, we wanted to work closely with a partner that was specialized in the TikTok platform and could help us create content that would resonate well for the audience. Given its unique nature, we knew we wanted to make some fun and attention-grabbing clips for fans to enjoy, which QYOU helped us with every step of the way.”

While Capcom oversaw much of the content surrounding Resident Evil that was being thrown onto the platform, it seems QYOU was given free rein to capitalise on Lady Dimitrescu and how TikTok users were constantly sharing and dueting with a major company that was willing to be weirdly horny on a public forum.

... “The TikTok community was dazzled by the approach,” Ginsburg says. “To find the official Resident Evil Channel engaging with them on their terms, with fun content and characters and ways to interact, generated real excitement! It was a real marvel to watch the channel explode onto the scene… oh, and having Lady D as lead figure doesn’t hurt either!”

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