Resident Evil Village has been trickling access to its gameplay demos, with very short, timed demo windows having been available first on the PlayStation consoles, and then on Xbox and PC. Ostensibly this was to limit the amount that users could experience within the demo. Naturally, PC users were having absolutely none of that, and have discovered how to reset the timer so that you can spend as much time in the (admittedly limited) world of the Village demo as you please.
The “Castle” and “Village” demos were initially available to PlayStation 4 and 5 owners for a period of 8 hours over separate weekends. The demos were only supposed to last 30 minutes each, and if you played until the 30 minutes ran out, you’d be kicked out of the demo. Both demos were later released as a 60-minute unit over the weekend. User outcry made Capcom extend the demo’s availability, giving users a larger window in which to play it.
PC users have figured out how to reset the demo’s timer so that you don’t have to confine yourself to 30 minutes because of course, they did. Steam user Leaves gives precise instructions, but the gist of it is that you make Steam think you haven’t yet started to play. It’ll only extend your playtime by another hour. The process isn’t very efficient, admittedly. But judging by the reactions of players, it appears to work.
Of course, the demos are just limited slices of the game — you won’t be able to access the whole game just by resetting the demo timer. The full release of Village is on May 7, this Friday. But if you just wanted to explore the world of the demo a bit more, then this might be the only way to do that.
Source: Eurogamer