Come in! And know me better, man!” says the Ghost Of Christmas Present to Scrooge in the second act of A Christmas Carol. Entering the living room, Scrooge discovers a jolly giant, wreathed in green and surrounded by blazing candles and heaps of seasonal food. It’s not unlike your first encounter with the Duke, Resident Evil Village’s eerie yet debonair plus-sized shopkeeper, grinning from his caravan at the centre of the map.
True, the Duke’s trade isn’t very Christmassy. Where the Ghost is an emblem of reconciliation equipped with a swordless sheath, the Duke is a gentleman arms dealer, his throne garlanded not just with strings of sausage and wheels of cheese but weapon parts and crates of ammunition. He has no moral lessons to offer, but pistols, shotguns, pipe bombs and landmines – everything you might need to topple a Tyrant – for a reasonable fee. But he’s undeniably jolly, with his cigar and books and bulletproof grin, and undeniably not of this world. He appears throughout the game, in places you can’t picture him reaching on foot – taking up a room in Castle Dimitrescu, which Lady Dimitrescu herself is curiously unwilling to enter, and winking from an elevator in the depths of Heisenberg’s factory. He’ll buy the crystallised remnants of your enemies, flogging them on to heaven-knows-who, and drop hints about wider events. And he’ll cook for you, unlocking permanent upgrades such as decreased damage on guard – providing, that is, you track down the requisite meat and fish, and he can have his share.