Introduction: 30 Years in the Making

Resident Evil has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up watching my brother play Resident Evil 1 and Resident Evil 3 on the PS1, and have been hooked on the series myself since Resident Evil 4 in 2005. When a franchise means that much to you, a new entry either feels like a reward or a disappointment. Requiem is very much the former.

It feels like a celebration of everything Resident Evil has been across 30 years, blending survival horror, action, and first-person dread into one of the most confident entries the series has produced.

The Story: Grace Has an Arc, Leon Has a Hatchet

I want to be upfront: the story is the weakest part of this game, and it deserves an honest conversation before anything else.

Grace’s half is genuinely compelling. Her arc is well-paced, the mystery builds naturally, and the atmosphere of her sections gives everything real weight. She is an excellent protagonist and Angela Sant’Albano’s performance is one of the best in the series. I sincerely hope this is not the last we see of her.

Then Leon arrives, and something shifts. His sections are an absolute blast to play, but his narrative contribution is uneven. He has his moments, and there are genuine story beats that only he can deliver, but he spends just as much time following Grace and reacting to events as he does driving anything forward. He is a reassuring, charismatic presence who is too busy parrying everything in sight with a hatchet to always justify his place in the plot. Which, to be fair to him, is extremely entertaining to watch.

Figure 1: Leon parries a chainsaw with his hatchet, because of course he does
Image Source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/10-biggest-resident-evil-requiem-features-revealed-at-the-resident-evil-showcase/

The fan service woven through his sections, such as returning faces from the classic games, is exciting in the moment but moves so quickly that it rarely lands with the weight it deserves. A lot of it feels like Capcom tapping you on the shoulder and winking rather than doing anything truly meaningful with it. The villains suffer from the same issue, feeling underdeveloped in a way that makes the stakes harder to feel. The whole thing has the texture of a story that went through a significant rewrite somewhere along the way.

None of this stopped me having an enormous amount of fun. But it is worth going in with honest expectations about what kind of story you are getting.

Gameplay: Grace’s Nightmare and Leon’s Playground

Grace’s sections are survival horror operating at peak performance. The Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center is without hesitation one of the best designed areas in Resident Evil history. Tense, rewarding to explore, and home to some of the most creative enemy design in the series. What makes the zombies here so special is that they retain the habits and personalities of who they were before infection. Maids still try to clean, patients react aggressively to noise, and if you kill a zombie near a maid she gets annoyed at you for making more mess. It is deeply funny and deeply unsettling in equal measure, which is an incredibly difficult balance to land.

And then there is the Girl, who is comfortably one of the most terrifying creatures in Resident Evil history. I will say nothing more than that, other than good luck. Playing in the dark with headphones on, I was genuinely scared at points. The jumpscares, even when I could feel them coming, were timed well enough to still land every single time.

Figure 2: “The Girl” stalks Grace through the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center
Image Source: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fcnbw448je6mg1.jpeg

My only criticism is that the puzzles are a touch too straightforward, with solutions tending to present themselves before the tension of searching can properly build.

Leon’s sections are a different beast entirely and honestly just great fun. The combat is smooth, satisfying, and essentially an evolution of RE4 Remake’s already excellent foundation. Leon himself has the energy of someone who has simply seen too much to be scared anymore. He parries everything, drops one-liners, and handles the chaos with the confidence of a man who has had considerably worse Tuesdays. One frustration worth flagging is that the game occasionally pauses to explain mechanics that you could have easily figured out yourself, which undermines the tension somewhat when it happens.

The boss encounters are worth addressing too. Grace’s sections front-load some genuinely memorable fights, but by Leon’s half the pacing starts to wobble. Bosses feel increasingly rushed and backloaded into the final stretch, dispatched a little too quickly given how much build-up surrounds them. When even the bosses feel like they are being checked off a list, something has gone slightly wrong.

Classic RE, RE4, RE7. It Has All of Them

Regardless of which era of this series you grew up with, Requiem has something for you. Ink ribbons return on higher difficulties, inventory management is back in full force (yes, that means opening the item box and rearranging everything like your survival depends on it, because it probably does), and the lighting is genuinely atmospheric. Dark areas are pitch black, your flashlight is not optional, and light becomes safety in a way that feels earned rather than decorative.

Figure 3: Grace navigates the darkness of the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, flashlight in hand
Image Source: https://in.ign.com/resident-evil-requiem/254465/wiki/resident-evil-requiem-guide?p=9

Audio: This One’s for the Headphone Users

The sound design is exceptional, and for a horror game that is everything. Capcom has introduced a new reverberation system that genuinely transforms the experience with a good headset or home theatre setup. Grace’s footsteps echo differently depending on the room she is in, distant sounds carry weight and direction, and the result is an extraordinary sense of actually being inside these spaces. It is not a gimmick; it does real work in building tension.

Accessibility: First Person Is Now Optional. Finally

The headline addition is the ability to play both characters in first or third person from the very beginning, selectable before you even start. For players who experience motion sickness with first-person gameplay, this is a significant improvement, and crucially it is free at launch rather than locked behind paid DLC as Village’s third-person mode was. Worth noting: certain cutscenes and brief sequences during Grace’s sections will still force first person without warning, so those with significant sensitivity should be aware.

Beyond that, the wider accessibility suite is solid:

• Aim Assist with both Snap and Follow options (Follow is particularly well-tuned and genuinely useful)
  
• Full subtitle and caption customisation including size, colour, background and speaker name display
  
• Camera options including wobble reduction and inversion toggles
  
• Motion blur toggle for motion sickness reduction
  
• HUD scaling and reticule colour adjustment
  
• Dynamic audio range adjustment for those sensitive to sudden volume spikes

One small UI issue worth mentioning: buying certain weapon sight upgrades for Leon switches his aiming to first person without any warning, causing some jarring perspective shifts mid-combat. A simple tooltip before purchasing would have fixed this entirely.

One final thing I would like to see added is an arachnophobia mode given some of the enemy designs. Small additions like these would go a long way.

Compared to where this series has been, Requiem represents a genuine and meaningful step forward for accessibility in Resident Evil.

Final Verdict: S Rank, With a Few Deductions

Requiem is not a flawless game. The story loses its footing once the focus shifts, the fan service can feel like nostalgia for its own sake rather than something purposeful, and the back half does not quite sustain the extraordinary highs of Grace’s opening sections.

Technically it is outstanding: gorgeous, well optimised, and with sound design that does exactly what a horror game’s audio should do. Grace Ashcroft is one of the best new protagonists in the series. And despite its story shortcomings, Leon’s sections are genuinely great fun to play through.

Is it the best Resident Evil yet? Very nearly, but not quite. Resident Evil 4 Remake still takes that crown for me. Requiem comes remarkably close, and I would not argue too hard with anyone who puts it at the top. What I can say without hesitation is that this was the first game in a long time I bought on release day without waiting for a sale, and after three full playthroughs I have no regrets about that whatsoever.

On the post-launch front, there is plenty to look forward to. Photo Mode has already arrived as a free update, a mini-game is coming in May (with fans hoping it turns out to be Mercenaries mode), and Capcom has officially confirmed a story expansion is in development. No release date has been given yet, though reports suggest it could arrive as early as September 2026. Given how well the series has handled DLC in recent years, that is an easy thing to be excited about.

Playtime: 22 Hours
Playthroughs: 3 (Casual, Standard, Insanity)
Achievements: 49 / 49 (1000G)
Rating: 4.5 / 5