Resident Evil Requiem 

(available for Playstation 5, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC- PS5 used for Calvin’s review, PC used for Elliot’s review)

Resident Evil Requiem is the ninth mainline entry in the Resident Evil series and comes at the time of being in the public consciousness, due to the success of the remakes. I liked Resident Evil Village, but I did think in many ways that it was a step down from RS7 since I felt like it was trying to combine aspects of the survival horror in RS7 with the more action orientated aspects of RS4.

Requiem is doing this as well; however, Requiem makes the smart choice this time by separating those two gameplay styles between two different characters. For the survival horror aspect, we’re put in the hands of FBI agent Grace Ashcroft, a new character for the series, and in the action orientated gameplay, we play as returning character Leon Kennedy, with the plots taking place simultaneously, though told slightly out of order. You’ll be switching out between the two for the main story. 

The game’s default will have you playing in first person as Grace and third person as Leon, but you can opt to swap them around or have both in one style, it’s up to you. For the sake of this review, I chose to go with the default options. I should specify that I played this game on a base Playstation 5 and haven’t experienced the Pro enhancements. 

If you like the old Resident Evil games, there’s definitely something for you no matter which gameplay style you prefer, although this one, unlike the previous entry, definitely feels like it has taken the most influence from the remake trilogy, for various reasons that I will get into later on in the review. 

But how does it all turn out?

PROS

• Gameplay

As I previously mentioned, the game has you in a more survival horror mode as Grace and a more action type gameplay as Leon, and they did a great job in separating these out. Grace, for example, does not get many weapons throughout her half of the campaign, whereas Leon does get a much bigger plethora of weapons like the rifle and the shotgun. I wouldn’t get too used to Leon since you don’t play as him too much, Grace really takes the forefront for most of the game, and as she is a lot more vulnerable than Leon, you have to be extremely careful a lot of the time when you play as her. 

The game initially will have you confined to the medical facility, run by former Umbrella scientist Doctor Gideon that Leon has been sent to investigate, and Grace has been kidnapped by for reasons unknown. It plays out very similar to a lot of the singular environments in other Resident Evil games, and it definitely reminded me of the Baker household from RS7. However, I will say that the medical facility does have more safe areas than that location did, but if you’re playing in Grace’s campaign, like what we had with the Baker mansion and in Castle Dimitrescu, there is a roaming enemy. I won’t spoil it for people who haven’t experienced the game, but I will say that one thing that this game does do that you may not know is that it does give you a means to deal with the roaming enemy if you want to take the risk in order to make backtracking easier – and believe me, you’re going to want to backtrack in this game.

Crafting also returns from Resident Evil 8, though it’s only accessible when playing as Grace. This time I think that they handled it better than Resident Evil 8, mainly because it’s actually tied to the backtracking aspect. This time you’ll be crafting using blood which gets littered throughout the medical facility and can be extracted from enemies. It really adds more to the risk versus reward for fighting enemies rather than running from them. And boy, you’re really going to need to consider that risk versus reward because Grace does not get many weapons, so you really have to be precise on your shots when taking down enemies. 

Leon’s action gameplay is unbelievably satisfying when you’ve gone through the challenges of Grace’s time, especially early on because he can take out a lot of enemies a lot earlier. To make up for crafting not being available to him, there are a lot more ammo pickups. 

In whatever way you prefer to play your Resident Evil games, there is something for you to enjoy here. I wouldn’t say any of the gameplay was as scary on a second play through, and I did do multiple for the purpose of this review, but on that first play through there are a few particularly scary enemies to deal with, especially one in the later portion of the game where you are extremely vulnerable. I wouldn’t say it’s to the same extent as the dollhouse from RS8, but it was pretty damn creepy!

• Graphics

 Resident Evil Requiem looks great, I’m playing on a base Playstation 5 and it looks really good. I don’t have any with the Switch 2 version of the game, but from what I’ve heard it actually looks alright and is only a slight downgrade from the other versions, and to be fair I’m amazed that CAPCOM managed to release it on the same day as the other versions. 

If there is an issue, it’s that maybe some of the environments don’t give much for the team to be creative with how they designed the world, but that’s down to the fact that this game has to be a little limited with what it can do, especially in the second half. If you’ve played through the game, you probably know what I’m on about.

That being said, when you’re in cutscenes, this game is a real marvel of the RE Engine, which appears to be CAPCOM’s go to for making all of their games. I would also add that I think the soundtrack is pretty good if we’re talking about the presentation of the game, though I don’t think it compares as well to other games in the series, particularly the early game soundtracks. 

• Enemy Design

Because this game centers again around the T virus, we are dealing with zombies, but there are other new and returning enemies to deal with. One thing that they did rather interestingly this time is that they give certain zombies certain patterns of behaviour that you can exploit, since this game deals with mutations in the T virus which gives the zombies some semblance of their life within their zombie-selves. For example, there’s a zombie in the game that doesn’t like loud noises, so if you can get the other zombies in the game to make loud noises, he’ll actually end up attacking them for you. Similarly, there’s other zombies that don’t like bright lights, so if you turn on a bright light, it will stun them. 

There are some returning enemies but I will leave you to figure out what they are and I will say they don’t feel too much like they are nostalgia baiting. There is a certain aspect of that in this game which I will get back to, but overall the enemies are quite clever and they do provide a decent challenge no matter what character you’re playing as.

With exception of some of the roaming enemies, there’s not too many original enemies in the game, and I have to separate them out into another category that we’ll get to.

MIXED

• Story

In my opinion, the best Resident Evil games are when they’re not trying to tie so heavily into previous entries and are allowed to be their own thing. Resident Evil 2 only slightly ties into the first game, it’s kind of it’s own thing when you think about it, the only connection is that Claire is travelling to Raccoon City after her brother goes MIA. Similarly enough, you have a story like Resident Evil 7 which is very separate from the other games, so much so that we were all wondering when we were playing it if it was meant to be a reboot for the franchise considering just how different it was. 

Resident Evil 9 is kind of in that camp initially, especially when you’re playing the role of Grace since she’s a new character. She does have some connections since her mother, who is murdered in the prologue, is from Resident Evil Outbreak, though you don’t need to have played that game to get the significance of it. Grace’s feelings of guilt over her mother’s death is a big part of her character development, especially when she is put into a caretaking role later on in the narrative. 

That’s not where my issue comes from, overall I think that the narrative is strong, but it falls down for me in the second half of the game, namely with one character making a choice that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense at the time. You don’t necessarily need to have played the second game to understand it, but it really helps. For the record, I’m not spoiling too much by insinuating that, considering that that game was involved in the marketing of that game, but in order to get us there, we have to retcon or ignore other parts in the series. Requiem almost erases the original games from the timelines- the remakes are now the continuity. More importantly, I do think that the second half of the game makes it all a little overcomplicated.

There’s also a character that is revealed in the second half of the game that is utterly pointless to the whole plotline, and I really did not like them. 

Overall, the narrative is strong but it tries a little too hard for nostalgia baiting in its second half and doesn’t succeed on every level.

CONS

• Later Enemies

Now this isn’t for all of the enemies in the late game, but there are a bunch in the later part of the game that do not belong in Resident Evil. If you’ve watched mine and Ren’s livestream of this, you’ll probably know what I’m referring to, but there’s a certain kind of enemy that gets introduced that initially works, even though I wasn’t a fan of it, but when you get to the really late game, it really doesn’t work. I’m frankly super annoyed that I was put through it multiple times since I kept dying. Seriously CAPCOM, do not do this in later entries. 

• No Extra Modes at Launch

There are some gallery features that are rewards for achievements in gameplay, but… Meh. There’s no mercenary mode or no extra survival modes, which is, in my opinion, a real dumb decision, since Requiem is a pretty short entry in the series. My first playthrough took me just over 8 hours and I managed to cut that down by 2 hours for the second playthrough we did on the livestream. To not have a mercenary mode at the end of that seems like a massive missed opportunity. I’m certain there is DLC coming, especially when I looked at the post credit scene, but that could be months down the line.

The point is, the amount of money you have to spend to get this game doesn’t match up to an at-most 10 hour game. You might not be too happy that your only option is to replay this game on New Game Plus or at a harder difficulty. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Resident Evil Requiem is a very strong entry in the series. The gameplay is great, the story and graphics are extremely strong, and I had a really good time playing it. It’s another strong entry into the series. I do have a couple of issues with the story and some aspects at the end portion of the game did frustrate me, but they were minor issues in the grand scheme of things. I would have liked a mercenary mode or something similar after the fact, though that could be offset by some DLC down the line.

If you like Resident Evil, you have absolutely no reason to not pick this up. I will say that newcomers should probably play the remakes of 2, 3, and 4 before playing this one.

FINAL SCORE: 9/10

And now Elliot’s review

We seem to be in a renaissance era when it comes to the Resident Evil franchise. Ever since the release of Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, the series has released brilliant game after brilliant game, from the Ethan Winter duology to the remakes of the classics, this series is better than it’s ever been. So, of course, with all these amazing games coming out, there’s no doubt that many were excited for the release of Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth main entree of the franchise that had first been shown off at Summer Game Fest in 2025 with every trailer only making the game more enticing. So does this game carry on the streak of great games (if we ignore the remake of Resident Evil 3) or is this the exception? Resident Evil Requiem was developed and published by Capcom and released on 27th February 2026 for Playstation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2 and Windows. 

Story

This game follows two characters, Grace Ashcroft,  FBI agent and daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft (protagonist of Resident Evil Outbreak), and series favourite, Leon S. Kennedy. Grace has been given an assignment to investigate the Wrenwood Hotel, the site that her mother was murdered in eight years ago. Once there she encounters Victor Gideon, ex-Umbrella scientist (because half the world was secretly working for Umbrella apparently), who kidnaps her and takes her to the Rhodes Hill Medical Centre. Leon on the other hand, is afflicted with a strain of the T-Virus, which is slowly killing him, though that’s not going to stop him from being the badass action hero that he is. He eventually, with the aid of his handler Sherry Berkin, tracks down Victor Gideon after witnessing him carrying Grace to a different location, only to lose him in a zombie outbreak, eventually arriving at the Medical Centre that Grace is trapped in. Thus giving our protagonists their objectives for the game, Grace to find a way out of her prison and Leon to find out just what Gideon is planning. 

The story of this game is exactly what you’d expect from Resident Evil. Conspiracy and secrets, abominations being lauded as advanced evolution, bad quips and one liners, it’s what you’d expect from a schlocky action/horror flick that you’re not meant to take seriously but do all the same. Grace is a unique character for this series, mostly because she has little combat prowess, so she comes off as cowardly and is frequently seen as a stuttering, bumbling mess that’s very out of her depth. It works as a contrast to Leon, who has become the action hero many of us aspire to be, constantly throwing bad one liners, killing zombies like it’s his average 9-5, needless to say he’s no longer the rookie cop we met back in 1998. One thing that the story has been criticised for are the retcons and changing of continuity, this story fully confirms the remakes as the new canon and either changes or reinterprets plot elements that have been in the series for decades. This probably will, and already has, aggravated a number of long time fans of the franchise, especially those who played the originals on the Playstation 1. 

Presentation

One thing that I will never stop praising these new games for are the graphics. I had to play the game on low graphics settings to get better frame rates, but if you didn’t tell me that they were on low I would not have been able to tell. The game is still incredibly detailed in both environments and character models. On top of that, if you have a powerful enough PC, there are even more ways to enhance graphics and presentation, like ray tracing, path tracing, improved shading and hair strands, amongst other options. All this will no doubt use up a lot of your GPU, which is why I’m very appreciative of the fact that the game will tell you how much each option will take up in settings, ensuring you have the best experience. 

Frame rate wise, the game runs at a very solid and consistent 60fps on low settings. I did find that the game does stutter more on higher graphics though, most of the time that was only when it was loading in cutscenes and even then I blame that more on my hardware than I did on the game itself (tis what you get when you’re running a laptop and using a 4K monitor). 

The voice cast of this game is great. We have returning actor Nick Apostolides taking on the role of Leon S. Kennedy, putting on a voice that sounds a bit older and more gruff than previously, while keeping it sounding very distinctly like our favourite ex-cop. Meanwhile, Angela Sant’Albano nails her role as Grace Ashcroft, she perfected the scared introvert voice, sounding constantly nervous and confused, and the stuttering makes her sound like she is constantly on the verge of a panic attack. Everyone else as well, Antony Byrne as Victor Gideon, Craig Burnatowski as Zeno and the many zombie voices all sound amazing in their roles, further building up the horror and campiness of the game. 

The soundtrack to this game is peak horror. A lot of the music is quiet and ambient, with droning notes designed to make you feel unsafe and tense. The louder tracks really heighten the dread and tell you that danger is here and that you need to run. The entire thing, right from the start menu, brings with it a sense of dread and panic, and lets you know “You are playing a Resident Evil game and you are not safe”. 

Level Design

If you’re familiar with Resident Evil games, then I’m sure you know what to expect from Requiem. Most of the game takes place in large facilities with dozens of rooms for you to wander through and get lost in. Of course, not every room is accessible from the start, and you will need to explore to hunt for a particular key or item, or possibly even have to wait until you have control of a different protagonist to be able to open one of the doors. You’ll find yourself becoming very familiar with these areas as this game is anything but linear. There’s a lot of backtracking through previously explored corridors and rooms, either because you’ve just obtained an item that can open a variety of passageways, you’ve found a clue leading you to a new or previously explored room, or you’re hopelessly lost and are frantically checking every wall and floorboard for a clue forwards (this was me more times than I’d like to admit). 

There are of course puzzles in this game and, it may just be because I played Silent Hill F last year but, I found them a little underwhelming. There are some optional puzzles that can be fairly tricky, like the blood analysers and there is one secret puzzle whose method is so cryptic that a guide is required, though most of them are just hunting down items, reading documents or looking at photos to find the solution. There’s not really that much brain teasing in the game, which isn’t to say that it’s bad, as Resident Evil puzzles have never had the same level of complexity as something like Silent Hill, but when compared to other games in the series, I can’t help but be a little unimpressed. 

You do get a number of safe rooms and areas that enemies will not have access to. Normally these places will have a piece of equipment that will let you save – something you can type on like a typewriter or a laptop, and in the case with Leon, you’ll also be able to upgrade your weapons and buy more items, or with Grace there will be storage containers where you can store key items for later or less frequently used tools to empty out space for more important inventory. Now, I wasn’t being fully truthful when I said that enemies don’t have access to these rooms, while they’re out of the way of the zombies normal route, if you alert them, they will chase you as far as they can, including into a couple of these saferooms, not all of them mind you, but you’ll still have to be careful with some of them. 

Grace Gameplay

I’m doing something a little different here and giving each playable character their own section in this review. I could do what I did in my Alan Wake II review and just give both characters separate paragraphs in each section, but because the ones in this game play so differently, I feel like this will make things easier for the both of us. 

Grace Ashcroft plays just like Ethan Winters in Resident Evil 7 & 8, as in her gameplay is where most of the horror lies within this game. Not only is it recommended that you play her sections in first-person (the fact that you can swap from first and third-person camera in this game is something I give massive praise to) Grace will have very limited resources and little inventory space, so playing her relies on you conserving ammo and trying to avoid encounters as much as possible. To further exemplify this, she has a pretty weak arsenal of weapons, the only guns she can carry are pistols and the only melee weapons she has are makeshift knives that break very easily. She does also carry Leon’s gun, Requiem, which can one-shot most enemies, though the ammo for that is so scarce that using it isn’t really worth it. She can of course be capable of getting out of scraps if there’s no other choice, in fact you’ll sometimes have to if you want to find some optional goodies to buff her up, but seeing how quickly she burns through resources it’s best to avoid conflict as much as possible. 

These aren’t her only tools however, as Grace also has access to other items to make her traversal through the corridors a little less harmful. One of these things are empty glass bottles that are primarily used to lure zombies away from her and help her sneak past – and in the later portions of the game where she’s able to use those bottles to make molotov cocktails or bottles of acid, she temporarily becomes a force to be reckoned with. Though if you want to make things much easier and more bloody, you could always sneak up behind a zombie, stab them with a Hemolytic Injector and watch them explode, bloodying the room they’re in and ruining the decor. 

Unfortunately, there are some threats that you just won’t be able to shoot past. Also stalking the corridors of the Rhodes Hill Medical Centre are behemoths like The Girl or The Chef, that you’ll have to try and manoeuvre around and are exceedingly difficult to deal with. Some of these monsters are killable with enough elbow grease and will even drop useful keys or powerful items, though The Girl – who is your main pursuer – can only be temporarily driven off, so you best be careful when you encounter her and be prepared to run. 

Both characters have a crafting mechanic, and even then they work differently. For Grace she uses mostly the same resources as Leon does, green herbs, bits of scrap, things like that, though she also requires getting a bit more dirty to be able to make those bullets. Part way through the game, she’ll get a device called the Blood Collector, a tool that allows her to gather infected blood which is randomly found throughout the facility; this is a key requirement for crafting particular items. Blood can be gathered from random buckets in hallways and corners of rooms, or by killing enemies and gathering it up. I really like this mechanic, as it’s essentially the game rewarding you for putting yourself in danger and in a small way compensating you for resources you undoubtedly used up. Grace also doesn’t just randomly come upon new crafting recipes, and has to go out of her way to learn how to make them. She does this by finding one of three Blood Specimens hidden in the facility and examining them at a microscope (this also requires you completing a puzzle that I actually quite like). It’s another way to encourage you to explore and to look in every cupboard and drawer for resources, and they’re not so well hidden that you’ll need a guide to find them, though they’re not just out in the open, so you won’t just randomly stumble upon them without looking first. 

Leon Gameplay

And now we get into the part that a lot of people were waiting for, how Leon plays. Well, good news for those of you who liked playing as him in Resident Evil 4 Remake, as he plays as an even more badass version of him in this game. This is the action portion of Resident Evil Requiem, and can almost be seen as a bit of a palette cleanse after experiencing the dread from Graces’ sections.

For starters, Leon has a much wider range of weapons, while Grace is carrying only a pistol and an over-powered revolver, Leon will use a pistol, shotgun, rifle and automatic machine gun. He will have a much larger pool of ammo as well, Grace will be lucky to have twenty bullets while Leon is carrying buckets of the stuff. There’s also how they both react when stunning a zombie, you see Grace will merely shove a zombie over, giving her a chance to run away, while Leon roundhouse kicks his opponents in the face, launching them backwards and potentially killing them if enough damage has been dealt. 

On top of his variety of guns he also has a melee weapon of his own, his trusty hatchet, which is definitely an upgrade to his knife from the last time we saw him. His hatchet has its own attack combo and both light and heavy attacks. It can also parry pretty much any attack in the game, so long as you can time it right. The hatchet can even be used in exploration, as you use it to pry open doors that you previously couldn’t as Grace, opening new rooms and closets to find more resources. And as if this weapon couldn’t be any better, it no longer breaks, it does have a durability metre and can’t be used if it reaches zero, though Leon carries a whetstone with him that can sharpen it back to full, and has infinite uses. 

Even their inventories are different, Grace having simple slots like what you had in Resident Evil 7 & 8, while Leon uses the same briefcase system that he had in Resident Evil 4, where you have to arrange your equipment in a way to make them all fit. 

Enemy Design

This game has the return of more classic Resident Evil enemies. Most of what you’ll be facing will be zombies, though they are done a bit differently this time around. While other games just have zombies bumble around and attack the enemies on sight, these ones seem to have retained some of their humanity and behave similarly to how they did before they started rotting. Hints of how they work will partially be indicated by what lines they say, yes, the zombies in this game talk (what kind of conversation would zombies have… aside from brains obviously). For example, there are some who are sensitive to light and will dart for the nearest lightswitch if you turn them on, there are some who will react when you make any kind of noise, rushing you for the attack. It makes these zombies more unique and memorable and gives hints on the best ways to sneak past them. 

Them finally having a voice box isn’t their only sign of intelligence however, when it comes to the series as a whole, these are easily its smartest and most dangerous zombies. For instance, they’ve been taking lessons from the villagers in Resident Evil 4 and can now carry weapons, such as pipes or hospital equipment, and, yes, even chainsaws – in fact, it’s even worse than Resident Evil 4, as if the zombie carrying a chainsaw dies, one of its friends can just pick up the chainsaw and chase you around with it, like a masked man in a low-budget haunted house. 

What makes these guys truly terrifying however is the fact that even when you take them down, they can always get back up. Taking cues from the Resident Evil Remake, a zombie that you’ve killed has the potential to come back as a Blister Head, or can even just mutate into one when coming into contact with particular zombie variants. These things are ruthless, they are fast, relentless and, while they won’t grab you and lock you into getting hit, they will strike at you multiple times when they attack. The only ways to prevent a Blister Head or to take them down for good is by using a Hemolytic Injector as Grace, or by destroying the head. These things make the game go from nerve wrecking to terrifying, the prospect that an enemy you spent a lot of resources taking down can come back increases the tension every time you backtrack. Plus it makes you consider your resources more, forcing you to think about when and how to use your ammo or Hemolytic Injectors. 

These are, of course, not all you’ll be fighting. There are a variety of monsters and experiments for you to fight against, not only new faces but some that you’ll find familiar if you’re a fan of the series already. Though, I think it would be better if I just kept that to myself, it would be cruel if I were to ruin too many surprises and, trust me, there are some you’ll want to see with blind eyes. 

Conclusion

Resident Evil Requiem takes everything Capcom has been experimenting with the franchise over the last few years and blends it all together to great success. The fear you experience as Grace Ashcroft is just as frightening as the last two main line titles, and playing as Leon is just as fun as it always has been. While this may not be the starting point for a newcomer to the series, I still highly recommend it to anyone who’s interested. In the renaissance that is modern day Resident Evil, this game is just further proof of how fun the series is. 

9.2/10