Intro: The Evolution of Humanity

The world has changed since 1996.

Beanie Babies. Pokémon Red & Blue. Nintendo 64. Titanic. Friends. These names stand out as the pioneers that pushed the mid-90s towards the cultural relevance it holds over the world today. Whether they sold the tale of the next great romance on the silver screen or unknowingly designed the blueprint of the modern sitcom, their influence on the culture of the modern world can still be felt today. What do all these untouchable names of the 90’s have in common with each other? That’s right. They were all brought to fruition in 1996 much like another name the world seems intent on remembering – Resident Evil.

Originally released in 1996 on the original PlayStation, Resident Evil was the first video game of the “survival horror” genre. This genre prioritized the idea of making the player feel as if they weren’t in control – limiting their health, ammo, character view and other aspects of the experience. With modern technology this might seem like nothing more than another walk in the park, but in the age of 32-bit games with limited capabilities it was the start of something that would revolutionize the gaming space forever. Even so, that was nearly three decades ago. How has Resident Evil fared after ten mainline entries and twice as many spin-offs? Let’s find out. Welcome to my review of Resident Evil Requiem.

The Dual-Protagonist Perspective: Grace “I’m Terrified” Ashcroft

Resident Evil Requiem is one of the most unique stories that has been brought to the series since its inception in 1996. Instead of following one protagonist throughout their individual story, we are instead given the chance to play through the same events through two different characters’ perspectives. Though Resident Evil 5 gave us the chance to play as two different characters throughout the same story, Requiem separates itself by building off that formula in the best way possible.

The story starts off through the eyes of Grace Ashcroft, an FBI agent tasked with investigating a series of mysterious deaths that are all connected to the Raccoon City incident from nearly three decades ago. In these first minutes, you are sent to the Wrenwood Hotel, the latest site of one of the murders, and are thrown into an experience very reminiscent of RE7. Eerie sounds seem to jump from your speakers as you navigate through the remnants of the hotel, and the creaking of the building around you is as effective at setting the tone as any bioweapon horror staring at you from the shadows. It is during this time that you realize what tone Requiem is going to follow throughout her side of the story. Grace’s tale is one that is deeply rooted in the horror elements that Capcom was known for in the infant stages of the series. You aren’t some experienced agent who has spent years perfecting her craft, but rather an analyst who is simply trying to connect the dots without truly realizing the danger she’s in. This section ends with you getting abducted by our new villain and being thrown into one of the greatest horror playgrounds Capcom has ever put in front of us – the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center.

This is where you’re going to spend most of your time as Grace, and I would be lying to you if I didn’t admit that it was nearly perfect setting for what’s to come. You see, Resident Evil 7 was the way that Capcom went back to its horror roots. Instead of employing the standard over the shoulder camera perspective they’ve used since the early 2000’s, they instead took a gamble and chose to have the entire game played through the first person perspective, a change that seemed almost blasphemous in the series at the time. With Resident Evil 7 currently sitting at an 86 on Metacritic, Capcom proved all the naysayers wrong. They not only created a Resident Evil experience that washed away the sour taste that had festered in people’s mouths since Resident Evil 5, but they also revitalized the series in a way that harps back to their humble beginnings as the creators of the “survival horror” genre. Resident Evil 7 embraced their horror roots to near perfection, pushing the player towards a system of resource management and fearing the darkness as opposed to embracing it. It made you scared of what awaited you around the next corner. Do I have enough ammo to fight whatever horror is waiting for me in the next area? When’s the last time I saved? How can I sneak my way around this without wasting resources? These are the questions that defined survival horror as a whole.

Circling back to the comparison to RE7, Requiem builds off this when it comes to Grace’s side of the story. She isn’t someone who is versed in slaying the undead like our other main character in the story. Most of your time playing as her isn’t going to be running from room to room killing everything in your way, no. Grace’s sections rely on patience, bullet management and more than anything being terrified of what goes bump in the night. Without spoiling too much, think of the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center as a more intricate version of the Racoon City Police Department from Resident Evil 2. It’s filled to the brim with all sorts of goodies and monsters guarding them, but you can approach every situation as you want. Throughout my earlier sections of the playthrough, I found myself avoiding conflict entirely for the simple fact that you really are at the mercy of the item placement and your own decisions. Sure you can shoot every zombie you see patrolling the halls, but is that really going to work out in your favor once some of the more intricate enemies appear? I’ll let you take a guess. Let’s just say it usually doesn’t end well. This sense of compounding dread towards whatever awaits you around the next corner is further reiterated by the first person perspective the game defaults to when you play as her. In between managing your ammunition and your heals is one of the best first person horror atmospheres that I have played in recent memory. Every footstep creaks and moans as you and the zombies shift around, and sound is almost always your best friend when entering a new area as it allows you to hear what’s hiding in the darkened edges of your vision. This entire idea will follow you throughout your journey as Grace, and it feels like the definitive experience in the game overall.

 If you even remotely enjoyed the Resident Evil 7 loop of being scared out of your wits every few minutes, I can almost guarantee that you’ll love Grace’s section of the game. While playing as her, the horror elements are turned up to eleven with nearly every encounter. Zombies become more than just cannon fodder, and throughout your time you’ll come to fear them for the danger they pose to your precious health bar. This is further reiterated by the new system Requiem has in place. Nearly every zombie you come into contact with has retained some of their humanlike qualities. This allows them to do certain actions like turning off the light switches in the hallways or eerily singing as they dance through the care center hunting their next victim. Need I say more? Let’s be blunt with each other here – that’s terrifying. Without spoiling anything else all I have to say is good luck when you’re playing as Grace. The game is terrifying when you’re playing as her and they somehow one-upped Resident Evil 7’s fear factor in a way that feels familiar and terrifyingly alien in the same breath.

The Dual-Protagonist Perspective: Leon “John Wick” Kennedy

With a more horror leaning story through Grace’s perspective, many of us were left wondering how our second character’s playstyle would tie into the experience and I’m here to tell you that Leon S. Kennedy hasn’t lost any of his stride since we last saw him. Instead of being a standard FBI analyst who was at the wrong place at the wrong time, Leon’s story is a continuation of where we last saw him in Resident Evil 6. Leon and Sherry Birkin are Division of Security Operations (DSO) agents investigating the same deaths as Grace for the sole reason that they are showing the same symptoms as the deceased. This late onset T-Virus infection causes black tendrils to protrude from under their skin like veins and it is largely hinted that this same virus is slowly killing them.

Through the usual Resident Evil madness, Grace and Leon meet briefly for a moment in the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center before their stories veer off from each other. While you are in control of Grace for the first sixty percent of the game, Leon becomes your main protagonist from then until the final act when the pair reconvenes with each other. Truthfully, I don’t want to spoil anything from here on out so that is all I am going to say as far as where you end up next. Back to Leon’s story, we are in control of a man that is trying to make up for his past mistakes. There are more than a few instances throughout the 10-15 hour campaign where you are meant to feel for Leon and the horrors he has witnessed since he was nothing more than a police recruit on that fateful day 28 years ago. Leon really is a hero from a different world who is just trying to fight an unwinnable battle and the game leans into his past in the most depressing way possible through some really sincere connections to the previous entries in the series. But the thing about it is, it works and it really does add to the overall story. Since Leon and Grace’s goals end up being relatively the same, it does give you a good opportunity to see the conflict from the other sides of the coin. In simplest terms, Grace’s story loop is to simply survive to fight another day and understand how she connects to this mess, while Leon’s is chasing the red and white monster that ruined his life decades before.

Now while I had joked that Grace is nothing more than an analyst thrown into a situation way outside her paygrade, Leon’s gameplay sections are very much the opposite. While Grace is fighting for scraps just to exist in the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, Leon is strapped to the teeth from the moment you take control of him. Remember how I had said that Grace’s section felt like an improved version of the RE7 formula? Well Leon is at the other end of the spectrum as far as how he plays. The closest comparison would be a mix between the Resident Evil 4 and 6 gameplay loop, but I would lean towards the Resident Evil 4 Remake for an exact comparison. But what does that mean exactly? Well, in short it means that the zombies and bioweapons between you and your goals are in trouble.

Leon’s gameplay loop is strictly 3^rd person (Unless you choose to change it in the menus which is also an option for Grace), and the experience very much feels like a John Wick movie for 90% of the time you have with him. He’s still just as nimble and deadly as he was before, deploying his usual extensive arsenal of both guns and acrobatic kicks and slams on any bioterrorism threat who stand in his way. He is as deadly as he’s ever been and most of the time his one liners hint that the undead are nothing more than a nuisance at this point in his extensive career. Like I said above, this version of Leon is older and more seasoned to the kind of world he now lives in. John Wick really is the perfect comparison because Leon is so good at what he does because it’s all he’s ever known. It really lends to the idea that he is a walking personification of death and nothing is going to stop him from reaching his goal of stopping Umbrella once and for all. Yet we all know how that goes……

The Beauty in Death: The RE Engine Does It Again

Between Grace and Leon you really do get what amounts to a pinnacle Resident Evil experience. Capcom may have taken a bit of a gamble in having two separate characters that have two distinct playstyles, but I’ll be the first to admit that I was hooked from the moment I stepped into the world. It caters to fans of the original Resident Evil 4 and somehow still gives us a great horror experience much like Resident Evil 7. The story does take a bit of a weird path towards the last 10% of the game, but in reality I don’t think there was any other way they could have done it without derailing the momentum entirely. There’s only so many bioweapons and bioterrorism events we can stop before certain aspects need to be reused. Where Capcom and the series as a whole go from here is uncertain. Whether it’s a remake of Code Veronica or Resident Evil 5 or something new and bold like Resident Evil 7, I will always be a fan of what they have accomplished here in Requiem. It’s an absolute joy to experience and I can’t wait to platinum it in the coming weeks.

If you need more convincing, Requiem is perhaps one of the most graphically beautiful games released in the past five years. The Reach for the Moon Engine’s level of detail is on par with the Decima Engine, seen in Death Stranding 2 last year, and will have you noticing every perfectly placed pixel as you carve your way through the undead. It’s rare to see a game engine stand up against the Decima Engine, but Capcom has done it without much of a fuss. Between the Resident Evil 2 and 4 Remakes and Requiem, I don’t see a world where anyone can doubt their mastery of the series as a whole. In short, it’s a beauty to see in motion and really sells the game for the marvel it is.

Ending Thoughts: A Perfect Meld Of Past and Present

The next evolution of the Resident Evil series has officially arrived and it delivers on nearly every front. From the visceral, gory combat to the tense, compounding sense of dread that accompanies every darkened hallway, Requiem feels like a love letter to every Resident Evil fan. The dual-protagonist addition works to near perfection, with Grace thriving on tense, survival horror driven moments of terror, while Leon deploys the heavy firepower and one-liners to bring up the rear. Its environments and settings have a sense of familiarity to the horrors hiding just out of sight, while feeling like a brand new monster entirely. Though the story does falter towards the end, I feel confident in saying that Requiem is one of the strongest entries in the series as a whole. It does just enough to honor the past, while pushing full steam ahead towards the future.

Resident Evil Requiem was reviewed on PS5. The game launched on 27 February 2026 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.