When Capcom released Resident Evil 7: Biohazard back in 2017, it felt like a deliberate rebranding of the survival horror blockbuster to distance it from the mediocrity of past entries that had sunk deeper and deeper into the malaise of action set-piece mediocrity. The years that followed saw it walk a delicate tightrope between expertly curated scares and a healthy dose of bombasse as familiar characters were brought back into the fray.
There were times I was afraid it would once again surrender to the excessive action that once upon a time threatened to destroy it. However, Resident Evil Requiem proves this series has what it takes to deliver vulnerable, anxiety-inducing terror alongside utterly ridiculous combat that makes you feel like if John Wick was a geriatric twink with a love for awful one-liners. After spending a handful of hours with the near-finished product, I’m already convinced this could be one for the ages.
The Doctor Will See You Now
My preview began with an older and more experienced Leon Kennedy, who now works for anti-bioterrorism organisation DSO. He arrives at the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center upon receiving an invitation from the mysterious Doctor Viktor Gideon. After being greeted by the receptionist, it’s only a matter of seconds until the entire facility is forced into lockdown and zombified staff begin trying to tear our hero apart.
Leon is seen to be suffering from some sort of illness emanating from the growing wound on his neck. Perhaps the Raccoon City incident has finally caught up with him?
It’s in the opening moments that Leon’s action-orientated direction becomes clear. This is a man who has saved the world dozens of times over by vanquishing all manner of monolithic horrors, so, of course, he has no issue roundhouse kicking an infected stranger in the face. I am not exaggerating when I say this is the most powerful a Resident Evil character has ever felt.
Each bullet lands with appropriate impact, while Leon’s melee attacks with his fists, legs, and all manner of melee weapons are intended to kill first and ask questions never. You’ll be asked to pick up a chainsaw and begin swinging as part of the tutorial, turning this vicious weapon that could once vanquish Leon in a single strike into an unstoppable killing machine.
But here’s the thing — it still can vanquish. While Leon has plenty of weapons at his disposal alongside a generous pool of health, you still need to land accurate shots and dodge attacks if you want to stay alive. More to come on Leon, but it isn’t long until he stumbles upon timid FBI agent Grace Ashcroft and I jump into her shoes for several hours.
We aren’t provided narrative context as to when and why our heroine ends up being kidnapped by Viktor Gideon and imprisoned in Rhodes Hill, but I’m certain she has stumbled upon information she shouldn’t have and now finds herself deep in the midst of an Umbrella Corporation conspiracy. Business as usual, then.
Grace’s default gameplay perspective is first-person, with the moment-to-moment action more reminiscent of the opening hours of Resident Evil 7 with ammo and healing items being in awfully short supply. Every combat encounter may be your last, as I frequently found myself facing up against several zombies at once with literally having no other choice but to run away and pray they didn’t follow in pursuit.
She isn’t the fastest, while aiming down sights with any weapon has her shaking like a leaf trying its best not to be blown away by the slightest breeze. I imagine she will grow more capable as things progress, but Capcom is positioning her as the horror slice of Requiem for good reason.
Grace is also pursued by a Mr. X-inspired monstrosity throughout the narrative, but I only glimpsed it within cutscenes as part of my preview. It’s an ugly regenerative bugger. My prediction? It’s her mother.
You Can Stand Under My Umbrella
I spent the next several hours exploring Rhodes Hill in search of both escape and answers. Grace could easily break the nearest window and leg it, but in typical Resident Evil fashion, the only means of escape is through a door that requires three unique trinkets to unlock.
It’s instantly comparable to the Raccoon City Police Department, and equally compelling with its multiple wings that each feel like fully-fledged levels in their own right. The medical facility is home to zombified patients and doctors alike, with one of the puzzles requiring you to find a number of artificial organs for a decaying corpse to receive a keycard bracelet located on its wrist.
Puzzles often require finding the right object to access a new area or unlock a container that contains further clues, but their convoluted existence doesn’t stop them from being fun and rewarding to pursue. Every clue I stumbled upon, despite my dwindling health and ammo, felt like a lifeline. I was constantly unable to lessen the lump in my throat that came from realising that in order to progress I needed to navigate this nightmarish labyrinth all over again. Grace can be downed in just a handful of hits, and there simply wasn’t enough ammo in the game world for me to defeat every single enemy and live to tell the tale.
As for the enemies themselves, Requiem strives to redefine what it means to be a zombie in the Resident Evil universe. These creatures you fight throughout Rhodes Hill aren’t just grim corpses on the hunt for brains, but infected humans who feel trapped inside their own minds with no means of escape. You will often find them performing tasks they frequented in reality, such as butlers manning light switches, maids cleaning bathrooms, or doctors playing with an assortment of medical instruments. Their capabilities in combat also reflect this, such as patients swinging IV stands at Grace or surgeons wielding cutting tools that can tear off your limbs with a well-placed strike.
Close-ups of zombies even reveal tears running down their faces, as if the infected are still sentient and are fully aware of the tragic fate they’ve succumbed to. This provides a context that makes fighting normal enemies infinitely more frightening. You’ll also stumble across a giant baby who can crash through doorways and eat Grace for lunch, if you’re after something a smidge more silly.
Grace’s inventory screen and moment-to-moment gameplay is a dead ringer for Ethan Winters’ in Biohazard and Village, while Leon feels like a more matured version of his arsenal in the Resident Evil 4 remake. It makes each character feel demonstrably unique.
Fortunately, what Grace lacks in combat expertise she makes up for in careful strategic play. You soon come across an injector that can be used to gather infected blood from defeated enemies, which can then be utilised to craft items ranging from ammunition to healing items to immensely effective syringes capable of downing powerful opponents in a single strike.
It rewards you for returning to corpses to gather valuable resources and also playing stealthy, since it’s much easier to eliminate wandering zombies with a poke in the backside instead of wasting ten bullets on a single adversary. And that horrific talking baby I mentioned earlier? It took three syringes to vanquish it for good, while these can also be used to destroy normal enemies to ensure they don’t come back as more powerful variants.
Requiem is both faithful to everything you’d expect of the series while also introducing some fascinating new wrinkles I’m ready to see explored. The fact this story features a version of Leon following the events of Resident Evil 6 and not the one seen in recent remakes is incredibly interesting, and could be addressed in greater detail once we’re back in the decimated streets of Raccoon City.
The writing and performances are strong and just self-aware enough to also feel like self-indulgent schlock. Thankfully, the utterly terrifying atmosphere still made it feel like an experience that’s well worth being afraid of.
He’s Old, Cold, And Full Of Mold
As promised, let’s jump back into Leon’s third-person shoes for the final part of this preview. He’s an absolute powerhouse, and the way in which you take control of him after conquering the horrific halls of Rhodes Hill as Grace is delightfully cathartic. For several hours I tried so valiantly to survive as the timid analyst as I hid from the infected and only fought them when entirely necessary. Now, I was a middle-aged beefcake capable of blowing every single one of them to pieces with ease. There was a bulky chef commandeering the kitchen, patrolling the corridors that I developed a technique of avoiding as Grace, but now Leon can swiftly unload an entire belt of shotgun shells into his cranium and call it a day.
I made a point of combing the entire facility and murdering every single living thing in the building as Leon as a form of self-indulgent revenge. While this sudden burst of combat is certainly appreciated, I’m equally excited to see how the full game recontexualises spaces explored by different characters. Each of them will likely explore locations that are entirely unique, but as they continue to work together and pursue the same goal, Requiem has an opportunity to get incredibly creative with its combat and puzzle design. From these initial chapters alone, Capcom is pursuing an ambitious dual-protagonist adventure unlike any it has crafted before.
When it was first revealed, I was afraid that Resident Evil Requiem was going to mark yet another point of no return for the series. That Capcom would once again embrace action over horror to such a degree that its identity would once again be lost to mediocrity. This time around however, it seems to understand that spine-tingling terror and larger-than-life action can co-exist and, under the right circumstances, hold each other up to achieve truly marvelous things.
- Released
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February 27, 2026
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases
