During the recent Resident Evil Showcase, Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi joked that he never said Leon wasn’t going to be in the game, despite months of gaslighting and dodging the question.
This week’s Resident Evil Showcase wasn’t exactly full to the brim with exciting news (unless you’re desperate to spend two grand on a snazzy watch), but it did give us even more gameplay footage of Leon Kennedy. As a Resi 4 diehard, Leon already looks to be the highlight of Requiem, but the real treat was knowing that the saga of wondering whether he’s in the game was finally, truly over.
If you’ve been following Resident Evil Requiem, you’ll know that the biggest talking point surrounding it is whether Leon was going to be playable, since he was rumoured to be during the game’s development. That saga lasted a long time, with Capcom claiming Grace was the only protagonist of the game, something that led many to call out the team for lying when he was finally revealed.
Resident Evil Requiem’s Director Claims He Never Lied About Leon Being In The Game
“Seriously, I Didn’t Say That At All”
As pointed out by Twitter user dantmnation, the Resident Evil Showcase from earlier in the week opened up with a segment called “So… Leon Is Back?”. This section saw Resident Evil Requiem’s director, Koshi Nakanishi, reference the months of wondering whether Leon would be in the game and clearing his name by saying, “I never said he wasn’t going to show up. Seriously, I didn’t say that at all.”
Resident Evil Requiem Finally Understands That Action And Horror Can Co-Exist
Requiem is preparing to combine shooter action with survival horror like never before.
While it might be true that Nakanishi didn’t outright say that Leon wasn’t going to be in the game at all, Capcom really was trying its hardest to make us think he wasn’t. When the game was first announced, it said that Grace was the “new main character”, before then saying they’d considered Leon as the protagonist before deciding that players didn’t want to see him “scared”.
This point is something that Nakanishi actually brought up in the Resident Evil Showcase, as he noted that the team did initially aim to make a more horror-centric game with Leon as the star, before deciding he wasn’t a good fit for it. That horror focus was then transferred over to Grace, while Leon got his Resident Evil 4 style action gameplay.
To be fair to Nakanishi, the only other time he suggested Leon wasn’t in Requeim was in response to the AI leaks of him with an eyepatch, which was more a dismissal of those images in particular. So, as much as Capcom definitely did want to hide the truth and trick us a little bit, it is actually true that he never outright said Leon wasn’t going to be in the game.
Resident Evil Requiem
- Released
-
February 27, 2026
- ESRB
-
Mature 17+ / Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases
- Engine
-
RE Engine
Anthem Deserved Better Before It Was Shut Down, But It Was Never Going To Get It
BioWare’s looter shooter was doomed to fail, but it still deserved so much better.
