Whenever people say that the original Resident Evil remake needs its own remake, I squirm a little. It’s always ‘tank controls are outdated’ this and ‘fixed camera angles feels archaic’ that – reductive suggestions from people who demand the same over-the-shoulder action game ad nauseam, outright dismissing artistic intent because it’s different to the uniformity of modern-day standards. Given how pervasive these ideas are among players, it’s no wonder triple-A gaming has become one big homogeneous blob.
But I’ll step down from my soapbox and stop moaning about the state of gaming for a second; if anything can convince me that it’s worth remaking the original Resident Evil again, it’s Resident Evil Requiem. Specifically, the first-person segments with Grace Ashcroft.
Requiem Captures The Voyeuristic Paranoia Of The Original Resident Evil
Something I adore about the original game is how the fixed camera angles give you this detached, almost voyeuristic feeling, as though you’re peering in on our protagonists through CCTV cameras — foreshadowing the fact that they were being stalked by Albert Wesker and Umbrella all along. It’s an unparalleled atmosphere of paranoia that horror games seldom match, especially when adopting an over-the-shoulder perspective that keeps you firmly centered on the action.
Biohazard and Village pulled us in closer with a first-person perspective, offering up a new kind of horror, one far more intimate. Ethan Winters’ lack of personality and light dialogue only lent itself to that approach, and both games were more immersive than anything else in the series. It’s hardly surprising that Resident Evil 7 is heralded as one of the most unsettling survival horror games in the genre with how much more present we felt in its story and setting. But neither game captured the unique tone of the original trilogy.
Requiem does. It also adopts a first-person POV (clearly designed with Grace in mind), but the game allows for the protagonist’s personality to flourish. The camera, meanwhile, is more reactive, with panicked breaths causing shakier movement, utilizing a lower field-of-view for a more realistic vantage point. Instead of feeling as though we’re controlling a character safely from behind a screen, it’s as though we’ve stumbled on a discarded bodycam, peering through found footage into a real scenario. It’s the closest we’ve ever come to that feeling of voyeurism in the original.
Resident Evil Was Originally Envisioned As Being First-Person, And Requiem Is The Closest We’ve Come To That Vision
The very first Resident Evil game was envisioned as a first-person experience, but limitations at the time forced series creator Shinji Mikami to change his approach. That isn’t to say that the original is flawed, of course; creative workarounds are what lead to some of the most innovative games, especially in that era where triple-A titles were not expected to be carbon copies of one another — look no further than Silent Hill’s iconic fog, a staple that came about to mask the shortcomings of the PlayStation. But revisiting that idea with the first game, now that Capcom has the experience, could give Spencer Mansion an entirely new lease on life after three long decades.
I wasn’t entirely sold on a first-person remake of the original Resident Evil when looking solely at Biohazard and Village. I feared it would be too action-oriented, too much of an attempt to force the game to appease modern audiences instead of letting them experience Spencer Mansion as intended. But there are some standout moments in Requiem that have sold me on the idea.
Throughout the first half of the game, Grace treks through a mansion-like ward connected through outlandish puzzles that eventually lead to an underground basement where an unkillable, monstrous girl stalks her every move, paralleling Lisa Trevor in the mines. All the while, she has scarce resources and ammo, meaning that she must avoid enemies, rather than roundhouse kicking them into a Leon Kennedy-shaped meatgrinder.
Further into the game, she walks the pristine halls of an Umbrella lab, hiding from Lickers and other infected as she scavenges for keycards — moments that rival the tension of Hunter chases in the original. These segments are what convinced me that Capcom has what it takes now to reimagine the original game without sacrificing what made it so special; each moment with Grace, trapped and helpless, are among the most unnerving in the series.
I still don’t think the first Resident Evil needs another remake (the original and the first remake are both available on modern platforms, anyway), and I certainly don’t think that tank controls or fixed camera angles hamper the experience — they are the experience. But when Capcom inevitably decides it’s time to remake the original, I’m not nearly as worried.
Requiem has proven there’s a way to keep what made that game so special, and if anything, I’m excited to see what Spencer Mansion would look like through this new perspective.
- 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
