At the end of February, Resident Evil Requiem was released – the ninth part of the famous horror series, which simultaneously laid many foundations of the genre. This time, Japanese company Capcom has tried to satisfy two different audiences within one game: those who prefer classic exploration of creepy and confusing locations, and those who prefer more “action-packed” episodes of the series. “Medusa” explains why Requiem is a great gift for fans of the series, but newcomers would be better off starting with another Resident Evil title.
The text contains minor plot spoilers, most of which were known before the game’s release. If you haven’t followed the Resident Evil Requiem trailers at all and want to find out everything for yourself, set this material aside for the future.
FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft is involved in the investigation of a series of mysterious deaths. All the victims are former residents of Raccoon City, a small city in the Midwestern United States, where a biological disaster occurred 28 years ago due to the fault of the Umbrella Corporation. As part of the investigation, Grace goes to an abandoned hotel, where another body has been found. From there, she is kidnapped by Victor Gideon, a former Umbrella Corporation researcher whose motives remain somewhat unclear.
Leon Kennedy, an agent of a government organization (and the hero of several Resident Evil prequels), conducts his own investigation into the same deaths. He witnesses Grace’s kidnapping, but does not have time to save her. So he goes to Gideon’s medical center to find all the answers there. But he faces nothing but a horde of aggressive zombies.
Even a brief retelling of the plot of Resident Evil Requiem can cause slight confusion – that’s okay, that’s how it should be. Although the game introduces several new characters to the series and mainly focuses on Grace and her past, the developers expect players to have a general knowledge of the events that occurred previously. Specifically, Raccoon City was destroyed by missiles, the Umbrella developments are still more or less present, and Leon Kennedy continues to clean them all up even after three decades.
True, his role seems secondary at first. Despite the fact that the plot constantly moves from one character to another and back again, there is a clear division in Requiem: in the first half more attention is paid to Grace, and in the second half Leon is the soloist. According to the developers, this solution should satisfy two audiences at once – horror fans and action fans.
Playing as Grace involves exploring and finding new paths, solving puzzles, and constantly playing hide and seek with opponents. For direct clashes with zombies, especially at the beginning, she has very few resources, and only a pistol as a weapon. There is also a very powerful Requiem Pistol that Leon gave her during the first meeting. However, it’s almost impossible to find cartridges for it – you’ll have to save them for absolutely desperate situations.
The space in the heroine’s inventory is very limited, so she often has to return to a special room to send additional items to the chest and make room for an artifact. Sometimes this path is dangerous: there are a lot of half-dead zombies everywhere, in addition, the locations are always guarded by particularly strong stalking monsters, which are difficult to get rid of.
It is also worth noting that Grace works as an analyst. She has no combat experience and her hands shake when shooting. It is impossible to improve her weapon, and a simple leveling allows her to increase her maximum health only slightly, cool down her aim while jumping, and increase the damage dealt to enemies slightly. But, despite this, the player constantly experiences, if not fear, then at least a feeling of discomfort and uncertainty that he will be able to successfully overcome the next two rooms of the medical center.
It gets a little easier when players become familiar with crafting, i.e. the mechanics of creating things from improvised means. Almost all recipes have one constant ingredient – infected blood, which can be collected from killed zombies or simply found. At the same time, it’s best not to wonder what exactly blood is for and how you can even create cartridges from it, but simply accept it as another crazy Resident Evil convention.
With the help of crafting, you will craft more valuable and deadly things. For example, with special injections that instantly kill almost any creature. True, to do this you have to sneak up on him unnoticed or at least stun him. But even with such restrictions, surviving in the uncomfortable world of the Requiem becomes a little easier.
But Leon has no such problems. An experienced agent has a wide arsenal of weapons to destroy enemies: pistols, rifles, sniper rifles and grenades. There is also an ax that allows you not only to effectively eliminate zombies, but also to block many attacks. Almost all weapons can be improved or replaced with other, more powerful weapons. True, for this you will have to wait until the second half of the game, when Leon begins to encounter special chests – electronic analogues of merchants from other parts of Resident Evil.
Leon does not need to collect blood for crafting; He uses gunpowder, which is more familiar than in previous parts of the series. There is much more space in your inventory. It is true that Leon cannot hide unnecessary items in a special box, but throughout the entire gameplay, this never becomes a problem.
As well as the sharply increasing number of opponents. In the second half, Requiem turns from horror into dynamic action. Leon is more proficient with weapons and can easily deal with multiple opponents at once.
Improvised items are also used. For example, explosive cylinders, which are sometimes found in locations, or weapons that the zombies themselves try to use. You can shoot an enemy, grab their ax and instantly throw it at the other, then run up to them and finish them off with a kick. In some episodes they let you walk around with the chainsaw a bit. After Grace’s tense passages, it feels like a well-deserved release before the inevitable return to nightmare.
Requiem lacks balance. The episodes of Grace and Leon were very different
The creators of the game did their best to emphasize the difference between the two heroes. This is also expressed in camera placement: while Grace needs to be played from a first-person perspective, Leon keeps the camera suspended behind his back, improving visibility. This can be changed in the settings, but the developers themselves recommend sticking to this particular scheme for better immersion in the game.
However, they seem to have gone a bit further than that. The parts for the different heroes contrast so much that it feels as if Requiem is combining two completely different games. This also leads to a certain glitch in the gameplay. For example, all boss battles, except one (and even then, very conditional) fall on Leon, that is, in the second half of the game.
What was probably a good idea – allowing one character to pass through a location, then sending a second character there – was never implemented well enough. The idea was that Leon could enter the main building of the medical center after Grace, kill all the zombies remaining there and collect the items that the girl did not need. In theory, this would allow us to look at the same game situation through the eyes of two different characters with different abilities.
In practice, the player will likely collect all the resources when playing as Grace (which makes sense, since she is practically powerless and will need whatever is on hand). Along the way, he will eliminate almost all enemies with the help of shots and syringes, just to protect the heroine and give her more room to move. In this case, Leon will only be greeted by empty, blood-stained rooms, and two secrets created especially for him.
Finally, the action sequences lack variety. For example, it is completely devoid of puzzles. It’s not that Grace has a lot of them either; Here, in general, the developers can be blamed for a lack of creativity. But it would be possible to give Leon at least a little brain work, as is done, for example, in Resident Evil 4 and its recent remake.
All this can be attributed to minor shortcomings, but nevertheless, they make it difficult to perceive the Mass as a complete thing. As well as radical changes to the site design. After spending several hours in the medical center, which looks like a luxurious palace, with its gloomy basements, the heroes go to Raccoon City. More precisely, what remained of it after a missile strike and thirty years of oblivion. And at this moment, an expensive and very beautiful toy turns into a faceless card of some ordinary military shooter.
The color palette becomes instantly gray and dull, and the only thing that somehow helps maintain the rapidly deteriorating horror atmosphere is a heavy hit of nostalgia. Leon can visit familiar locations from Part 2, see what they have become, and remember certain episodes from his past. Granted, this will only work for loyal fans of the series. Beginners will likely see just faceless ruins.
But everyone will notice bright personalities. Leone, who is around fifty years old at the time of the events of Requiem, diligently portrays a great action hero – he effectively slings around clumsy zombies, is cheerful despite a serious illness, rides a motorcycle and usually makes sarcastic jokes at the villains’ expense. It seems that if he appears in any upcoming Resident Evil game, his vocabulary will finally be reduced to just such phrases.
On the other hand, Grace is a real revelation and one of the most lively and believable heroines of recent years. Having suffered severe psychological trauma (in the same hotel she went to at the beginning of the game, her mother was killed before her eyes eight years ago) and not being prepared for combat missions, especially to meet the undead, she displays a whole range of different emotions, without leaving her role for a single moment.
She is genuinely afraid, chokes during panic attacks, genuinely empathizes with the other heroes and feels terrified when confronted by the ghosts of the past. Certain events midway through the game break her character, but true transformation and maturity only happens in the final scenes. You rarely see such integrity in games, especially Resident Evil.
It is safe to say that Requiem is not the most successful part in terms of the text, its integrity and logic. But it’s definitely one of the best scenarios in terms of how this scenario can be played out by the virtual heroes. It’s funny that even the zombies here have some semblance of personality – they utter excerpts of phrases from past lives and, like a zombie cleaner, stick to their usual occupations.
On the anniversary of the series – the first Resident Evil was released in Japan on March 22, 1996 – Capcom released a game that combined all the ideas accumulated over the past thirty years. Not all of them look right in Requiem, but we have to admit that the developers didn’t make any outright mistakes.
This isn’t just a game, it’s a thank you to all the fans who have supported the series at different stages of its life all this time. But after that, Resident Evil will have to take the next step and reinvent itself again, for the third time.
Resident Evil Requiem was released on February 27, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series The game is fully translated into Russian.
Mikhail Gerasimov