Five years after the conclusion of the Winters family’s story in Resident Evil Village comes the return of Leon S. Kennedy and a new protagonist, FBI agent Grace Ashcroft. Set in 2026, Resident Evil Requiem has Grace and Leon returning to the origin of both their stories and where the series all began; Racoon City. While dealing with a new breed of zombies far more intelligent than the last, they tackle the last remaining remnants of the Umbrella Corporation.

Editor’s Note: Resident Evil Requiem spoilers will be present within this review. Spoilers for the overall Resident Evil mythos and story may also be present.

Grace Ashcroft co-leads the next era of Resident Evil.

In 2021, Capcom released Resident Evil Village. In my review, I mentioned how the game was only slightly scary, mainly in the first couple of hours with the castle and village. Well, I feel like I might have pissed off someone on the Resident Evil team at Capcom to the point that they held a grudge because the horror rarely stops in Requiem. You have the usual action gameplay that’s been a franchise staple since 4, but when it comes to Grace, the horror is rarely turned off. The developers even want players to use the third-person camera while playing as her. It’s like a brilliant fusion of Resident Evil at its best from two different eras of games in the franchise. And somehow it works out to be a beautiful disaster of two perspectives often polarized by longtime fans.

Terror has a new face in Resident Evil Requiem.

THE GOOD: The story starts in 2026, and Grace Ashcroft is still suffering from the death of her mother, Alyssa. Despite having a gun and being a trained agent, Grace suffers from shakes, stuttering, etc likely due to ptsd from witnessing her mother’s murder. Following strange killings and citizens’ fits of aggression, Grace is tasked with investigating her former home, Racoon City. Forced to return to the place of her mother’s murder, Grace gets wrapped up in what appears to be a final desperate ploy for the biochemical company Umbrella Corp. and is captured by Umbrella scientist Victor Gideon.

While escaping her capture, she’s pursued by a giant monster that gets hurt in the light. Leon finds himself involved with Grace after investigating Gideon for the DSO. After meeting Leon, Grace continues to investigate Rhodes Hill and meets Emily, an infected child who was experimented on by Umbrella. Grace enlists Emily, who’s blind, to help her read Braille so she can continue searching for an exit from Rhodes Hill. After leaving Rhodes Hill with Emily, she barely survives a helicopter crash, but Emily gets hurt in the impact. Having reunited with Leon, they learn that Gideon is trying to complete the Elpis project, which is rumored to use the T-Virus to have people transfer consciousness between others.

Following another encounter with the monster from earlier, Grace kills it with natural light, but Emily transforms from her infection, forcing Leon to kill her. Completely distraught, Grace abandons Leon, who’s suffering from his infection. Though he was acting on behalf of the DSO, Leon and Sherry go rogue after Gideon and Zeno, a representative of Connections, a company linked with Umbrella, take Grace to Racoon City’s orphanage. It is revealed that Grace was also an experimented child like Emily and is a potential key to unlocking the Elpis project. While heading to Racoon City, Leon is attacked by Gideon in a high-speed chase, defeating him. He meets Zeno, who possesses enhancements similar to Albert Wesker.

Leon battles a revived Mr. X and defeats him, but again loses Grace to Zeno, who takes her to ARK. Leon pursues Zeno and reunites with Grace, but his infection takes hold, forcing her to protect him. In a final confrontation, Grace unlocks Elpis, revealing that it was actually a new T-Virus cure and biochemical countermeasure.  Zeno is killed by the returning Gideon, and Leon is cured by Grace, who kills him in a final battle. Believed to be stranded in the self-destructing ARK, they’re rescued by BSAA on orders of Chris Redfield. Some time has passed, Emily survived and has been cured & adopted by Grace, and Leon is still an active agent while also implying he got married before the events of the game.

Capcom gives players an optional choice between first and third-person perspectives in gameplay.

Requiem is a second return to form from where Biohazard left us, a much heavier focus on the horrors of the Resident Evil Universe.  There are three types of Resident Evil fans: those who love the old-school horror vibe pre-remake, those who love the action-oriented vibe post RE4, and remake, and those who don’t give a shit and just want to play Resident Evil. I tend to be more a part of the third group, but since the release of Biohazard, I have found myself recently appreciating the original horror aspects the franchise had. I’ve come to like the horror that’s represented with Resident Evil; despite the camp and B-movie action hero silliness, there’s a real fear factor. It wasn’t until I played Village that I started to realize, even thirty years later, the series still hasn’t realized its full potential in the horror space. Resident Evil Requiem plans to fix that and mostly succeeds, at least with Grace.

The characterization of Grace Ashcroft as a realistic counter to a way-too-tired-for-this-shit Leon is a good balancing act playing surrogate to two of the three core Resident Evil fan groups. They really want you to play as Grace in first-person, and it works almost a little too well. However, there were times when I felt like I was experiencing Grace as a character more in third-person. I honestly thought she felt more animated without taking too much of the horror away that the first-person mode promises. We see her shake and struggle to run when chased or completely overwhelmed by enemies, and she even struggles to aim properly. There are items you can use to help mitigate that, but most of the time, it’s not necessary.

Leon is literally what you’d expect from modern-day Leon-led titles, for the most part. High-octane action with powerful guns and a little bit of martial arts. Something new they’ve added to the Kennedy arsenal is his trusted axe, which has replaced his original knife parry and counter mechanic. He has a permanently available whetstone to keep it sharpened upon the break meter going down. In contrast to Grace, who basically starts from scratch, Leon is mostly fully equipped and chops through most zombies like a blade through butter. Even with that, in the latter portion of the game, Leon gains access to even more powerful weaponry. Grace can unlock crafting abilities by analyzing vials in certain areas from within Rhodes Hill.

Leon returns with gameplay more reminiscent of Resident Evil 4.

THE BAD: While much of the writing is Resident Evil at its best, Requiem suffers a bit from the villains being a bit underwhelming. I think a lot of it was due to the game trying a little bit too much with the cameos and nostalgia bait, which is inoffensive on the surface, but it did take away some of the impact for Zeno in particular. He was built up from his introduction as an Albert Wesker-type big bad, only to be featured as an in-game boss encounter, but he also gets killed in a cutscene. They also include nostalgia and easter egg bait other enemies like Mr. X, and a lesser-known, but fairly fan-favorite character as a boss battle towards the end.

Requiem has slightly underwhelming villains compared to previous entries.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Resident Evil Requiem fuses the two different gameplay paths of classic and modern titles in the franchise. Focusing on a fairly even split of action and horror inspiration, the ninth installment is looking to make every fan happy and practically succeeds in nearly every way imaginable. While the writing is still good, some of the Requiem villains suffer a bit from the massive nostalgia bait and easter eggs, but are still entertaining for their roles. Resident Evil has been a non-stop force of high-quality products for the last several years, and Requiem continues its winning streak. And to the Capcom employee(s) I pissed off with my Village review, that may or may not have inspired some of Requiem’s direction, sorry? Not really, do it again with Re10, hell, figure out a way to bring cryptids back into the mix, that’d be great.