A Brand New Resident Evil Game Came Out Wooooo

20 Apr, 2026

HI I'm gonna talk to you about Resident Evil Requiem now. This is kind of a rambling, messy post. I didn't really have the desire to give a comprehensive review of the game, but I did want to compare it with the previous two Resident Evil games and just praise all the stuff I like about the game. Sooooo enjoy.

(Jeez I started this post a whole month ago. Yikes. It's not that I put a lot of extra work into it since then. I mostly ignored it. Oh well)

I like this game's story

I don't know how many people really get invested in the stories of Resident Evil games. People like the characters. But the actual plots—eh, you know, there's zombies, evil people who caused the zombies—pretty standard stuff.

I've always said that I liked Resident Evil 7's story, but when you think about it, that game has the usual "some kinda new bioweapon is turning people into monsters" thing. The difference is it's hidden behind a fresh horror setup featuring extremely intimidating antagonists. I start the game thinking, "Oh no, I'm at a run-down house in some swamp in the middle of nowhere in Louisiana, and I'm gonna see something scary any moment now. Ghosts maybe?" Soon you find out there are lunatics in the house and they've been murdering people. But in truth, these lunatics used to be normal (well, except for that one kid), and as the game progresses you get the chance to find out how things got this way. And what's the deal with the mold? And who is Eveline anyway? And—well I assume you've played it, but yeah, there are a lot of interesting questions that come up as you explore the house. So, I suppose the actual plot that unfolds during 7 is not all that memorable, but getting to learn the backstory of the Bakers and everything that was going on at that swamp and how Mia even ended up there in the first place had me absolutely fascinated.

Resident Evil Village has kind of a similar setup to 7, but instead of being in Louisiana, this time you're in a mysterious village where there are werewolves and vampires and fish people. Of course once again, the reason all that stuff exists is because of a Biohazard. I didn't feel near as much fascination with the mysteries in this game. Again, this might just be because in 7 it's not immediately obvious you'll be dealing with superhuman monsters, because the Bakers do look human (and I think this is exactly why they're so scary), though it doesn't take very long for their unnatural abilities to reveal themselves. Village, in contrast, starts off with a fairytale storybook, hinting strongly that you're going to be encountering some fairytale style monsters in the game. Indeed, in Village you go from one monster to another until you face the boss monster. Whenever you see a monster in a Resident Evil game, there's really no mystery how they got that way: some sort of science experiment did it. It is interesting to discover the specifics of where the various monsters came from, but I didn't feel there was a strong overarching mystery like in 7.

They do drop one big revelation in the main story about Ethan, but uhh, it wasn't really that surprising considering his powers of regeneration were quite amazing throughout 7.

The real mystery of Village is what the heck Chris Redfield is doing. He really could've just explained himself a little bit at the beginning. I mean, you're really going to shoot a man's wife, without telling him that that's not actually his wife, and also take his baby, and then get frustrated when he doesn't take it well? Seriously. "Ethan I shot Mia because she was actually an impostor who is actually planning to steal your baby so I'm going to ask you both to come with me so we can protect you." Takes like six seconds to say. Instead it's just like "Sorry, no time to explain—oh no our plan has gone wrong and now everyone is confused because there was no time to explain." I'm often skeptical when fans criticize stuff with "They could've solved this if they had just talked for a moment!!!" but in this case, it's absolutely warranted.

But hey... we love Chris anyway.

But let's talk about the protagonist of 7 and 8, Ethan Winters.

Ethan is unique in that Capcom never showed us his face. 7 was the first time a first-person perspective was used for a main Resident Evil game, and I think maybe Capcom thought the protagonist could be sort of a blank slate, a true stand-in for the player. In hindsight, I don't think this actually made the game scarier. It's a scary game, but I feel like Ethan's lack of personality has little to do with that.

But yes, he's just a normal guy whose wife disappeared three years ago, but now he got a mysterious email from her, and so we find him driving to a swamp in Louisiana to find her. He should really be a lot more suspicious about this.

The trouble with Ethan is that when he makes choices that are outside of the player's control, he doesn't seem very smart. When the player is in charge, he can solve all sorts of puzzles, but in cutscenes? I don't know about this guy, man. But he also doesn't talk that much in 7 anyway.

In 8, he talks more often, and a lot of the stuff he says is kind of awkward and lame. Now, in his defense, he is still supposed to be a normal guy who's been thrown into an insane village with all these weird monsters, and I suspect the lameness of the few one-liner attempts he has ("You're the one who's cursed") was an intentional choice by the writers. He never developed that RE4 Leon Kennedy attitude. But yeah, I do remember thinking "Shut up Ethan!😂" quite a few times when I was playing Village.

I've never been an Ethan hater, but I don't love him either. I think the reason it's hard to get attached to this guy is—well, who is he, really? He's written to be generic and "normal." But uniqueness is what makes us love characters. Yeah, we can all agree that if we were Ethan, we'd want to rescue his wife and daughter too, but the question is, what makes him different from anyone else? (I'm talking about personality. Not the mold thing)

Before Leon was announced as being playable in Resident Evil Requiem, a lot of people were asking "WHERE'S LEON WHERE'S LEON?" Capcom wanted to keep Leon's presence secret for a while, of course, and I believe they said something like, "If Leon were the protagonist, it'd be tough for the game to be scary, because he's super strong and capable." I do tend to agree that if the character I'm playing as is really good at stabbing and kicking and backflips, I don't feel like I'm in that much danger if a scary monster appears. So I was eager to see what Capcom would do with the new protagonist they showed, Grace Ashcroft. It was fair to wonder, though: if this character is not so capable, is this going to be another Ethan Winters situation?

I am happy to say: no, Grace is not like Ethan. She is far, far more likable.

I don't know how many horror games there have been where not only is the player character scared, they're like extra scared. Grace is shown to be a timid, nervous character from the very beginning. And then she has to go into this insane abandoned hotel to investigate murders? Also it's literally the hotel where her own mother was murdered? Huh??

Now, me personally, I wouldn't say that Grace's audible fear made me feel more fear. It did make me like her more though. One of the things people talk about with video games is "becoming" the playable character. But I actually feel more like I'm on the same team as Grace, not that I am her. She is her own person, someone I can relate to. And when I see her pushing forward to do what has to be done despite so much fear, I start to admire her even more.

So yes, it turns out you can have a protagonist who's "normal" but also has a personality. (Well she is the daughter of a past Resident Evil character, but you know what I mean. She is certainly not a zombie-killing machine).

I had thought that Ethan's annoyingness in Village was partially because he says stuff like "What was THAT?" all the time, but you know, Grace has similar reactions in Requiem and it doesn't bug me, so maybe I fooled myself. But perhaps one difference is that we know where Grace is coming from, while Ethan feels more like the writers' impression of a "normal man" reacting to stuff how a "normal man" would react. Additionally, it helps that Grace's actor is kind of incredible? I'm not saying the little reactions are what prove that, of course, but she does do a great job of taking the perfect "talking to myself under my breath" tone with a lot of the reactions.

Where you really see Grace's acting shine is in a handful of emotional cutscenes. I never in my life imagined that a Resident Evil scene would actually almost bring tears to my eyes ("almost" is still an accomplishment, ok?) but Grace's performance in the flashback scene early in the game is so raw and intense in such a believable way, I felt so sorry for the character. And then in that scene in the middle of the game where she's like "LEON NO" oh my gooooooooosh. I love that.

Grace overcomes many challenges in her attempt to escape the mysterious care center she finds herself trapped in, and eventually finds new reasons to fight, which causes her to become far more courageous and determined.

So yeah, Grace is very cool. But of course, she's not the only playable character in the game. We also have the return of Leon S. Kennedy, who hasn't been seen in a new mainline Resident Evil game since 6.

This story does an interesting thing of connecting these two characters thematically by having them both be motivated by survivor's guilt. Grace blames herself for her mother's death (source: I believe she says "It's all my fault" after remembering her mother's death) and later on, for other troubles that occur during her nightmarish adventure. Leon can relate. The second half of the game focuses heavily on him, and a lot of regret from his experience in Resident Evil 2 resurfaces.¹ Atonement actually becomes an important concept for the ending of this game.

Honestly, I think the simple character stuff, particularly with Grace, might make this the best Resident Evil story I've played.

Now would I go as far as to call it a "Good™" story? I mean not really. It's still silly Resident Evil stuff. But I'm not really that hard to please when it comes to video game stories. If you have characters I like, and they go on a journey where some crazy crap happens, I'm probably gonna enjoy it. So I had a real good time with this one. I cared about Grace, and in the midpoint where the story shifts to focus on Leon, I genuinely was eager to know what would happen next.

I think it does a pretty good job of keeping me invested with a central mystery, which is: what exactly is so special about Grace that made these crazy guys kidnap her and say she's the key to "Elpis?" And what even is Elpis?

The plot does have silly contrivances. It retcons what we knew about the Raccoon City missile strike. And I think some backstory elements with clones and Elpis and Grace are a bit confusing?

Nonetheless, this story was totally effective for me, because these characters are just good.

Oh, and that extends to the antagonists too. The main villain of the game, Victor Gideon, is fantastic. The actor brings so much charisma to this creepy and intimidating character.

It really is a delightful surprise to have much positive feelings for the acting in this game.

Similarities to Resident Evil 7—Which game is scarier?

I know I talk a lot about Resident Evil 7, but 7 was a pretty big deal as the game that brought Resident Evil into a new era. It brought the series back toward survival horror gameplay. It introduced a new camera perspective, new characters with seemingly no connection to the old ones, and even a new game engine.

After 7, there were two remakes, which undoubtedly introduced many new players to Resident Evil.

Then in 2021 there was Resident Evil 8, aka Village. Village seems like a more popular game—maybe it seems that way just because it's newer, but it is true that the game sold faster than 7. That could be for a few reasons. For one, the series' reputation had improved and its fanbase had grown thanks to the success of 7 and RE2 Remake. Another possibility is that 7's horror can be quite intense, and Village—well, it has its moments, but the balance between survival horror and action shifts a bit more towards action. And you tend to reach a wider audience that way.

Village is known as a theme park of various horror attractions. I think, overall, the Resident Evil 4 feel is most prominent in this game, but a couple sections are heavier on survival horror. Especially that one part where they take all your weapons away. It's a fun game that I replayed several times, but on the other hand I feel like no single aspect of it is strong enough to make me really fall in love. If I want to battle hordes of enemies in a village, I'll play RE4. If I want to explore a huge and intricate building while being harassed by a really tall person, I'll probably play RE2. And if I want the scary escape room stuff, well, RE7 is scarier.

If you talk about the scariness of Village, usually people are going to bring up that dollhouse. I'm not gonna lie, the big baby monster is scary when you first see it, but on subsequent playthroughs, it doesn't do much for me. The run-and-hide sequence you have to complete is so straightforward that failure feels impossible unless you just don't notice the hiding spots. Conceptually, I love how weird and disturbing that baby is, but for the gameplay to be scary even on a second playthrough, you gotta catch me off-guard more.

So yeah, I like Village and all, but I'm definitely more of a sicko for 7.

That's why when I heard that Resident Evil 9 was being directed by the director of 7, Koshi Nakanishi, I was HYPED.

Requiem's structure actually has some major similarities to 7's. You start out just walking outside. You find your way into a building, and it's quiet. It's dark. It's nasty. All you can do for now is look around and try to find clues, as you wonder if the game is gonna start bullying you with jumpscares soon. Eventually, you find some stuff, and there's a flashback wherein a few people get murdered.

(Well, in 7 it was actually a videotape that Ethan watched, while in 9 it was Grace's memory, but, you get what I mean. Not much of a difference in practice).

The flashback offers guidance on where to check next. After making more progress, eventually you find yourself under attack by another person, who is behaving quite strangely, but you manage to fend them off, only to soon encounter a much bigger person who causes you to go unconscious. You later wake up finding yourself held captive in another area.

Ok maybe this is getting silly, but seriously, these two intro sections do have a lot of the same beats. The intros of both games feature a quiet area where you might feel nervous and jumpy, anticipating something scary, but not knowing what it is or when it will appear. You find clues and explore further, and the tension slowly builds until eventually, things get super crazy all of a sudden. And it's right when you think you might be safe for a moment that the big bad guy appears. In 7, that's Jack, and in 9, it's Victor Gideon.

And then, there's a section where you have to avoid a powerful enemy in a fairly small set of hallways and rooms! And after you escape that area, you find yourself in a larger area of the same building!

But really these two games are unique enough that I wasn't consciously thinking about 7 when playing the beginning of Requiem.

There is one especially huge difference I've omitted in describing Requiem, of course. In between these sections, there are interludes, if you will: sequences where you stop playing as Grace and instead get to play as Leon S. Kennedy. These give you a break from the tension and let you play as someone who is really good at shooting zombies. This works really well, honestly.

The important question is: are the Grace sections actually scary? They sure are, particularly when she has to avoid The Girl.

I mean, the first section in the hotel is not really the scary part. (The guest house is not really the scary part of 7 either except on your first playthrough). But when you end up in the weird hospital and learn about "the shadow ghost?" Oh boy.

The Girl is one of the most intimidating stalker enemies the series has had yet. One terrifying aspect about this first section is that even when you think you know how to deal with her, she's like "Nah I'm turning out these lights" or "Nah I'm busting into this hallway through this locked door." The game is so good at making her feel unpredictable.

I love how Capcom found a way to so effectively prey on the fear of the dark. Anytime you leave a bright area when The Girl is nearby, you know your life is in danger, but you don't have a choice other than turning the game off.

Even on my third playthrough, dealing with The Girl was giving me goosebumps and making my palms sweat. But it's also a level of fear I enjoy, rather than one that makes me feel totally stressed out.

And I will say, "totally stressed out" is how I felt the first time I played the Jack section of 7, because that guy is definitely still the scariest to me! I think there is something deeply horrifying about a psychotic father figure chasing you around a house threatening to beat you to death. A big scary monster is a big scary monster, but things that look human are more disturbing to me. Kinda want to ask a psychiatrist about this.

Anyway, in Requiem, when I got to the point where Grace escapes The Girl, I was actually a little bummed that it was over. I wanted it to go on for longer. Which might be because 7 turned me into a bit of a sicko? I dunno. Of course I'm sure you know The Girl comes back later, but that is a point where you get some relief. 7, in contrast, was like a couple hours of some real intense tension followed by the incredibly memorable cathartic moment where you finally step outside, which precedes even more stress because you gotta deal with a crazy lady and insects next. Requiem breaks up the horror in a way that makes it a lot easier to withstand without feeling a need to put the game down for a while. Thanks Leon.

Zombie fun

After Leon deals with some zombies on his own, we switch back to Grace, and here we enter the section that is, similar to RE2's police station, the one I like to call "The Best Part of The Game." It's an intricate mansion of strange rooms and secrets.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of Rhodes Hill is the behavior of its zombie enemies, who all retain habits they had before getting infected. Before playing the game, I heard about this feature and I sort of assumed it was mostly something to add texture, similar to how zombies in RE2 have realistic clothing that shows you a bit of who they were as people. However, the zombies' determination to do their jobs actually adds a new layer of strategy to how you deal with them.

The first zombie you'll encounter as Grace, other than the police officer in the beginning—who, by the way, starts yelling "can't go in there" because telling people not to go in the hotel was what he was doing as a cop just moments earlier—is the chef. He's a big guy carrying a big knife.

Your first instinct may be to use the gun Leon gave you. However, you only have bullet. The gun packs a massive punch, but it's not enough to take this guy down. Still, you can stun him enough to run by unharmed. This is not the approach I took on my first playthrough; rather, I figured I'd sneak past the guy. However, I failed and only got away after taking serious damage. But if you slow down and think it through, you'll find the method to stealth this room. In this kitchen is a massive pot sitting on a cart, and you can move the cart forward or backward. At first, my thinking was, "If I just move the cart forward, it'll create a space for me to sneak past him." However, this would only work if the guy never turned around—which he often does. In fact, he regularly will walk over to the pot to grab something from it. Eventually it clicked: I should move the cart backwards, not forwards. The chef always goes to the cart no matter where it is. It is possible to push the cart forward if you're very careful to make sure you don't let him see you, but it takes a while. If you push it a short distance backwards, though, the chef will be distracted a considerable distance away from where you want to go, and you can just run on by. And he doesn't even notice that someone moved his cart, because he's a zombie! Haha! What a great puzzle.

Beyond the kitchen doors, you'll see a dimly lit area and another zombie. This one looks to be of average height, at least, so he's probably not as deadly. If you watch and listen for a small moment, you will notice that he's obsessed with turning out the lights. He's in a narrow hall, but closer to Grace is a wider area, and wouldn't you know it—there's a lightswitch over here. The game is teaching you while you are still extremely limited on ammo that there are ways to manipulate zombies so you won't have to face them head-on. It pays to be observant.

Like I said before, this whole section of the game is when I'm having the absolute most fun. You make progress through these halls, encountering unique zombies. You get further and further, finding keys for all the locked doors. It's just classic. The Girl from before isn't there but there are some pretty surprising other jumpscares. I just love it so much.

The rest of the game

Then Grace ends up in the basement and that part is great too. And scary. There's a Grace part at the end of the game that I also love, though it feels rather short on replays.

But before you get to the end of the game... you probably already know this, but there's the big Leon part. Which is the part I don't love as much as the Grace parts. But it is still pretty dang cool and fun.

I feel like the zombies that Leon has to shoot are not as cool as the zombies Grace has to deal with. They're not as cool as the various cultists of RE4 either. So this section is a fun, very good third-person shooter action game, but it's not incredible. Like it doesn't get me fired up, you know?

And that's why I don't really have anything to say about it. You shoot a buncha zombies as you seek three components required to set off a bomb (this part is a bit too long, I felt), then you go on a truly fantastic bike ride, then you go in the nostalgia zone and some wild stuff happens there....

Oh and at this point we break for another flashback, which was really scary the first time but kind of just annoying on replays. There is one game design choice here I found questionable, because you stand in this hallway and the enemies just stand there blocking you. I swear I watched them for so long unable to figure out what I was supposed to do. And every time I died I got goosebumps because it is really creepy! It turns out you just have to leave and then come back? Which is pretty insane I think? Yeah.

So uh, after that, eventually you make it to a lab.

Ending talk

There are lots of details I could get into but I'm really just here to dump out the thoughts I have on the things that excite me. And one final thing I love about this game is the ending. Unexpectedly, the game asks you, as you play as Grace, to make a choice.

This is another similarity to RE7 actually. But in RE7 this element was pretty half-baked. It does slightly affect the rest of the story, but it felt like a last-minute addition. The choice in Requiem is much closer to the very end of the game, and it feels much more like a question with a clear right or wrong answer than the whole "do I save Ethan's wife or this poor girl who's been helping?" thing did.

The whole game, you're hearing about this mysterious thing called Elpis, apparently a bioweapon that Spencer locked up. But at the last minute, Grace loads into a computer a disk she found way back at the beginning of the game, one that had been hidden away by her mother, and learns the truth about who she is and what Spencer was thinking.

So, what do we do with this information? Hohohoho boy it's fun.

Now I've been avoiding late-game spoilers up until now (for some reason. I doubt anyone is reading this who doesn't already know. But it just feels nice to do). But now I'm just gonna talk about it.

SPOILERS

So the question on the terminal before Grace is, "What does the creator desire?" The game UI shows the options of "Destroy Elpis" or "Release Elpis." My first instinct is to do what Leon said ten seconds ago, to accomplish what we thought was the goal for quite a while now and destroy Elpis. Select that, and Grace types in "Destruction."

Hm. Wait a minute. Waaaait a minute. Back up. Didn't Grace say to Leon a moment ago "No, I have a plan?" So maaaaaaaybe the correct option is to release Elpis?

So we go back and press that option. Grace remembers her mother saying "You are my hope." She remembers Spencer saying, "She is my hope."

Cool, this is the right answer!

"A BLIND hope!"

Grace why did you have to remember that part? You're making me doubt again.

Still, as Grace types in "Hope," now I'm very confident this is what the game was telling me with all that Spencer stuff. It's a really fun choice because they don't make it overly obvious, but it's still preeeeetty clear if you think about it. It helps to consider what the question is actually asking. Yes this is a password, but we have to assume that the question is meant to be answered truthfully. And if we assume that Spencer was lying in that interview about regretting his life's work—that seems like a bit much, doesn't it?

You know what game has a true ending that is very easy to miss? Persona 4. I bet the remake will make it more obvious, but man, I kinda love the old-school obtuseness of P4. Well that's off-topic. Requiem ain't an RPG. But you can get an RPG. In fact you can get one directly from the final boss, which I didn't even realize until like my third run.

Anyway, I love the ending of Requiem. But you know, there is one aspect of it that's stirred discussion. And that's Emily.

I'm not gonna lie: me personally, I kinda just assumed Emily was alive the whole time. Look, she had been turned into a monster. The Girl, who was originally named Marie and was a clone just like Emily, was extremely difficult to kill. She survived several shots from Leon's Requiem. So why would I assume that Emily would die from a few shots from a regular pistol? Now whether she can be rescued from being a big monster is another matter entirely. I was rather surprised when it was revealed she was just asleep inside the monster skin. But still. I was not surprised that she wasn't dead. Leon's explanation of "I didn't hit any of her vitals" is funny, but you gotta remember, he's a Resident Evil veteran. If you don't hit the big obvious weak spot, that boss is not going down. And the head was not the big obvious glowing weak spot. Honestly, I thought that somehow Emily would reappear during the final boss battle, because I forgot that we were now in Raccoon City which is quite a few miles away from the hospital.

But yeah, those are my thoughts on that.

Hey Grace, you say you're teaching her to read? Uhhh she already knows how to read? Well, she reads braille but I guess Grace is now teaching her to read with her eyes, which tells us that Emily got her sight back yaaaaaay!

Okaaaaay so that's all I'm gonna say about Resident Evil Requiem for now! It was a mess of a post but whatever! Fun game is fun!