Resident Evil Requiem – Review

With all the horror releases in February and March of 2026, it feels like we are experiencing an early Halloween this year. However, this one has no Michael Myers and no Rob Zombie; only ghosts of the past appearing in the form of a once-destroyed city. Join me as we explore the 9th main entry in the long-running, influential survival horror series: Resident Evil Requiem.

With All the Grace

​Resident Evil Requiem (aka Resident Evil 9) starts with FBI agent Grace Ashcroft being assigned to investigate mysterious deaths among survivors of the “Raccoon City Incident.” While not an unusual request, this case hits close to home for Grace. The body was found in a disused hotel, the same place she witnessed her mother, investigative journalist Alyssa Ashcroft, murdered by an unknown assassin years prior.

​Opting to confront her demons, she arrives at the hotel, and it’s not long before she realizes that it’s not just fate’s hand that brought her here. Remembering that her mother had hidden something, she goes looking, only to be attacked by some kind of zombie and then kidnapped by the latest ghost of the Umbrella Corporation, Victor Gideon.

​While this is happening, everyone’s favourite one-line cracking, roundhouse kick-dispensing agent, Leon S. Kennedy, is called to a report of a missing police officer and tasked with investigating Mr. Gideon. He arrives just at the right time to see Gideon make his escape, and thus intertwines his fate with that of Grace’s as they both fight untold horror and discover the truth about the Umbrella Corporation and what happened with Raccoon City.

​The dual protagonist story is paced brilliantly, at least narratively. Grace’s story involves slowly finding out exactly how her mother is involved in events and trying to save Emily, a little girl who with very mysterious origins. All the while, Leon tries to save Grace and figure out if there is any cure for a disease affecting anyone who came in contact with the T Virus, something that is almost debilitating to the grizzled Leon at this point, creating the ideal sense of emergency and intrigue.

Shame I Didn’t Pack My Shark Repellent

​One of the major selling points of Resident Evil Requiem is the focus on Raccoon City, which hasn’t been explored in the narrative since Resident Evil 3. And while it does give all kinds of nostalgia rush to be walking the streets once again, it’s here where the game starts to really jump the shark. The atmosphere that was masterfully crafted in the prior area of the Rhodes Medical Center is gone and replaced by something akin to that of Resident Evil 6, which was far less consistent.

​It’s a shame the game doesn’t manage to stick the landing in this way. Rather than heavily leaning into a PTSD-fuelled event, the game instead falls back on flash and fanservice, and even introduces a secondary villain who offers little to no substance in the process. By the end of the game, it does tie neatly into the franchise’s overall story and lore, but by then, it almost feels like two separate games were smashed together in the name of Requiem.

It’s A Game of Two Halves

Resident Evil Requiem’s dual protagonists see their stories running alongside each other and intertwining throughout. This not only affects the narrative but also how the game plays. Don’t worry, this isn’t another Resident Evil 0 situation; instead, you’ll play some of the game as Grace, and then the game will jump over to Leon. In theory, it should work quite well, but there’s a catch.

​Grace’s style of play is more akin to “classic” Resident Evil: it’s slow-paced, and she has few abilities and even fewer weapons. It leans closer into crafting, stealth, and hiding, and thrives on creating an atmosphere of isolation, fear, and weakness. When the game is doing this, it is practically unrivalled, meeting the lofty heights of the original trilogy and my personal favourite of the franchise, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.

​The “zombies” in this game have a different infection than seen before: they retain memories of their life and thus have certain habits they feel they have to adhere to. This creates patterns that Grace can take advantage of to sneak by and save what precious few materials she (and the player) is given, all the while trying to dodge several of the more mutated Bio-Organic Weapons (B.O.W.s) that will stalk Grace.

​Grace can use special blood found around the game and with some of the creatures to craft items. One of these is an instant killing injection, while another is the ability to create more bullets for the game’s titular Requiem gun, which also proves handy at taking the majority of monsters out in one or two shots. The game presents a deadly dance of deciding whether you need more ammo or need to stock up on some healing. Heck, if you’re like me and play on the classic difficulty, you also need to factor in Ink Ribbons in a beautifully tense throwback to yesteryear, where the ability to save your progress was a finite resource.

You Can Always Leon Me

Leon on the other hand, is a seasoned pro at this point, coming in with everything he learnt in the fantastic Resident Evil 4. He’s the kind of man that the zombies and monsters you face check under their bed for. Age is naught but a number for this man as he’s just as nimble and deadly as he has ever been, creating a completely different feeling game than that of the unlucky Grace Ashcroft.

​You won’t be sneaking around in Leon’s sections of the game. Instead, you’ll be parrying attacks, introducing anything and everything to his newly acquired hatchet, swinging chainsaws around, cracking one-liners, and carrying around enough weapons and ammo to single-handedly wage war on bioterrorism throughout the whole world. In these sections, gone is the tense atmosphere, and the game instead leans heavily on the action horror that was made famous in Resident Evil 4… and nearly tanked the franchise’s reputation with Resident Evil 6.

​Leon has never been more deadly. He has execution kills and the ability to throw back weapons, swing giant rebars around, and just create the biggest explosions. If Grace is the personification of survival horror, then Leon comes in hot as the only slightly more grounded version of the Doom Slayer from Doom: The Dark Ages. It feels like survival horror for the creatures instead when Leon is involved.

​To help nail this fact down, Leon acquires the ability to purchase stuff via an online merchant (sadly no Duke or Merchant here). To do so, he needs to earn credits by making as many kills as possible or finding credit items around. This creates a much more action-packed and arcadey feeling than that of Grace’s parts, which feel focused on survival and just about scraping by.

Separation Anxiety

To help create the divide between the characters and the complete tone switches, Capcom has put Grace into the first-person perspective to help immerse players in the dark horrors, and Leon is in the third person like his previous adventure, allowing you to assess the incoming threats and how best to introduce them to your boot. This is the ideal way to play the game, but Capcom understood that not everyone enjoys the first-person Resident Evil titles and allows you to switch between the perspectives for both. Strictly in my opinion, you should at least experience the game as intended for your first run, and anyone who plays Leon in first person is a criminal.

​One aspect both our characters’ portions have in common is that the zombies have a horrible knack of coming back to life stronger and more violent, in a throwback to Resident Evil 1 remake’s Crimson Heads. Here we have the Blister Heads, who can only be stopped by destroying their heads before they turn, or by dealing with them as absolute ammo and health sponges when they turn.

​The dual protagonist system does still work in some ways, and it is fun to switch between the two. Initially, it feels more skewed in Grace’s favor before the game does a 180 and puts you more in Leon’s well-worn boots for a giant chunk of the endgame. Bear in mind what I mentioned earlier about the shark, and you’ll start to understand why, especially when Leon is riding up the side of a skyscraper on a motorbike, dodging rockets being fired at him, when just a few hours earlier, you were sneaking around avoiding an invincible enemy whose only deterrent is light.

Stack the Deck

Resident Evil 9: Requiem has three main difficulties: Casual, Standard, and Insanity. There are 2 versions of Standard, one that gives you Auto Saves and one that brings back the Ink Ribbon system from the classic games. My initial playthrough of the game clocked in at around 12 hours, though the in-game timer doesn’t count cutscenes or time paused, so it displayed a slightly quicker time.

​Upon finishing the game, you get points to unlock bonus content, which is in the form of new guns, outfits, infinite ammo, and other nice rewards. You also get a 60-page document to read, which will catch anyone up on the entire lore of the Resident Evil franchise and get you ready for the inevitable Resident Evil 10.

​There are in-game challenges to complete to earn more points for bonuses. These involve accomplishments like finishing the game on Insanity, finishing the game without healing, or finishing the game under four hours, something I just recently did and clocked in at a healthy 3 hours 15 minutes finish time with plenty of room to speedrun it more efficiently. Truly, the spirit of Resident Evil lives on with Requiem at least in this regard.

Looking Good Leon

​Resident Evil 9: Requiem absolutely pushes the boundaries of the Capcom-developed RE Engine. Horror has never looked so good, and even playing it on a non-Pro PlayStation 5, I couldn’t help but be impressed at just how good this game looks, not only in motion but in the details in the world and the textures. It feels like Capcom really went all in on reducing the amount of asset reuse from the previous titles and created such a fresh-looking game.

​Monsters shamble around trying to act human. Lighting works for and against you as shadows bounce around the world. There are some of the best monster designs in the series here, full stop. Special mention to “The Girl”, who stalks Grace as something so grotesque but also sad to look at when you realize the story there.

​The prologue area is the most lived-in and built-up, realistic-looking area ever presented in the game. And the following Hotel section leading into the main Rhodes Medical Centre just keep this slow build going. Requiem is outstanding at building the atmosphere when it’s trying to, so that even in plain sight, you aren’t safe anymore. In and out of the Residence, Evil can still reach you.

​The main advertising point of the game was the return to Raccoon City, and visually it doesn’t disappoint, especially when you hit the Raccoon City Police Department, somewhere long-time fans of the series will know intimately. Scenes like this, while heavy on the fanservice, really did a fantastic job of showing off how far the RE engine has come. Heck, even the Lab section of the game has never looked better, looking almost photorealistic at this point.

Can You Hear That?

The audio in the game is top-notch. The voice actors, especially the voice of Victor Gideon, do so much to bring these characters to life and create such memorable performances. I would wager Gideon will be remembered as one of the best villains of the series, not only by his actions but also by the way he talks and carries himself.

​You can hear the buildings creak, zombies in the distance muttering to themselves, and often catch yourself jumping at any slight noise because of what a good job Capcom has done in immersing the players into the world. The horror does start to go away when you play as Leon, but it’s replaced by over-the-top and bombastic action, explosions, and dad joke-style one-liners that the latter half of the franchise became known for.​

Verdict

Resident Evil Requiem is a great game that almost hits the heights of being one of the best in the franchise. Unfortunately, the pacing gets a little too unruly in the latter half of the game, and creates a divide between the two characters and the feelings associated with them. While Grace’s sections encapsulate the true Survival Horror, it only remains grounded as Leon until you reach the Raccoon City section of the game, where all of the horror is stripped away completely, and you don’t get back to Grace for a good few hours. By then, you’ve become numb to the game’s horrors and are just fully focused on dishing out pain.

​I loved Requiem, but I feel it should have been two separate games. Initially, I looked forward to the brief Leon sections, which felt like a nice palette cleanser and broke up the tension nicely, but when the game switches to have more of a Leon focus, it felt a little too close to the uninteresting Resident Evil 6 for me to truly love the game. Requiem is still an amazing experience and highly recommended, but at times feels like there were a few too many cooks in the kitchen for this one.