When Capcom released Resident Evil 7: Biohazard back in 2017, it felt like a deliberate rebranding of the survival horror to distance it from the mediocrity of previous entries that had sunk deeper and deeper into the malaise of action-set mediocrity. The years that followed saw it walk a delicate line between expertly curated scares and a healthy dose of bombast as familiar characters were brought back into the fray.
There were times I feared it would once again succumb to the overacting that once threatened to destroy it. However, Resident Evil Requiem proves that this series has what it takes to deliver vulnerable, anxiety-inducing terror alongside utterly ridiculous battles that make you feel like if John Wick was a geriatric twink with a love of terrible one-liners. After spending a handful of hours with the almost finished product, I'm already convinced that this could be one for the ages.
The doctor will see you now
My preview began with an older and more experienced Leon Kennedy, now working for the anti-bioterrorism organization DSO. He arrives at Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center after receiving an invitation from the mysterious Dr. Viktor Gideon. After being courted by the receptionist, it's only seconds before the entire facility is forced to shut down and zombified staff begin trying to tear our hero apart.
Leon is seen suffering from some sort of illness stemming from the growing wound on his neck. Maybe the Raccoon City incident has finally caught up with him?
It is in the opening moments that Leon's action-oriented direction becomes clear. This is a man who has saved the world dozens of times over by defeating all manner of monolithic horrors, so of course he has no problem kicking an infected stranger in the face. I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the most powerful Resident Evil character ever known.
Every bullet lands with appropriate punch, while Leon's melee attacks with fists, legs and all manner of melee weapons are meant to kill first and never ask questions. You'll be asked to pick up a chainsaw and start swinging as part of the tutorial, turning this mean weapon that could once defeat Leon in a single punch into an unstoppable killing machine.
But here's the thing – it can still overcome. While Leon has plenty of weapons at his disposal along with a generous health pool, you'll still need to land accurate shots and dodge attacks if you want to survive. More to come on Leon, but it's not long before he stumbles upon the demure FBI agent Grace Ashcroft and I jump into her shoes for several hours.
We don't get narrative context as to when and why our heroine ends up kidnapped by Viktor Gideon and imprisoned in Rhodes Hill, but I'm sure she's stumbled upon information she shouldn't have and is now deep in the middle of an Umbrella Corporation conspiracy. Business as usual, then.
Grace's default gameplay perspective is first-person, with moment-to-moment action more reminiscent of Resident Evil 7's opening hours with ammo and healing items in dire short supply. Every combat encounter could be your last, as I often faced multiple zombies at once with literally no choice but to run and pray they didn't follow in pursuit.
She's not the fastest, while she shakes like a leaf when aiming down any weapon and tries her best not to be blown away by the slightest breeze. I imagine she'll become more capable as things progress, but Capcom is positioning her as the horror part of Requiem for good reason.
Grace is also pursued by a Mr. X-inspired monstrosity throughout the story, but I only glimpsed it in cutscenes as part of my preview. It's an ugly regenerative bugger. My prediction? It's her mother.
You can stand under my umbrella
I spent the next few hours exploring Rhodes Hill in search of both escape and answers. Grace was able to easily smash the nearest window and post it up, but in typical Resident Evil fashion, the only way to escape is through a door that requires three unique trinkets to unlock.
It's instantly comparable to the Raccoon City Police Department, and just as compelling with its many wings that each feel like full-fledged levels in their own right. The medical facility is home to both zombified patients and doctors, with one of the puzzles requiring you to find a number of artificial organs for a rotting corpse in order to get a key card bracelet on your wrist.
Puzzles often require finding the right item to access a new area or unlock a container containing additional clues, but their intricate existence doesn't stop them from being fun and rewarding to pursue. Every clue I stumbled upon, despite my dwindling health and ammo, felt like a lifeline. I was constantly unable to reduce the lump in my throat that came from realizing that I needed to navigate this nightmarish maze again to move forward. Grace can be knocked down in just a handful of hits, and there just wasn't enough ammo in the game world for me to defeat every single enemy and live to tell the tale.
As for the enemies themselves, Requiem strives to redefine what it means to be a zombie in the Resident Evil universe. These creatures you fight throughout Rhodes Hill aren't just gruesome corpses on the hunt for brains, but infected humans who feel trapped in their own minds with no way to escape. You'll often find them performing tasks they visited in real life, such as butlers manning light switches, maids cleaning bathrooms, or doctors playing with an assortment of medical instruments. Their abilities in combat also reflect this, such as patients swinging IV stands at Grace or surgeons wielding cutting tools that can tear your limbs off with a well-placed blow.
Close-ups of the zombies even reveal tears streaming down their faces, as if the infected are still sentient and fully aware of the tragic fate they have fallen to. This provides a context that makes fighting normal enemies infinitely more terrifying. You'll also stumble across a giant baby that can crash through doorways and eat Grace for lunch, if you're after something a little more silly.
Grace's inventory screen and moment-to-moment gameplay is a dead ringer for Ethan Winters in Biohazard and Village, while Leon feels like a more mature version of his arsenal in the Resident Evil 4 remake. It makes each character feel demonstrably unique.
Fortunately, what Grace lacks in combat expertise, she makes up for in a carefully strategic game. You'll soon come across an injector that can be used to collect infected blood from defeated enemies, which can then be used to craft items ranging from ammunition to healing items to incredibly effective syringes that can take down powerful opponents in a single attack.
It rewards you for returning to corpses to collect valuable resources and also plays stealthy, as it's much easier to eliminate walking zombies with a poke in the back rather than wasting ten bullets on a single opponent. And that horrible talking baby I mentioned earlier? It took three syringes to defeat it for good, while these can also be used to destroy normal enemies to ensure they don't come back as more powerful variants.
Requiem is both faithful to everything you'd expect from the series while also introducing some fascinating new wrinkles that I'm ready to see explored. The fact that this story features a version of Leon that follows the events of Resident Evil 6 and not the one seen in the recent remakes is incredibly interesting and could be covered in more detail when we're back on the decimated streets of Raccoon City.
The writing and performances are strong and just self-aware enough to also feel like self-indulgent schlock. Thankfully, the utterly terrifying atmosphere still made it feel like an experience well worth being scared of.
He is old, cold and full of mold
As promised, let's jump back into Leon's third-person shoes for the final part of this preview. He's an absolute powerhouse, and the way you take control of him after conquering the ghastly halls of Rhodes Hill as Grace is delightfully cathartic. For several hours I valiantly tried to survive as the timid analyst, hiding from the infected and only fighting them when absolutely necessary. Now I was a middle-aged beefcake who could blow every single one of them to pieces with ease. There was a hulking cook commanding the kitchen and patrolling the hallways that I developed a technique to avoid as Grace, but now Leon can quickly unload an entire belt of shotgun shells into his skull and call it a day.
I made a point of combing the entire facility and murdering every living thing in the building as Leon as a form of self-indulgent revenge. While this impromptu battle is certainly appreciated, I'm equally excited to see how the entire game recontextualizes spaces explored by various characters. Each of them will likely explore locations that are completely unique, but as they continue to work together and pursue the same goal, Requiem has an opportunity to get incredibly creative with its combat and puzzle design. From these opening chapters alone, Capcom pulls off an ambitious dual-protagonist adventure unlike anything it's created before.
When it was first revealed, I was afraid that Resident Evil Requiem would mark yet another point of no return for the series. That Capcom would once again embrace action over horror to such an extent that its identity would once again be lost to mediocrity. This time, however, it seems to understand that spine-tingling terror and larger-than-life action can co-exist and, under the right circumstances, hold each other up to achieve truly amazing things.
- Released
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February 27, 2026
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Strong Language, In-Game Purchase
