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It all started back in 1996

Resident Evil. What comes to your mind when you hear those words? Well, mine is, picture it: end of 90s, I’m around 12-years-old, I’m playing my very first horror game on PS1 with my friends, namely Resident Evil 2. I play as Claire Redfield, trying to survive the Raccoon City zombie infestation… OK, what I’m trying to say is that Resident Evil series hits 30-years mark this year, meaning the game series has long roots. It has seen many twists and turns throughout the years, some hits and misses, as well. The recent almost 10-years it’ve only been hits after hits. So, no wonder that when Resident Evil Requiem (ninth game in the main series) was unveiled, fans went insane, me included.

Without further ado, let’s dive into this review. I played Resident Evil Requiem through using PS5 Pro. This review is spoiler-free.

Plot

Resident Evil Requiem is set in October 2026, 28 years after Raccoon City was destroyed by bombing. After a virus was rampaging the city, turning everyone into ravaging zombies the city was ultimately destroyed. The story follows an FBI analyser Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft (from Resident Evil Outbreak game), and DSO agent Leon S. Kennedy. Grace is ordered by her boss to go and investigate a hotel where they have found a dead body. The very same hotel where her mother, Alyssa, was murdered years prior. Soon after arriving to the hotel she is attacked and kidnapped by someone.

After she comes to, she finds herself tied up and there is a blood suction needle collecting her blood. She frees herself and then starts the horrors of her life. She is stuck in a some kind of care center that is as big as a mansion. Zombies and monsters are roaming the corridors. Soon, she meets up with Leon, who came there to investigate and they decide to help each other to get away the care center.

So this is how the game basically begins and there are tons of characters, situations, secrets and places involved which I’m not gonna go through for spoilers sake.

What comes to the whole story from start to finish, well it was a lot (as I write into my notes). A lot of things happens in the Resident Evil Requiem, keeping many questions in the air. Why they wanted Grace? What’s behind all of this? Why is Leon there? All the answers lies in the end and did I liked the plot? Well yes, it was good as far as a Resident Evil game goes, but I still wanted more for, because I couldn’t get enough.

Gameplay, controls, audio and visuals

The gameplay of Resident Evil Requiem is first and third person action and survival-horror game. First of all the game can be played by choosing your camera angle you wanna play. The game tells that Grace’s gameplay should be played in first person mode as it is more immersive that way and Leon’s in third person as it is more action oriented. Meaning, Grace’s gameplay is horror based. I opted for third person for both of them as I personally don’t like that much first person angles. The camera angle can be changed any time via settings.

The gameplay begins with Grace, so horror is introduced first and I did like that everything starts slowly and introducing more aspects little by little. Grace and Leon have weapons to fight off the monsters, but they have different equipment. Such as Leon has a little axe with him to block moves and do finishing attacks as he is more experienced with fighting than Grace. She, in the other hand, must rely sneaking and diversion, such as throwing bottles to lead enemies to other direction. Grace’s gameplay has much more puzzles to solve. Nothing too complicated, though. Leon has more of collecting certain objects from A to place B while he demolishes brutally as many enemies as he physically can.

There were some other things Grace could do and that was making injectors that can kill unsuspecting enemies with one hit. Or steroids that give her things like more health. I did find this to be very good add to the gameplay, but I didn’t use them at all. I believe in more harder difficulties these come in handy as players must use EVERY help they can get.

As this is survival-horror game there was item management present and item crafting. Leon had tons of space when Grace barely had any. I had to run to and fro the item box many times and some items had to be left behind as she barely had any room. But Grace can find many side packs that expands the slots. I did find many of these and I suggest you’d do the same to make the game easier.

Controlling Leon and Grace felt good and natural. I did even notice that depending on situation, and how scared Grace was, she stumbled and fell down when I tried to run away from enemies. With Leon’s controls there was one annoying thing and that was trying to hit enemies with the axe. It felt literally like trying to swing in the dark and hopefully he’d hit an enemy. Yeah, it was the only negative thing I could tell.

Resident Evil Requiem has a very good cast. Especially Grace’s actor did a great job to make her nervous and scare all the time, stuttering her words and making her breathing shake. Leon was the same smartass one-linerer as he has always been.

Graphically the game is a spectacle. The character models looked lifelike and all the enemy designs gruesome and nasty. Environments, especially the care center, looked just beautiful and not like some copy-paste slop, but a carefully crafted surroundings like a place where people actually lived. Resident Evil Requiem uses the new PSSR upscaler (on PS5 Pro) and it does fantastic job to bring all the details to life, but there were some annoying visual artifacts happening here and there.

Final words

Resident Evil Requiem was an amazing new RE entry, even though it was on the shorter side as I played this through in little under 8 hours. Though, there is very high replay value and I’m gonna play it through again soon. Even if you are not a Resident Evil fan, but as a standalone video game this is a very good, polished and well-thought-out title. I do recommend Resident Evil Requiem everyone who enjoys action or survival-horror games.

Resident Evil Requiem is available on PS5 (reviewed on PS5 Pro), Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2 and Windows.

SCORE:

5/5

“depending on situation, and how scared Grace was, she stumbled and fell down when I tried to run away from enemies”

RELEASE DATE: February 27, 2026
GENRE: Action
DEVELOPER: Capcom
PUBLISHER: CE Europe Limited
PLATFORMS: PS5 (reviewed using PS5 Pro)
Nintendo switch 2
Xbox Series X|S
Windows

 

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