Capcom’s Resident Evil Requiem Showcase didn’t reveal much about the story, but it did go into detail about how the game will change depending upon which character you’re playing, and the title will also introduce new difficulty settings to the franchise. The new heroine, Grace Ashcroft, will represent a more classic, horror-focused approach to gameplay, similar to Resident Evil 2 and 6. But when players are in control of Leon S. Kennedy, the tone of the game will shift to a more action-oriented style like Resident Evil 4.
It doesn’t sound like players will get to choose which character they will control, since certain parts of the story are meant for one or the other. Although Grace is physically weaker than Leon, she will have some abilities to make up for that. She will be able to craft weapons using the blood of the infected. And when Grace needs to shoot her way out of trouble, she’ll have a powerful gun called Requiem to fall back on. To keep players from relying only on Requiem, the ammo will be limited.
RE Requiem is also introducing some new difficulty settings. The easiest mode is Casual, which lets players concentrate on the story and gives them an aim assist. Standard difficulty is a little harder, while Standard (Classic) won’t let players save their games without finding a limited number of ink ribbons to use. That’s a throwback to the save system in the older games in the franchise.
Another departure from the series’ norms are more human-like zombies. Some of these poor lost creatures find themselves still working their dead-end jobs even after their death simply because their bodies remember how to do them. Players can sneak past some of these zombies or closely observe their actions for clues about how to proceed.
At least one of the infected zombies seen in the showcase was human enough to converse with Grace. It’s unclear if that’s simply a random zombie or a more important character to the narrative.
Resident Evil Requiem will be released on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC on February 27.