Resident Evil Requiem is full of homages to the horror series’ past, but it turns out it also contains a pretty overt homage to the Lord of the Rings films if you’re keeping an eye out for it. I certainly missed it both times I played through the game, but fans have now spotted that one of Leon Kennedy’s scenes in the ruins of Raccoon City appears to be a shot-for-shot recreation of a moment from The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
In Requiem’s second act, Leon goes back to the remains of Raccoon City and faces many zombies, but he also fights a giant spider, and before the boss battle begins, the giant creepy crawler stalks its prey from high ground. If you put this scene side-by-side with a Return of the King scene in which the ancient giant spider called Shelob descends upon Frodo, it’s obvious where the inspiration came from. Leon steps on a buried skeleton just like Frodo does, and then the abnormally large arachnids loom overhead as the camera is framed below both heroes. They look small compared to the beasts they’re about to face, and you can feel the danger approaching.
Leon is obviously a human tank who can beat a giant spider senseless, so the encounter that follows diverges greatly from Frodo’s fate in The Lord of the Rings after this direct homage. It’s a neat touch I probably would have caught if I had watched those movies more recently. Maybe I’m due for a rewatch ahead of Stephen Colbert’s upcoming Lord of the Rings movie.