Resident Evil Requiem Review: A Horror Gaming Masterpiece

Resident Evil has undergone dramatic transformations over the years. The original game established the franchise’s fixed-camera angle perspective and coined the term survival-horror, while Resident Evil 4 shifted to an over-the-shoulder camera and focused on action. Resident Evil 7 marked yet another shift, adopting a first-person view and embracing full-blown horror. Resident Evil Requiem, aka Resident Evil 9, is the franchise’s ultimate form. Instead of focusing on one style or another, Resident Evil Requiem offers first-person horror and third-person action in equal measure, with Capcom pulling off this tricky balancing act to deliver one of the best horror games ever made.

Resident Evil Requiem can be played entirely in first-person or entirely in third-person, but Capcom recommends first-person for Grace Ashcroft’s segments and third-person for Leon S. Kennedy’s segments. This is the way I played the game for my initial playthrough, and while I experimented with swapping the perspectives, Requiem hits harder when sticking to first-person for Grace and third-person for Leon. First-person heightens the sheer horror of Grace’s ordeal, while third-person lets Leon’s action-packed third-person segments truly shine.

Like many other Resident Evil games before it, Resident Evil Requiem features two playable protagonists, but instead of picking one or the other at the start, the story bounces between the two of them. Grace’s segments feel like a blend of old-school Resident Evil and the newer first-person entries. She has limited ammo to work with and must explore large areas in search of key items that help her solve puzzles and progress the story. There’s also a great deal of hiding from monsters in a way that is very reminiscent of the early sections of Resident Evil 7 when Ethan has to evade Jack Baker.

Resident Evil Requiem’s Grace Sections Are Legitimately Terrifying

Grace’s sections had me feeling incredibly tense the entire time. I found myself holding my breath in fear of being caught by one of the twisted monsters that Grace has to deal with, and since she starts out with hardly any way to defend herself, even the standard zombies are scary. Sometimes I find stealth sections in horror games to be tiresome or too punishing, but similar to how the game perfectly balances its action and horror, Resident Evil Requiem has also found a perfect balance with stealth. It’s never too frustrating, and it’s almost always possible to at least try to run to safety if Grace happens to get spotted.

Eventually, Grace manages to get a standard handgun and a devastating magnum called the Requiem. Enemies take a lot of ammo to put down, and so sneaking around them is usually the way to go, but players can resort to violence when necessary. Players have to be even more cautious when using the Requiem magnum since its ammo is extremely scarce and best reserved for tougher foes.

As an old-school Resident Evil fan, I absolutely adored Grace’s sections in Requiem. They took me back to the days of exploring the sprawling Spencer Estate, with rewarding puzzles to solve, plenty of scares, and a suffocating atmosphere that filled me with dread, knowing some kind of threat was waiting around nearly every corner.

I was worried that Leon’s sections would create a sense of whiplash and wouldn’t gel well with Grace’s horror-focused segments, but my concern was totally misplaced. Resident Evil Requiem achieves a remarkable rhythm that balances pure, searing horror and bombastic, over-the-top action. Grace’s sections had me crawling out of my skin in fear, which made Leon’s sections all the more cathartic. Whereas even one zombie was a threat to Grace, Leon can easily dispatch an entire room of them, and he does it with brutal efficiency.

Resident Evil Requiem’s Action is Ridiculous in the Best Ways

Leon is basically John Wick at this point in the Resident Evil timeline, from the way he tactically reloads his guns to how easily he dispatches zombies. Playing as Leon is like entering a zombie-killing flow state, where players may start by shooting them from a distance, running in close for a powerful kick, swinging a hatchet to tear the head off one of them, turning around to explode the head off another, and then stomping the remaining one’s head into a wall. It’s like a gory ballet of bloody destruction and the action sequences in the game are simply the best the series has ever seen.

Resident Evil Requiem‘s action is on another level. Enemies not only react appropriately when being shot, but they also react realistically to their environment, whether it’s smacking their head on a wall or knocking them down a flight of stairs. They also bleed a lot, leaving rooms looking like the inside of a microwave after heating up chili.

As Leon’s arsenal grows, the action gets even better. There’s nothing like firing off a few pistol rounds at a group of zombies to knock one over, and then quickly swapping to the shotgun and blowing them to smithereens when they get too close. Switching between guns and other items is done instantly with the d-pad, so no sifting through menus in the middle of firefights like was required in some previous entries.

Early in the game, Leon encounters a zombie with a chainsaw. I shot the zombie’s legs out from under it, and it hit the ground, still holding the chainsaw, and was dragged along the floor like a snake. I killed the zombie, took the chainsaw, and shoved it through another zombie’s back. That zombie then pulled the chainsaw out and wielded it herself. That was one of the first combat encounters I experienced in Requiem, and it definitely set the tone for the chaos to come.

Speaking of inventory management, something that I really liked about Resident Evil Requiem is how Grace has an old-school RE inventory with limited slots, while Leon rocks an inventory system like the one from RE4, with players able to rotate and sort items accordingly to free up space. It’s another way Leon’s sections feel completely distinct from Grace’s, and it’s a nice touch to really help Leon feel like the power-fantasy badass that he is.

Requiem’s Story Draws You In and Doesn’t Let Go

Resident Evil Requiem draws a line between Grace and Leon with the tone of its narrative as well. Whereas Grace is terrified of what’s happening around her, Leon is relatively unphased and never misses an opportunity to quip, responding to enemies and events with his signature corny one-liners. Again, I was worried about tonal whiplash, but instead of feeling like oil and water, it comes together like peanut butter and jelly.

As far as Resident Evil stories go, Requiem has one of the best. It’s brilliantly paced, with shocking moments, the franchise’s trademark campiness, memorable new villains like Victor Gideon, and some series-best performances, with Jeannie Tirado putting in an especially impressive performance as Grace. I haven’t had this much fun with a Resident Evil story, and the draw of seeing what’s possibly going to happen next makes the game impossible to put down. It has multiple moments that I would put right up there with scenes like the opening village section in Resident Evil 4, and if you are a longtime RE fan, you know that is high praise indeed.

My initial playthrough of Resident Evil Requiem took a little over seven hours, but there were a couple of optional puzzles I didn’t solve and rooms I didn’t enter. Throw in collectibles and the usual Resident Evil unlocks, and there are plenty of compelling reasons to do multiple playthroughs.

Resident Evil Requiem‘s gripping story and intoxicating gameplay blend are wrapped up in a perfectly-polished experience with eye-popping graphics and a blood-pumping soundtrack. Resident Evil Requiem is a horror gaming masterpiece and one of the best games Capcom has ever made. It’s the ultimate Resident Evil game and will be remembered as fondly as the franchise favorites in the years to come.