Game Review: Resident Evil Requiem
Developed and self-published by Capcom, Resident Evil Requiem is the next mainline entry in the RE franchise. Its primary gameplay is presented through a mix of action and survival horror with the ability to switch the camera perspective between third and first person. Kōshi Nakanishi took up directing duties for this entry with development reported to be taken over 6 years with the identity of the game going through quite drastic iterations over the course of it. Upon release, the game received critical and commercial acclaim with the title aggregating critical score of 89 on OpenCritic and selling 7 million units over the course of 2 months since it’s release on February 27th 2026.
The narrative of Resident Evil Requiem follows two central characters. The first character is Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft who keen fans will recognize as a playable character from the Resident Evil Survivor game. Working for the FBI, Grace is sent to investigate a recent death which is believed to be linked to a string of mysterious deaths of survivors of the Racoon City incident in 1998. Her investigation of the death will take her to a hotel in Wrenwood where she will come face to face with the mysterious Dr Victor Gideon who has nefarious plans in store for her. While Grace is handling her own fair share of trouble, a familiar face in Leon S Kennedy makes his presence known as he is also investigating the mysterious Racoon City infection as it’s revealed he too is slowly succumbing to the infection. Hot on Gideon’s trail, Grace and Leon will both venture on a nightmarish mission that will force both to confront the dark shadows of their past.
Requiem’s storyline starts out interesting enough, I think the choice to revolve the narrative around two central characters gives it a distinct approach that separates it from the other games in the franchise. While the setup of the game may start out intriguing enough, I just can’t help but feel the game ultimately fumbles on telling nearly as compelling a story as its predecessors. The core narrative doesn’t try all that hard to explain itself which is a consistent issue the game produces from start to finish. I get there’s an underlying mystery but I feel the revelatory moments the game offers are not at all satisfying and are poorly constructed in all honesty. The game uses nostalgia as a weak crutch to push forward its more iconic moments but these moments mean nothing when the rest of the game fails to follow it up with anything meaningful.
I can’t help but also take issue with the balance, or lack thereof between Grace and Leon’s segments in the game. Grace is introduced to the story in a really impactful fashion and her initial segment of the game feels the strongest in terms of narrative pacing and depth. Yet as soon as you get invested in it, the game then gives the majority of its runtime to Leon. Don’t get me wrong, I like Leon, I think he’s easily one of the best characters the franchise has ever produced. Yet the game fails to meaningfully balance his segments with Graces and they arguably don’t mesh well at all in my opinion. When the game asks you to feel the emotional weight of Grace’s segments, only to offset it with the bombastic and comedic timings of Leons, it makes for a very polarizing narrative experience throughout the course of the game.
I think that lack of balance also extends to the gameplay front as well. I appreciate the intent behind incorporating both of these characters into the game is to offer the player both the trademark action and survival horror gameplay simultaneously. The issue is, like the narrative, there’s just no balance between Grace and Leon’s segments. You’ll be spending more time playing Leon and his action-orientated moments than you will Grace and her suspenseful horror segments. I think this is ultimately a shame because Grace’s earlier segment in the game is so captivating with the way it offers plethora of environments to explore, puzzles to solve and combat encounters to overcome. Her sections of the game were able to draw me in and get me engaged way more than Leon’s, so it’s just a shame her\ kind of hogs the majority of the runtime with his gameplay sections.
That’s not to say Leon’s sections lack any actual quality. I feel if you were a fan of Leon’s action-orientated segments from Resident Evil 4 then you’ll find his section of the game quite enjoyable. His array of weaponry and hand-to-hand combat options make encounters fast-paced and exhilarating and there’s a fair selection of set pieces that give players the usual Leon Kennedy action movie sequences. I just feel Capcom laid too heavily into that and as a result you never feel any sense of tension or danger playing as Leon. I loved Resident Evil 4 because it knew how to balance survival horror with action in unison, you felt capable of dispatching the threats in front of you but always knew you were on the backfoot if you didn’t take the situation seriously. RE9 doesn’t get that approach down with Leon and he does feel like a slightly exaggerated version of himself in this game with how easily he is able to load up and shoot through his environment.
The game’s overall structure is relatively short too. I feel the prior mainline games like Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil 8 got the structure and length of the experience just right. You worked through a good variety of environments and encounters as you worked towards a clear objective. Resident Evil 9 feels condensed in comparison as its structure is limited to a smaller selection of environments in which later segments lack the kind of depth you come to expect from a typical Resident Evil experience. That lack of depth or variety is only exaggerated by the game’s small runtime too. I get Resident Evil games are designed to be short so you can run through them multiple times to try and get a better ranking but I feel like the other games got the runtime down much better in spite of that.
On a technical level I don’t have much to complain about. I feel like I’ve already highlighted how amazing the RE Engine is in prior reviews I’ve written, but you can really see the capability of this engine when considering Resident Evil 9 was built for current-gen consoles only. The rendering, ray tracing and light work really go a long way to make this the best-looking Resident Evil game yet. Environments have all the right kind of scale and detail to make them feel truly immersive to explore. Character models and animations are so detailed and fluid that you are seeing the fine line between human and graphically rendered models beginning to become more and more thin as time goes by. The soundtrack was composed by four separate composers; Nao Sato, Masahiro Ohki, Shigeyuki Kameda and Joseph Holiday which is surprising when I feel the actual score of the game slightly underwhelming and unmemorable.
There’s a notable level of depth to my disappointment with Resident Evil Requiem. With all the high praise and success, the game garnered upon release, I figured I’d fall right alongside the general consensus after playing it, that wasn’t the case though. Resident Evil 9 isn’t a bad game; on a technical level it’s a well-crafted game which hones in on its gameplay components incredibly well. What dampens my experience with the game ultimately was it’s inconsistent and poorly paced narrative. Combine that with the uneven balance between Grace and Leon’s segments this just feels like a game that is so eager to please all aspects of the RE fanbase that it ends up missing the mark for both.
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