With the triumphant return of Leon Kennedy, Resident Evil Requiem is forced to straddle an awkward line between all-out action and methodical survival horror. I’ll be honest, before getting my hands on the game and seeing the transition in action, I was extremely skeptical that Capcom would be able to create a coherent experience involving both Leon and Grace, the series’ latest, highly vulnerable protagonist. The switching between their polar opposite styles sounded jarring, which is almost never a good thing, and although it's been a while, it’s not like we haven’t been burned by Capcom’s desire to push the series towards action before. But I’m pleased to share that, from my all-too-brief three hours of hands-on time with Resident Evil Requiem, not only does this design really, really work, but there’s a lot more going on than just a merging of Resident Evil’s greatest hits.
My playtime started with a short test drive of Leon, and Resident Evil 4 muscle memory kicked in immediately. Make no mistake, this plays just like the recent remake, enhanced with some clever new additions suitable for a veteran badass. Leon is more handy than ever, with a deadly hatchet that he can swing mercilessly added to his regular arsenal. Leon can also heave axes found in the world, can perform new contextual finishing moves such as a handgun shot to the chin, and finally wield the violent chainsaw. There was once a time Leon feared the chainsaw, but now, Leon has become chainsaw, destroyer of ghouls. After a short 15 minutes, the gameplay shifted perspective to Grace Ashcroft, Requiem’s second protagonist, picking up her journey immediately after the events of the previous demo I wrote about in August last year. Grace and Leon are polar opposites. Gone were the tense gunfights and forward momentum of Resident Evil 4, as I was immediately thrust into what felt like a sterile, white, clean version of Resident Evil 7. For the next two hours, I explored the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, a somewhat traditional Resident Evil mansion that contains much of what you might expect among its rooms and corridors, but with plenty of new surprises. Surprises that mostly arise thanks to Grace’s abilities, or rather, lack thereof.
Much like in the previous demo, Grace’s section was focused almost exclusively on survival horror. She is armed with small pistols she finds in the environment, but her firepower and combat skills are negligible compared to our favorite floppy-haired icon. Where Leon can round-house kick zombies in the face, Grace makes do with a clumsy push. Leon is all-out assault, but the best course of action for Grace is slow and deliberate stealth, because if you do try to take some of the new enemies head-on, you’re going to have a bad time.
Last year’s demo revealed a new and much-celebrated stalker enemy, a towering, hunched, bug-eyed warden, but even within the span of my short three-hour session, I was introduced to another two, giving me the impression that Resident Evil Requiem won’t have one Mr. X or Nemesis-like persistent threat, but rather several smaller pursuers that seem to guard certain wings of the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center. Most notable was a hulking mass of blubber called Chunk, who burst through the wall and into my heart as he very slowly, but surely, ground his way through halls, stairwells and doorways in pursuit of me. Uniquely, Chunk fills the space entirely, so your only chance of survival is to find and navigate the loops built into the level design in order to outmaneuver the walking lardarse. It’s a clever design that generates a (somewhat) living, breathing wall of terror, and one you can’t simply sidestep or combat roll away from.
Much like the stalker I escaped last year, Chunk is cleverly implemented in the context of traditional safe rooms. Where the room’s bright light caused the previous stalker pain, Chunk simply can’t physically squeeze his sheer mass through the door, making sure there’s a logical in-world justification for a room of respite.
As well as Chunk, I also ran into a 7-foot-tall hulking unit masquerading as a chef, who, until he noticed me, was completely focused on his chopping chores. This soon-to-be stalker wasn’t yet in searching mode; rather, he was fulfilling, I assume, his pre-infection duties. This kind of behavior isn’t unique to the chef: It turns out in Resident Evil Requiem, the traditional zombie fodder is just as much the star of the show. You see, zombies not only talk now, but also have their own personalities.
Resident Evil Requiem, aside from being packed with action and fear, is now also funny, something the series has never (at least intentionally) achieved before.The undead are no longer unfortunate, generic lost souls, but rather husks that retain a smidge of living personalities, hanging out in the space they once occupied. There’s the lounge singing shrieker in the bar area, who, before being alerted, entertains herself by belting out a ditty. There are the zombies who were formerly patients in recovery that insist on wheeling around their drip stands, which are then, unsurprisingly, wielded as weapons when they’re aggro’d. Some zombies hate loud noises and will repeatedly yell at you if you even so much as smash a vase, and then there’s one that loves nothing more than turning lights on and off until you rudely interrupt him.
If it’s not clear by now, Resident Evil Requiem, aside from being packed with action and fear, is now also funny, something the series has never (at least intentionally) achieved before. As Grace creeps around the hospital, there’s the continual threat that around every corner awaits horror, or laughter, or sometimes even both! When you can hear the undead nattering away in a room you know you have to enter to achieve your next objective, it’s hard to know whether to be scared or have a good chuckle. On paper, this sounds like it could be awful – I’m aware of that, but honestly, it’s so good! I laughed so hard when I caught one particularly dopey zombie red-handed (both literally and figuratively), lifting a large and, importantly, red canister to throw my way. I’m sure you can imagine what happened next.
The zombie fodder isn’t just around to entertain and quickly be disposed of, though. As Grace, the undead are a significant threat, always moving a little faster than you anticipate. Their fallen corpses also pose a significant conundrum, as they have the ability to turn into “Blister Heads,” a reinvention of the Resident Evil remake’s Crimson Heads for a new generation that reanimate with a bulbous cranium and become significantly tougher to take down. Fortunately, Grace has a new tool at her disposal: a Hemolytic Injector that weaponises the buckets of blood lying around the place (seriously, it’s everywhere), creating a lethal injection that can be used as a preventive measure against Blister Heads when injected into fallen enemies, and as a stealth attack against anything moving.
Beyond the new enemy types, playing as Grace does feel very familiar if you’ve played either Resident Evil 7 or Resident Evil 2, although obviously it leans more towards the latter if you choose to play as Grace in third person. You’re exploring a huge mansion with locked doors, there are obtuse puzzles to solve, antique coins to find that can upgrade your equipment, Mr. Raccoons to shoot, safe rooms with a typewriter for saving and a storage box for inventory management, and so forth. Leon, however, can brute-force open certain doors that Grace can’t and is far more aggressive with combat compared to Grace’s methodical stealth. You can also choose to play as Leon in first person, though after a brief dabble, it felt very unnatural to do so. I can’t help but think Capcom built this game with Leon in third person and Grace in first person in mind, but it’s hard to complain about more choice, despite knowing deep down the development team surely has a preference.
To Grace, Chunk and his fellow creeps are stalkers; to Leon, they’re targets.My demo ended with a second, all-too-short stint as Leon, which allowed me to revisit sections of the Care Center I’d previously experienced with Grace. Interestingly, this section demonstrated perhaps my favorite element of this hybrid experience. Leon is also exposed to some of the tougher combat encounters that I’d suffered through as Grace, although the perspective (much like my viewpoint of choice) is very different. When I met Chunk as Grace, I immediately retreated and was forced into a game of cat-and-mouse. The threat is intimidating and encourages you to tread lightly. As Leon, however, emboldened by my newly acquired shotgun, I felt instantly trigger-happy, unloading shells right up in Chunk’s face and launching hatchet attacks on his head as part of a fight that felt somewhat reminiscent of the El Gigante encounters of Resident Evil 4. To Grace, Chunk and his fellow creeps are stalkers; to Leon, they’re targets. This ethos was reaffirmed when taking on a wave of Blister Heads with Leon at the end of my play time. With Grace, I waited patiently for a stealth attack opportunity; with Leon, I was hurling hand grenades and throwing axes for fun.
This year is the 30th anniversary of the Resident Evil series, so it feels like no coincidence that 2026’s Resident Evil Requiem is combining the best ideas of the saga into what appears to be a fantastically constructed tribute to everything that makes the series so great. Do you like tense survival horror? It’s here. Wanna go all guns blazing with intense action and a quip-obsessed hero? You get that too. Do you prefer playing RE games in first or third person? Doesn’t matter; you can do either. All these choices, along with my fears of a jarring play experience being mostly squashed, make it easy to believe that Capcom’s bold move to have its cake and eat it is going to pay off in a big way.
Dale Driver is an Associate Director of Video Programming at IGN. Be thoroughly bored by following him on Bluesky at @daledriver.bsky.social
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