Last week, Capcom gave fans their most extensive look at Resident Evil Requiem yet. Now that the cat is out of the bag about Leon’s inclusion in the game, the developers can show off all this ninth mainline entry in the popular survival horror franchise has to offer, while also explaining what makes its dual protagonist approach unique.
Ahead of last week’s reveal, I was able to play a significant chunk of Resident Evil Requiem – about 3 hours of the game – to see, firsthand, what the next Resident Evil brings to the table. As this latest era of Resident Evil has gone on, and with the critically acclaimed remakes slotting in alongside the main entries, Capcom has been careful to ensure that each new game evolves the franchise without abandoning what made it so special in the first place. It might sound strange considering this is the ninth game, but it feels like the series has hit its stride within this new generation, balancing the old with the new.
My Resident Evil Requiem demo offered hands-on time with both Grace Ashcroft and Leon Kennedy. Grace is a new protagonist for the RE series with some ties to existing franchise lore. She’s our new Ethan Winters, so to speak, a character without all the baggage and fan expectations – an opportunity to present a fresh perspective on the undead-slaying.
If Grace comes in unburdened by baggage, Leon comes on board with luggage, carry-on, and a personal item. He is a fan-favorite Resident Evil staple who hasn’t been playable since Resident Evil 6 (not counting the RE 4 Remake), and his return to the franchise has been greatly anticipated. Rolling out Leon is no small gesture on Capcom’s part and carries with it huge expectations.
Playing as Grace in Resident Evil 9
The Resident Evil Requiem demo put the spotlight on Grace the most, offering two Leon segments as bookends to the experience. In my first hands-on with Resident Evil Requiem, the experience was short, but it highlighted how Grace’s gameplay is less action-focused – a return to the series’ roots. For that demo, Grace snuck around a medical wing, avoiding a grotesque monster that was impeding her progress. There were no guns and no combat; it was a stressful struggle to survive in the vein of the earlier Resident Evil games.
For this second preview, Grace has more agency, but the concept is still focused on survival with limited resources. She gets a gun and can dispatch the infected with a combination of carefully placed bullets and melee jabs, but that’s not always the best course of action. The enemies can be spongy in Resident Evil Requiem, which requires you to be considered with your approach. There were times when I needed to fight, but oftentimes I found it best to sneak/run past a zombie if it didn’t pose too big a threat.
The new wrinkle for Resident Evil Requiem is the injector, which presents the player with a fair amount of choice. Crafting remains a key component of the RE experience, but for Grace's gameplay you have to decide how to combine the injector with specific resources. Throughout the level, there were buckets of infected blood that Grace could use to fill up the injector, making a new resource to combine with green herbs or spare parts. It makes for an interesting choice where you aren’t sure if a heal is better than extra bullets, or if a damage upgrade is more beneficial than more health. Furthermore, the injector can be used to create an “instant kill” explosive injection that can take out zombies in a gloriously bloody fashion. So even as Grace is looking to keep the body count to a minimum, she can still take out an infected or two when necessary.
Resident Evil Requiem uses Grace as a way to give fans an experience closer to the original games. Limited resources and inventory space force you to make choices about how you want to move forward, whether it’s worth it to clear a room of zombies or merely scrape by. The visuals and the sound are once again superb, creating a mood and atmosphere that is chilling. Resident Evil isn't always scary, but Requiem did well to create a sense of unease during the Grace section, and there were a few downright horrifying moments.
Even with those slight changes and a decidedly stronger emphasis on stealth and survival horror, Resident Evil Requiem’s Grace sequence do feel familiar to what has come before. The ability to switch between first and third person is novel, but it doesn’t significantly change the gameplay. Even the design of the level I played, a multi-level house with a fair bit of puzzling and shortcuts, exuded that signature RE DNA. This is Resident Evil at its best and I enjoyed every minute of what I played.
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This article originally appeared on GameRant and is republished here with permission.
