It’s been roughly five years since Resident Evil Village concluded Ethan Winters’ story, ending a huge chapter in this iconic series. Now, Capcom is looking to shake things up again with Resident Evil Requiem, a game that brings together old and new with surprising results.
Ahead of its February 27 release date, ScreenRant was invited to go hands-on with the upcoming survival horror. I played roughly three hours of the game as both Leon and Grace fighting for their lives in a hospital filled with monsters and nightmares. What I found was a game of two halves, but one I can’t wait to explore further.
Resident Evil Requiem Marries Old And New
And it totally works!
The demo opens with Leon, entering a hospital that looks like the perfect place for a twisted experiment to go wrong. Within a couple of minutes of playing as him, that’s precisely what happened: things took a turn for the worse, and before I knew it, hordes of zombies began running towards me.
During my time with the game, many things stood out to me, but perhaps the thing that immediately grabbed my attention was Leon’s carefree attitude, which fans have come to love. In just about every game he’s in, Leon is always cracking some kind of horrible dad joke that makes you cringe a little inside. And if he’s not joking around, he’s doing unnecessary backflips to avoid whatever attacks are coming his way. I’m happy to report that even in his older age, Leon is still as charming as ever, and is moving like he was in previous installments.
When I wasn’t using a chainsaw to cut infected in half, I was performing combos that often involved kicking them and smashing their heads into the wall.
Leon being a diva wasn’t the only thing that stood out to me; it was also how he played. The second I fully loaded into his gameplay, I had access to a wide range of weapons and was encouraged to run headfirst into battle and take out as many zombies as I could. While playing his portion of the demo, I couldn’t help but compare the game to Resident Evil 6; it felt less like a horror game and more like an action game. This feeling was really cemented when I was wielding a chainsaw that a zombie had once used against me.
When I wasn’t using a chainsaw to cut infected in half, I was performing combos that often involved kicking them and smashing their heads into the wall, or executing a move that looked like it belonged in the Matrix films. On top of that, each time I pulled out my gun, Leon’s aim was always spot on and only took moments to get precise shots when aiming down sights. Perhaps the most important thing is that throughout all of this madness, Leon remains calm and collected.
Like many fans of the franchise, I was curious about how the game would handle having both Leon and Grace as playable characters. Would I be able to play through the entire game as one character, similar to how Resident Evil 2 worked? The answer to this was relatively simple. I’d play as both, and as I progressed through the story, it would change depending on who moved the plot forward in that specific instance, like in Resident Evil 3 with Jill and Carlos.
The difference in gameplay between Leon and Grace is night and day. While Leon’s portion of the game can be compared to RE6, Grace’s is more akin to 7 and Village. Her gameplay is significantly slower, and everything requires a bit more thought and caution. This was for a couple of reasons: my aim as Grace wasn’t as accurate as it was with Leon, finding ammo proved much more difficult, and she was generally weaker than he was in almost every regard. It’s classic survival horror, in other words.
That said, I found her portion of the game significantly more enjoyable for all the reasons I just mentioned. Playing as Grace felt like an actual survival horror game. Every bullet counted, and I needed to be smarter about everything. Even though she didn’t have killer combos like Leon, I could shoot zombies in the leg and push them out of my way, which would open up a gap for me to run away. The fact that she moved much more slowly added much-needed suspense, immersing me in whatever nightmare situation I was in. Suddenly, I was afraid of the dark because of what might be hiding inside it and the uncertainty of whether I would be fast enough to get away.
Every time I’d enter a new room, it was pure terror. Sometimes I’d be greeted with a creature towering over me, holding a butcher knife the size of my face, and other times I’d hear a woman singing some kind of song, which would alert everything around her if she spotted me. These were just a few monsters that I came across as Grace. The terror was also reflected in how her character is portrayed. Unlike Leon, she’s very unsure and scared most of the time, and this is shown by how much she stutters and panics when talking to other characters or reacts in high-stress situations.
This Is Still Classic Resident Evil
The vibes are still there
When I wasn’t hiding from whatever creature was hunting me, I was solving a series of puzzles that were presented to me. This is where many of the classic Resident Evil elements really stood out. Throughout my treasure hunt, I’d often stumble across lore documents that gave me more insight into who key characters were and why things played out the way they did. As you might expect, these treasure hunts took me all around the hospital, where more and more items and weapons became available to me.
This is where things became a bit interesting. As I was running through the area, I stumbled across what essentially was an upgrade room. Here, I could cash in the coins I found throughout the area and purchase various items. Something as simple as increasing my inventory, and other times it was something more useful, like steadying my aim. Even though it wasn’t by much by the time I got to the end of her portion of the game, Grace did feel a bit stronger than she initially did when I first played as her.
Requiem makes a point of showing you this, too. By the time I got to the end of her segment, I was thrown into what felt like a barroom brawl with a small horde of zombies. In most cases, I’d try to avoid this at all costs, but thanks to the upgrades I received, it proved to be less challenging than I had anticipated. As soon as I finished Grace’s segment of the game, I then loaded into another Leon story beat.
Playing through Leon, I was immediately reminded of the powerhouse he was when compared to Grace. This is mainly because I was immediately thrown into fights with all the monsters that I previously encountered as Grace. But instead of hiding from them, I was running at them headfirst with a shotgun and a handful of grenades at my side. What was really enjoyable was that the second part of Leon’s section had me exploring the same area that Grace was running around. Seeing all the destruction and chaos I left behind during her segment made the world I was in feel more alive, and it was something I truly appreciated.
My time with Resident Evil Requiem was a refreshing lesson in how to marry two completely different styles of play. Even though Grace and Leon play completely differently from one another, they do complement each other’s playstyles in ways I didn’t expect. Admittedly, I was unsure of where the series would go after the end of Village, but after spending a few hours in Raccoon City with new and familiar faces, I can’t wait to see what the game has in store for its full release.
