Resident Evil turned 30 this year, and Capcom picked a hell of a way to celebrate. Resident Evil Requiem, released February 27 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Switch 2, is the ninth mainline entry in the series, and it currently sits at a Metascore of 88, the best reviewed mainline Resident Evil since Resident Evil 4 came out over twenty years ago. That is not a small claim for a franchise with this much history behind it.
Two Characters, Two Games
The structure here is the boldest swing Requiem takes. The game splits between two playable characters, Leon S. Kennedy, returning from Resident Evil 2 and 4, and Grace Ashcroft, a new character making her franchise debut. Their sections are built around completely different philosophies of horror.
Grace’s sections are pure survival horror in the old school sense. Ammo is scarce, enemies hit hard, and the game wants you to feel constantly on the back foot. This is the side of Resident Evil that harks back to the slower, more methodical dread of the earliest games and the 2019 Resident Evil 2 remake. Leon’s sections lean more into the combat focused, action forward style that defined Resident Evil 4 and later entries, more bombastic, more confident, more about staying alive through skill rather than scarcity.
Splitting a Resident Evil game between two very different tonal registers is the kind of decision that has gone badly before. Resident Evil 6 tried something similar and the result was a mess that fans still bring up as a cautionary tale. Requiem invites that comparison directly, and by most accounts, it avoids the trap. One reviewer described it as the series double-fisting two subgenres at once, representing the spooky and the shooty in equal measure, and pulling it off.
The Return to Raccoon City
Set in 2026, twenty-eight years after the events of Resident Evil 2, Requiem eventually brings players back to the Raccoon Police Department, the location where Leon’s story in the series began. This section has been singled out repeatedly as one of the best things in the game. Walking through a crumbling, decayed version of a building players have explored before, with the score pulling in warped, faded versions of musical cues from the original Resident Evil 2, creates something genuinely special. One reviewer compared it directly to Snake’s return to Shadow Moses in Metal Gear Solid 4, that specific feeling of revisiting a place as both the character and the player, carrying years of memory into a space that has fallen apart since you were last there.
For a series this old, with this much history attached to specific locations and specific moments, getting a callback like this right is not easy. By most accounts, Requiem nails it.
Grace Ashcroft
New characters in long running franchises are a gamble, and Grace Ashcroft appears to have paid off. She has been called the best new character introduced to the series since the original lineup, which is a significant statement given how attached longtime fans tend to be to the established cast. Her survival horror focused sections give her a very different identity from Leon right out of the gate, and that contrast seems to be working in the game’s favor rather than against it.
Crafting and Systems
Both characters have access to crafting systems, letting you build items from materials found while exploring. It is not the most groundbreaking system in the world, and not every player will lean into it heavily, but it adds another layer to the resource management that survival horror has always been built around, particularly on Grace’s side where every bullet and herb genuinely matters.
The Criticism
Requiem is not without its issues. The most consistent criticism across reviews points to the narrative and the boss fights as weaker elements, areas that do not quite reach the heights of the rest of the package. Pacing has also come up as a point of disagreement among critics, some feeling the character swapping and tonal shifts between Leon and Grace create uneven rhythm, while others think the structure is paced exactly right. That kind of split take is not unusual for a game built around two very different experiences stitched into one, and where you land probably depends on which half of the game you personally prefer.
The Verdict
Resident Evil Requiem is, in the words of one reviewer, close to Capcom’s greatest hits for the entire franchise, pulling together three decades of ideas about what Resident Evil can be into a single game without it falling apart. The Raccoon Police Department sequence alone is worth the price of admission for longtime fans, Grace Ashcroft is a genuinely strong addition to the cast, and the dual structure mostly avoids the pitfalls that sank Resident Evil 6. The narrative and boss fights hold it back from true classic status, but as a 30th anniversary statement, this is exactly the kind of game the series needed.
Resident Evil Requiem is available now on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2. Developed and published by Capcom.
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