Resident Evil 9 (also known as Requiem) is built around contrasts. After spending three hours with what seems close to a final build, I came away with the feeling that the whole experience is driven by a pendulum-like rhythm—swinging from exhilarating highs to stomach-turning lows (in a way that’s genuinely impressive). What surprised me most, though, is how quickly Requiem locks you into its pulse of ticking, tocking tempo.
You could easily think I’m talking only about that push-and-pull between the fresh protagonist, Grace, and the returning, formidable Leon. After all, the game does stage a back-and-forth between the two. At one point, there’s a cutscene where Leon bursts into action and effectively takes down a creature that appeared, at least in that moment, to be beyond anyone’s ability—while it was busy tormenting Grace.
Together, they highlight the different “routes” Resident Evil has taken. Grace’s playstyle sticks to a first-person viewpoint, evoking RE7, and is meant to capture the classic dread of the earlier entries. She darts through spaces to track down keys, pushing into semi-open areas where you need to ration limited resources to keep going. Leon, on the other hand, reflects RE4 more closely: third-person perspective, simpler action focus. When I’m playing as Grace, I save at typewriters, slowly but steadily working forward. But when I spot a typewriter I used earlier as Grace, Leon can’t use it—at least, that’s how it looks in this preview. I’m guessing he doesn’t need to save, since his sections appear fairly linear, making checkpointing feel straightforward.
The contrast keeps going. Leon has a parry move; Grace doesn’t. Leon is also far more likely to be stocked with stronger weapons, while as Grace you’re mostly relying on the thin comfort of pistol ammunition. So yes, there’s definitely a trade-off here. Still, that isn’t where my main takeaway really lands.
Grace’s portion is essentially the centerpiece of this hands-on session. Even if the Grace/Leon split seems like it might offer comparable content volume, Leon covers the same locations in roughly half the time thanks to how differently he plays. That was true in the demo, which generally ran as three distinct pieces: Leon arriving at the Rhodes Hill hospital in a short action sequence, Grace combing through the facility as she desperately scavenges for what she needs to survive, and then later Leon running through the same areas in an action-heavy replay.
Most of the two hours in the three-hour demo went toward Grace’s segment. The Rhodes Hill medical center feels like a textbook Resident Evil setting—semi-open, packed with keycard-locked doors, secure storage boxes, and plenty of zombified enemies to either confront or slip past. Your tasks keep pulling you between different wings as you hunt for the items needed to get out, all while a sinister, Jigsaw-like doctor watches through CCTV and occasionally steps in. The zombie threat also grows more intense over time.
That’s where the pendulum idea really hit home for me—the back-and-forth rhythm Requiem director Kōshi Nakanishi previously described as a “graph of tension and release”. As Grace, I’m constantly tearing through rubble for anything useful, and it swings—hard. One moment I’m getting boxed in, clinging to almost no health, breathing fast and panicked as I tuck myself away in a side room, hoping the enemy has lost interest or simply won’t enter. Tick—the pendulum pulls forward. Then, after I comb the map with that ominous red tint creeping in from the edges of the screen, I finally uncover supplies: a few herbs, some bullets. Tock—and suddenly I’m back in the fight.
This pattern didn’t just show up once across my 90 minutes with Grace. It repeated again and again, with a pace and intensity I didn’t feel in Resident Evil 7 or 8. It lines up with what the director told me months ago: the real joy comes from moving through a cycle of tension and release. Everything—spaces, combat, objectives, and enemy conduct—is shaped to bring out that feeling.
And since we’re talking about enemies, this is also where Resident Evil 9 brings one of its most compelling twists. It’s a simple premise that’s been explored across plenty of zombie stories: the idea that zombies could keep traces of human behavior even after the transformation.
In RE9, that shows up through zombies who demonstrate routines—or at least more careful, controlled movement—rather than merely stumbling around aimlessly. Some react to light, and you can guide them by flipping light switches in the corridors. After that, they’ll dutifully shuffle toward the switch and scramble to shut the lights off, creating a great opening to lure and separate groups. You can also interrupt these creatures by shining your flashlight straight at their faces.
Because the setting is a hospital, a few of them were clearly headed toward eye-focused procedures—and now they’re facing a new problem: they’re blinded by medical blindfolds. These zombies lash out violently, but at least they’re only drawn to noise. In other cases, their past lives show up in simpler ways. A maid keeps cleaning even after she’s gone, paying little attention unless you disturb her. An undead chef continues chopping meat with a huge knife—if you aren’t careful, Grace becomes his next target. Singers continue to act like singers in their zombified forms, releasing ear-splitting shrieks when they spot you.
There are also “Chunks”, essentially heavier zombies. They’re bigger, so thrown projectiles usually bounce back instead of doing much damage—basically, very frightening bullet sponges. And the most worrying of them all are “Blister Heads”, which describes a zombie that’s been defeated before, only to reanimate after some time with its head swollen into a truly awful, bulbous mass. I particularly despised (while still being impressed) this mechanic. You enter a room you’ve already cleared to grab something or interact with the environment, only to hear the unmistakable sound of that previously dealt-with foe getting back up behind you. Cue a string of expletives.
As the Grace sequence continues, the hospital is split into separate eastern and western wings, with a “safe zone” atrium positioned between them. You’ll keep moving back and forth, picking up items and keys to uncover what the hospital is hiding, including characters and events I won’t go into here. You’ll also find a helpful spot where you can swap collected coins for upgrades that improve Grace’s resilience and abilities. Eventually, you’ll face threatening enemies in both wings. These aren’t exactly
full-fledged stalker-style enemies, since they can be dealt with, though these feel more like mid-boss threats—ones you’d often do better to steer clear of. There’s also a clear element of nonlinearity here: the person standing beside me during the demo tackled the objectives in a totally different order than I did, and still…
as a result, his presence becomes increasingly hard to bear—because one of his moves spawned an especially tough opponent about half an hour before I managed to do the same, which was fascinating to watch.
These kinds of foes start to make sense of Grace’s extreme decisions. First, there’s a strong handgun passed to you from Leon that can cut down most enemies (though not every type) with little trouble. You get only a single bullet, and manufacturing replacements is expensive. So it’s smart to hold onto it for a truly critical moment. At a lower price point, though, you can craft injectors. Once used, they make zombies explode; I made one, crept into the hospital’s west wing, found the hardest target I could locate there, and pressed the trigger—boom. That spared me a chunk of ammunition and a lot of stealth effort, and there’s another upside too: if an enemy shatters, it can’t later regrow as a Blister Head. What a relief.
You can probably see, from everything I’ve described, how these shifts happen. You’re backed into a corner, chased by a mass of zombies. Then suddenly you’re able to collect crafting supplies or ammo—and the whole dynamic flips. Once you’re pulled into it, RE9 is packed with small details that either soften, amplify, or even openly acknowledge the anxiety you’re feeling. One of my favorite examples: if you initiate a reload while your ammo is already at full capacity, Grace anxiously draws the slide back just to check whether a round is actually in the chamber and ready. Since I’m the type who reloads compulsively every time I enter a tense room in a game like this, I really appreciated the nuance—my nervous habit became Grace’s nervous habit.
Skip ahead a bit, and we’re back with Leon. If Grace’s section is defined by subtle pivots, this is the big change. Leon’s different in every way, even down to the HUD. And, even more directly, because his segment ends with a direct one-on-one showdown against an enemy Grace had just said was nearly impossible to bring down. After that, Leon is sent straight back into the same area you explored as Grace—though with one additional twist.
Because Leon steps into the space after Grace, everything you did with her stays in place. If you lured zombies into rooms they normally wouldn’t spawn in, they remain there. Missed picking up a box of ammo or an herb? Leon can still find it. Took out a major threat? You’ve cleared the path for him. Didn’t manage it? That becomes his problem now—but he has a shotgun.
Now, the creators of Resident Evil 9 tell me this won’t be the only structure the game uses. Leon won’t always be replaying Grace’s route, and he won’t always focus purely on action. He’ll have to juggle upgrades, puzzles, and inventory Tetris (even though he carries a bigger attaché case than Grace’s restricted storage), alongside the kind of genuine existential horror that fits his personality. Still, seeing how these two halves of Requiem interact in the portion shown during this demo is a particularly compelling detail. Like the nonlinearity of certain goals, it suggests exciting ways to push forward, discover sequence breaks, and attempt speed runs. Anything that enables that kind of freedom is a major win for player agency overall.
As for Leon himself—honestly, playing as him is a blast. Much like Grace’s segment, it probably won’t surprise you. If you liked the RE4 Remake, what’s being shown here feels like an expanded take on that idea. Even though the recent trailer put heavy emphasis on stylish finishing moves, in actual play Leon is far less scripted from moment to moment. Like the best parts of RE4, you’re given room to choose how you handle fights, and pulling off some of those flashy maneuvers can be surprisingly tough.
In any case, the takeaway is this: it isn’t just survival horror for Grace and straight action for Leon. There’s evidently more going on in both. We’ll need to play the finished game to understand that balance completely—but what I’m seeing here doesn’t look like a title that loses its identity because it takes a variety of approaches. Instead, it feels deeply at ease in its place within the series, bringing together the strongest elements of Resident Evil. After my session, Requiem director Nakanishi told me that this has been their internal view as well: they used the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 4 as “north star” references, combining the two distinct Resident Evil styles to create something more sharply focused on what the series does best—without getting muddied or diminished.
Overall, this hands-on session can be said to have accomplished its mission: I left considerably more excited for RE9 than I went in. I have a strong feeling this bold team may be able to pull off a repeat performance. And with its variety of gameplay approaches and a pace that never really settles, it feels like a fitting tribute to thirty years of Resident Evil’s brand of survival horror. I’m genuinely looking forward to getting my hands on the final version.