Capcom marks the 30th anniversary of Resident Evil with a remarkable comeback that expertly blends punishing horror with a nostalgic, fan-driven victory lap for the beloved franchise.
So what is Resident Evil, exactly? For some players—especially those who grew up alongside the franchise’s early releases—it calls up campy survival horror, where gunfire cuts through suffocating scares. Others, who came aboard with Resident Evil 4 and later entries, may see it as leaning more heavily toward action. And then there’s a third crowd: people whose expectations shifted after Resident Evil 7 once again reshaped the series, perhaps expecting horror in its most true-to-form shape. Three decades on, Resident Evil has taken on many forms and carried many pasts, which makes it difficult for Capcom to honor everything at once. Still, with Resident Evil Requiem, it looks like they’ve finally found a way to embrace that complexity rather than fight it.
Chances are you can already see that Resident Evil Requiem is built around two sharply different halves. First, there’s FBI agent Grace Ashcroft, who carries forward the modern games’ push toward tense first-person horror. On the flip side, Resident Evil’s longtime hero Leon S. Kennedy shows up off and on, injecting tension with loud, over-the-top action. On paper, that could sound like a formula for disaster—something in the spirit of Resident Evil 6—but in reality it couldn’t be further from the truth, even with the big swings in pacing as Requiem heads into unusual territory, both figuratively and literally.
That said, no matter where it points its spotlight, Requiem rarely misses. This is what pure, high-budget blockbuster gameplay looks like: gorgeous presentation, deeply detailed environments, and a finish that feels polished to the bone. Even the prologue sets the tone—equal parts police procedural and Resident Evil—moving from vibrant, rain-slick city streets, delivered with first-person mastery, to a deserted hotel. There, as Grace confronts the trauma that follows her, the game stages playable flashbacks and unsettling little touches designed to chill. Then Leon arrives with total nonsense energy, hatchet-twirling his way into the chaos of traffic pile-ups and crowded streets, and the adventure keeps rolling. Capcom’s design, engineering, art, animation, sound, and performance talent all seem tuned to handle the enormous demands Requiem places on every system.
When Requiem finally settles into its rhythm, it leans hard into sustained horror—arguably the scariest stretch the series has produced. I’d even go so far as to call Requiem among the best horror games ever made. After Grace lands in the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, where you’ll spend a significant chunk of playtime—possibly the closest the series has come to a classic gothic “mansion” in recent years—you get a brief window of calm before your first major adversary shows up. You’ll want to take full advantage of that moment, because once the chase begins, Requiem doesn’t let up. Capcom’s control of atmosphere and tension, along with its pacing, is spot-on. Its first big revelation makes that clear: a creepy nursery rhyme plants doubt and dread, then—after a carefully staged run of jump scares and misdirection—a massive claw appears, terrifyingly close. And that’s only the start.
The creature, among Rhodes Hill’s most relentless threats, is an outstanding design—truly frightening at her size, yet strangely human in her slow, mournful gait and ragged gown as she begins her relentless search. It’s surprising how much Requiem works to make its monsters feel more than just targets. One horror you meet is so huge it barely manages to inch its way down the mansion’s tight corridors just to keep up with its patrol. On top of that, nearly every zombie at Rhodes Hill seems stuck in a loop of half-recalled routines: undead cleaners barge aggressively into filthy restrooms, orderlies can’t stop flipping light switches, cooks hunt you down with sharp utensils, and you may even spot a zombie playing a grand piano and working through a tune. There’s something a little wistful—and yes, occasionally amusing—about the way a silly thread ties together the terrors Grace endures and Leon’s more ridiculous confrontations. Still, the moment a zombie turns its attention toward you, the mood becomes genuinely unsettling.
For most of Rhodes Hill, Requiem favors stealth. Time and again, as Grace goes looking for another objective scattered around the area, she finds herself forced into cramped spaces where detours are scarce. The result is a tense rhythm of careful movement followed by desperate escapes. Almost every zombie is patrolling nonstop, and once they detect you, they’ll chase with urgency and aggression—pushing as far as their area allows. Few can match the raw power of Rhodes Hill’s toughest foe, sure, but even after Grace gets weapons and upgrades, Capcom still engineers the danger to stay meaningful. It does this through limited ammo, zombies’ heightened reaction to noise, and several other methods that are a bit more sinister—so stealth consistently comes across as the wiser option.
From that constant pressure, Capcom keeps widening the strain. Upgrades often require you to pull blood from zombies—creatures that can, at any moment, claw their way back into life. Your inventory is also capped, which means you have to be deliberate about what you carry and what you leave behind in safe zones. Misjudge that balance and you may find yourself retracing steps, dragging out the ordeal. If you choose Classic mode, typewriter ribbons are limited as well, meaning saves are less frequent. The game turns into a trial of difficult choices made under stress, and Capcom repeatedly adjusts the rules and pacing in a way that’s exciting even as it’s exhausting. There’s plenty to appreciate here, from the excellent sound work to small touches like Grace’s shaking hands while she keeps her firearm ready. Together, these elements build an oppressive atmosphere that never really lifts. In that suffocating pressure, Leon’s sections—played from the classic third-person perspective—offer a welcome counterbalance.
Leon’s adventure across the series, from wide-eyed
newcomer to seasoned warrior, depicts him here as the ultimate action hero—a pure, wisecracking embodiment of swagger in a skin-tight shirt. From the instant you tap the ‘melee’ button and see him land a roundhouse kick on a zombie across the street, to the point he’s climbing onto a motorcycle and driving up the side of…
Whether it’s the sheer scale of a skyscraper or the casual act of batting away rocket grenades from above, it’s clear Capcom isn’t merely paying tribute to Resident Evil’s action roots—it’s genuinely savoring them, with a hatchet in hand as it carries out brutal decapitations. The mix feels spot-on, too, since Leon and Grace’s distinct approaches complement each other instead of clashing.
That said, by the time you reach a point just shy of the middle of its roughly 20-hour length, the tone shifts so sharply that Requiem could almost be mistaken for a completely different release. After you leave Rhodes Hill and step into the lackluster decay of what feels like an urban combat zone (I’ll hold back on more), Leon takes the spotlight—for at least a while—while Requiem adopts a new pace that leans hard into high-intensity action. Even when Grace later begins to reassert a larger presence, her usual stealth is—aside from one brilliantly unnerving late-game twist—unfolding at a much brisker tempo. While a mid-game shift like this isn’t particularly unusual for the series, following such an accomplished first stretch, the change itself—paired with the sudden fading of Capcom’s carefully crafted atmosphere—is incredibly unsettling. It’s even a little disappointing, and it takes some adjustment before it truly starts to land.
Still, it remains a blast to play. The shooting feels excellent, packed with that electric—almost ridiculous—action-movie energy, and Leon’s toolkit stretches into absurd territory, filling out with machine guns, pistols, grenades, sniper rifles, and every other option meant for making the undead disappear loudly. The inventory system also adapts to match the momentum, nudging you to arrange your supplies into something that looks like a Resident Evil 4-style attache case until there’s no room left and you’re forced into tough decisions. As you sprint across rooftops, dodge mortar fire, or square off against heavily equipped undead that keep arriving in bigger numbers, the action stays exciting and pressurized—just delivered in noticeably different ways. In fact, once Rhodes Hill is behind you, Requiem leans more openly into a retro vibe—and if you haven’t already guessed, it’s deliberate.
The signs are there right from the start, of course—it’s baked into the title!—but Requiem isn’t only a horror game; it isn’t only an action game. It’s an enthusiastic, heartfelt tribute to Resident Evil, this beloved series, as it heads toward its 30th anniversary. As it moves along, pulling in and reshaping pieces of its own history, it increasingly feels like a present for longtime fans. That spirit shows up in the sprawling mansion that brings a wave of nostalgia; in its shifting camera perspectives and changing atmospheres. You can see it in the separate inventory systems tied to different periods, in the typewriter ribbons, and in those delightfully retro puzzle ideas. It also appears in a split storyline that brings Resident Evil 6 to mind, in Leon’s upgrade system that feels straight out of Mercenaries, and across plenty of other elements. I won’t say much more—partly because Capcom has every reason to keep Requiem’s biggest surprises under wraps, and partly because I wouldn’t want to spoil how much they hit—but as it leaned into that heritage, my smile kept growing.
There’s a clear tension throughout: the opening stretch of Requiem is outstanding, a genuine horror classic by my standards. On the other hand, the latter portion doesn’t land with the same force; experimental horror gradually gives way to a slightly nostalgic, reflective look back at the series’ earlier days. This contrast makes it harder to judge. Is Requiem inconsistent? Absolutely. Does it, at least in some sense, lose momentum? I think that’s also a fair call. Even so, swept up by a tide of lovingly crafted nostalgia, I found myself paying far less attention to those concerns. In a way, Capcom’s intentional—and remarkably well-matched—mix of ideas in Requiem makes it harder to dismiss, letting you simply settle in and enjoy what’s on offer. And with three decades’ worth of brilliant, wonderfully absurd moments packed into a single game, this celebration truly is a fantastic adventure.
A copy of Resident Evil Requiem was provided for this review by Capcom.