Resident Evil Requiem review: Capcom’s horror renaissance keeps getting better
- Nathan Walters
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
Resident Evil Requiem is one of those games
that had me stopping every so often just to look at it. The RE Engine continues to be ridiculous in the best way, and there are moments here, especially in the alleyways and tighter interior spaces when you are playing as Grace, where the lighting and environmental detail are so good that they make older “wow, graphics have peaked” memories feel very silly in hindsight. I grew up at a time when Halo: Combat Evolved looked like the future, so having a Resident Evil game casually make me question my entire visual history as a player was not something I expected, but here we are.
The more important thing, thankfully, is that Requiem is not just nice to look at. Capcom have kept pushing that post-Resident Evil 6 recovery arc in the right direction, and what you get here is a game that feels confident in what kind of Resident Evil it wants to be. It is not trying to be all things at once. It is survival horror, but with enough mechanical flourishes and little player-friendly touches to stop it feeling archaic. Mostly.
I say mostly because some of the quality-of-life changes are excellent and some are a bit odd. Inventory management is still very much Resident Evil, so you are not suddenly breezing through with infinite room and zero stress, but it does feel slightly different here. Not worse, exactly. Just strange in a way that took me a while to settle into. Part of that is because there is a lot of useful loot this time around, and it is not all the usual herbs-and-bullets routine either. You have anti-virus injectors that can permanently deal with some of the more annoying infected, lucky charms that offer buffs, and the new blood injector system, which I actually really liked. It lets blood function as another resource for ammo and crafting, and once I got used to it, it added a nice extra layer to scavenging without tipping over into busywork.
“Requiem wants you less comfortable”
The best change tied to that system is that blood gathering spots stay marked on the map. Genuinely, thank God. Having to retrace your steps through half a horror game because you vaguely remember seeing a useful resource point three rooms and one near-death experience ago is not my idea of a good time, so being able to see those locations clearly is a real improvement. At the same time, Capcom have removed area completion markers, which means it is far easier to miss things than it used to be. I can understand the thinking. It adds uncertainty, and uncertainty is obviously useful in a survival horror game. Still, I would be lying if I said I did not miss that little bit of reassurance. Requiem wants you less comfortable, and in that sense it succeeds, but the completionist part of my brain definitely took a few emotional hits.
The infected themselves are much better for it. This is one of the biggest improvements in the whole game. They feel more reactive, more physical, and far more alive in the horrible wrong way Resident Evil enemies should. The grab animations and near misses are the most fluid they have ever felt, and there is something especially unnerving about the way these things stutter, mutter, drift through the environment and even switch lights off. It sounds like a small thing, but it changes the mood dramatically. They no longer feel like enemies waiting in place for you to walk into their little encounter zone. They feel like they are inhabiting the same space as you, which makes every room more tense.
“you can actually annoy a zombie enough that it lashes out at another zombie nearby, which is both very funny and, more importantly, very useful”
There are also some great emergent moments in fights. One of my favourite little details is that you can actually annoy a zombie enough that it lashes out at another zombie nearby, which is both very funny and, more importantly, very useful when you are trying to preserve ammunition like a responsible adult instead of behaving like I usually do and panicking the second anything lurches in my direction. That kind of reactivity makes the combat feel less scripted and a lot more memorable.
Speaking of memorable, I need to talk about the Requiem itself, because what a weapon. I am Welsh, but using that thing had me about two seconds away from measuring my house in feet and shouting about liberty. It is brilliant. The reload has weight, the recoil is enormous, and Grace visibly feels every shot. This is not one of those guns that just has big damage numbers attached to it. It feels powerful in the hands, and that matters. Because ammunition for it is scarce, every shot feels expensive and deliberate, which makes it all the more satisfying when you finally decide that yes, actually, this particular enemy has crossed a line and now needs introducing to several tonnes of concentrated justice. There is one encounter with a certain chef where the payoff of that is especially lovely. Satisfaction almost undersells it.
“Grace feels vulnerable in a way that is not annoying or helpless, just believable.”
A lot of that works because Grace herself works. She is probably my favourite protagonist Capcom have introduced in a while, purely because she feels like a person first and a Resident Evil character second. That sounds obvious, but it really is not. One of the things these games sometimes struggle with is the urge to make everyone seem weirdly capable far too quickly. Ethan had that issue for me at times. Grace does not. Grace feels vulnerable in a way that is not annoying or helpless, just believable. She kicks boxes open instead of looking like she was secretly trained by special forces between cutscenes. She stumbles. She shoves enemies away rather than launching into action hero nonsense. When heavier weapons kick, you feel her dealing with that. When enemies get too close, her hands shake on the pistol. All of that gives her an authenticity that suits the game’s tone perfectly.
It also helps ground the horror. When Grace is in danger, I believed it. Not in the theatrical “oh no, the hero is in peril” sense, but in the much more effective way where the character’s physicality keeps reminding you that she is not built for this. That is a huge part of why her sections work so well. They lean into vulnerability without making her passive, which is a difficult balance and one Capcom mostly nail here.
“Leon exists to create contrast. Grace’s sections are anxious, constrained and horror-led.”
For contrast, the Leon sections are all swagger. More inventory space, stronger combat options, more overt competence, and a level of ease in combat that Grace simply does not have. It is a smart structural choice because Leon is not just there for fan service, though obviously it is hard to complain about having Leon Kennedy around. He exists to create contrast. Grace’s sections are anxious, constrained and horror-led. Leon’s are there to remind you what controlled aggression looks like in Resident Evil when someone actually knows what they are doing. The game even reinforces that split in the way it handles perspective, shifting between first-person and third-person play to underline the difference between the two styles. On paper that could have felt messy. In practice, I thought it worked surprisingly well. It gives Requiem a bit of the newer Resident Evil 7 and Village flavour while still tipping the hat to the remake-era combat style. I am happy to report that fixed camera angles are still not making a comeback, which is exactly as it should be.
Another thing I really liked is how much the game rewards paying attention. Requiem has that lovely Capcom confidence where it trusts players to be curious. There are bigger secret puzzles, small references to earlier games, environmental details that tell their own stories, and inventory items that do more than you first assume. I am not going to spoil specific solutions, but yes, if an hourglass looks important, there is probably a reason for that. That kind of design is catnip to me. I love games that quietly nudge you into noticing things rather than slapping giant signs everywhere, and Requiem is full of those little moments.
“Requiem feels a bit more lived in, a bit more observant, and a bit more interested in people”
It also has a level of human texture that I do not think Resident Evil 7 and 8 always managed, even though I like both of those games. Requiem feels a bit more lived in, a bit more observant, and a bit more interested in people rather than just horror set-pieces. That does not mean it goes soft. The gore is still gloriously foul. In fact, the blood work here is some of the nastiest and funniest in the series. Splatter hangs around for ages, stains spaces properly, and is not just visual decoration either. In some cases, when a more heavily mutated infected explodes near a standard one, the blood itself can spread infection and trigger mutation. That is such a good Resident Evil idea. It is disgusting, mechanically useful and just a little bit funny in the exact way this series often is when it is at its best.
If I have a broader criticism, it is that not every system feels equally refined yet. The inventory still has a slight awkwardness to it, and I do think the lack of completion markers will divide people depending on whether they see that as proper tension or just unnecessary friction. A few ideas feel like Capcom testing the boundaries of what players will tolerate in the name of horror rather than strictly improving things. Still, none of that stopped me enjoying it. At most, it stopped Requiem from feeling effortlessly polished from start to finish.
The bigger picture is that this feels like another reminder that Capcom really did learn the right lessons after Resident Evil 6. Since then they have rebuilt the series by focusing on atmosphere, environmental storytelling, tension and mechanical identity instead of just chucking more explosions at the problem, and Requiem fits neatly into that run. It understands that Resident Evil should make you curious, under pressure, slightly underprepared, and just cocky enough to start a fight.
“Capcom…is still on one of the best redemption runs in games”
If you are already a Resident Evil fan, you were probably never going to skip this anyway, and you should not. If you are a Capcom fan more broadly, it is another strong argument that this company is still on one of the best redemption runs in games. The only group I would genuinely warn in advance are people with severe arachnophobia, because Requiem absolutely knows that fear exists and uses it with enthusiasm.
Resident Evil Requiem is gorgeous, tense, clever, and just scrappy enough in places to still feel like survival horror rather than a haunted house ride with perfect UI. More importantly, it has personality. It has texture. It has that distinctly Capcom knack for mixing horror, absurdity, detail and player curiosity into something that feels expensive without feeling sterile. I had a great time with it, even when it was making me miserable, which for Resident Evil is about the highest compliment I can give
