The Resident Evil series celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2026, and what better way to mark such a milestone than putting out a brand-new main-line entry, Resident Evil: Requiem. Starring two playable characters, skittish newcomer Grace Ashcroft and grizzled veteran Leon Kennedy, the ninth numbered entry in the franchise is a fascinating mix of horror and action, atmospheric estates, and drab cities.
Grace Ashcroft is an FBI agent tasked with investigating the latest in a string of bizarre murders. In classic neo-noir fashion, she arrives at the murder scene in a rundown hotel during a storm. It’s here she comes face to face with the serpent-tongued Doctor Victor Gideon, who promptly kidnaps Grace. Also investigating these murders, Leon spots Grace being carried away from the hotel, and thus begins the duo’s parallel and occasionally intersecting adventures.
Grace wakes up in the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, part swanky mansion, part sanitarium, an environment that ticks all the Resident Evil boxes. It’s labyrinthine, gorgeous, and chock full of zombies, puzzles, and extremely convenient notes. By default, Grace’s sections are played in 1st person, although you can change it to 3rd person if you prefer. Grace is green, as far as zombie outbreaks are concerned, and therefore her parts of the game focus on being immersive, slower-paced, and tense. She spends more time running and hiding from horrible monsters than blasting shotguns and roundhouse kicking skulls to bits.
This is where Resident Evil: Requiem truly shines, and it makes a fantastic first impression. Sneaking through the care center as Grace, hiding from The Girl, an enormous bug-eyed, gangly monster that climbs through the roof and hates light, is an absolute joy. Weapons and ammo are scarce, and Grace is slow and lacking in martial skills. Combat is something to be avoided, and if you do end up having to fight, you want to wrap it up efficiently so you limit the strain on your resources and avoid luring a more dangerous creature.
Grace’s actor Angela Sant’Albano does phenomenal work here. She plays this determined yet utterly terrified young woman perfectly. You feel every shuddering breath, stammered word, and heartbroken sob as if they were your own. She does all this without reducing Grace to a damsel in distress. Yes, she’s anxious and afraid, but she keeps going; she doesn’t fall to pieces, and she’s far from useless.
The voice acting is great across the board. Despite Doctor Gideon being very much a mad scientist/serial killer type, Antony Byrne’s performance is convincingly sinister. Nick Apostolides reprises his role as Leon, albeit playing a much older version, and he does the grizzled veteran shooting off one-liners thing very well.
Which brings us to the zombies, who talk now. Or at least, the ones in the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center do. This particular strain of virus has its victims retain some of their personality from life. A maid will continue to frantically scrub the bathroom mirrors, smashing her face into the glass, and a chef listlessly chops unidentifiable chunks of flesh on a kitchen benchtop while muttering the word ‘meat.’
Talking zombies as a concept runs the risk of being super goofy, immediately sapping the tension out of even the spookiest of scenarios. Thankfully, due to more fantastic voice work, these zombies are uniquely scary and stand out even among the many, many different kinds of freakos that have starred in this series over 30 years. No small feat!
The gore system is similarly striking. Shooting a zombie in the face will result in specific sections of their head falling apart, eyeballs dangling out of their sockets—the whole nine yards. Limbs can be blown off depending on where you shoot, and certain special items cause bloody explosions that splatter the wall, floor, and ceiling and will actually stay that way. I know I risk sounding like an absolute psycho here, but this violence adds so much to the experience. When you have to make every bullet count, it’s super satisfying to have the game react so dynamically to a well-aimed shot.
Visually, Resident Evil: Requiem is a stunner. Character models, hair rendering, shadows and lighting, art design—all of it is top-notch and more than meets the high bar set by all the RE Engine games. As always, the monster designs are disturbingly detailed to the point where I found myself wondering how people can ever conjure up something so foul from their human imagination. Exactly the sort of talent you want poured into a survival horror game.
At first, Leon’s sections are short; you maybe fight a room or two of zombies, solve a puzzle, and before you know it, you’re back to playing as Grace again. This works well to give you a breather from the constant tension of sneaking around and hiding. As Leon, you have more ammo, a much larger variety of weapons, and the close-quarters combat skills of someone who has survived and/or stopped multiple zombie outbreaks. It’s a huge relief to finally be able to obliterate hordes of zombies after fearfully avoiding fighting even one for so long.
In the latter half of the game, the story moves on from the Care Center to a larger, more open environment, and you get to spend some uninterrupted time playing as Leon. His guns sound amazing, feel great to use, and slamming zombie heads into bookshelves or into the dirt never gets old. You gain access to a shop of sorts that allows you to upgrade your gear, and that classic Resident Evil flow of exploring daunting locations, unlocking new paths and getting stronger and more confident as you go really kicks in.
Despite being fun in a vaccuum, it’s around this point in the game where things began to shift for me. All the intrigue earlier on in the narrative, with Grace, Doctor Gideon, the speaking zombies, and the super oppressive and immersive atmosphere, all but evaporates the more the game goes on. The zoomed-out and higher-stakes story just isn’t as interesting as where the game starts out.
More than this, the sequence of environments, boss fights, and narrative scenarios from this more open Leon section onwards are all lacking for one reason or another, especially in contrast to the first half of the game. Again, none of it is strictly bad taken on its own, but when I hit credits, I had the distinct impression of having played two different games, one far more interesting than the other.
Resident Evil: Requiem is a great game. It successfully introduces brand new and compelling characters, concepts, and monsters to one of gaming’s most beloved series. While your mileage may vary, it also goes out on a (severed) limb and blends different types of gameplay to create something that feels undoubtedly fresh. When it comes to pacing, it may not quite stick the landing: the narrative slowly fizzles out the longer it goes on, and the final third of the game is a bit of a jumbled-together mess. That said, the highs of Resident Evil: Requiem remain more than worth the price of admission.
Rating: 8.5/10
Resident Evil: Requiem was reviewed on PC with a code provided by the publisher.