Resident Evil Requiem review

Resident Evil Requiem is the ninth main entry in the series, and it’s amazing. I’ve beaten it, but I’ll keep this review spoiler-free, because the twists in this one are worth experiencing for yourself, especially if you’ve played the earlier games.

Unlike most games on the channel, I didn’t stream or record my first playthrough. I just played it for myself and enjoyed every moment, with my family on the couch beside me, squeezing pillows, screaming, laughing, and mostly telling me which rooms not to go into.

So is it the best game in the series? That depends on which Resident Evil you like most: the more action-focused, puzzle-heavy classics and their remakes, or the tense first-person horror of Biohazard and Village. Requiem’s answer is to give you both.

Where I’m coming from

My first taste of Resident Evil was the original, on my uncle’s PlayStation back in college. I rented Resident Evil 2 on the Nintendo 64, played 3 on PC, then took a long break, missing the much-loved RE4 and drifting away after RE5 as open-world games, Soulslikes and big RPGs took over.

That changed in 2025, when sales and the PlayStation Plus catalog got me through the RE2, RE3 and RE4 remakes, and then Village in third-person mode. That reminded me why I loved the series: a mix of scares, action and puzzles in interconnected areas, without the exhausting pure fear of something like Silent Hill. I like stress and excitement, but I don’t enjoy horror games where I can’t fight back or go in guns blazing. It’s why I couldn’t play Outlast.

Grace and Leon

Requiem follows a linear story told through two protagonists: newcomer Grace Ashcroft and series legend Leon Kennedy.

Grace is an FBI analyst and the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft from Resident Evil Outbreak. She’s investigating mysterious T-virus deaths among Raccoon City survivors. That ties the story straight back to the original games, and it feels like a return to form after recent entries drifted so far from the events of the first three. Her investigation teams her up with Leon and leads them to a giant mansion and a former Umbrella scientist, Victor Gideon.

That’s all I’ll say about the story. It’s so well done, with genuine surprises, that I don’t want to spoil any of it. Longtime fans get just enough fan service without it being overkill, and if this is your first Resident Evil, the story is self-contained enough to enjoy on its own.

First person for Grace, third person for Leon

If you’ve played a modern Resident Evil, you’ll feel right at home. You can play in either first or third person and switch at any time from the menu, but the game is designed for Grace in first person and Leon in third person. I kept it that way for my first playthrough, as the developers intended.

This is more than a camera angle, and it’s where Requiem shows its real brilliance. Grace is an analyst with no combat experience and tragedy in her past. She’s abducted early and dragged into this dark world, so she feels helpless, unprepared and terrified as she creeps through the dark. First person amplifies all of that. Her sections focus on stealth, puzzles and limited resources. They’re scarier and more intense, and also a lot of fun.

What makes it work is that you don’t stay with her forever. The game seems to know when the tension is getting exhausting and you need a break, and it switches you to Leon. He plays like the late-game characters in the remakes, but more souped-up and aggressive. Where Grace sneaks past a few enemies with barely any weapons, Leon is mowing down hordes with multiple guns and a chainsaw like Rambo within the first hour.

If you only want first-person fear, or only want remake-style action, the switching may feel jarring. For me it was perfect. It’s like they took the best parts of every Resident Evil and finally found a structure that plays to each one’s strengths.

Length and replay value

On Casual you can beat it in about a dozen hours unless you take your time. Swapping perspectives gives you at least one reason to replay, and New Game Plus gives you more access to weapons from the start, though you still have to collect and buy things again.

The downside of the linear structure is that the character segments come in a fixed order. You can’t do a full run as Grace and then another as Leon the way you could in RE2 and RE3. That might take away some of the urge to replay. But the game is so good, so fun and so impressive-looking that I’ll play it at least once more, on Easy, to collect everything. I have no interest in dying over and over on Hardcore.

The balance issues

My only real complaint is balance in the back half:

• Too much Leon, too little Grace. You play as Leon for a long stretch and only return to Grace briefly before the finale.
• Resources are uneven. As Grace I had more resources than I needed. As Leon, especially late on, I struggled. Leon crafts ammo from gunpowder and scrap, and while I found tons of gunpowder, I couldn’t find much scrap. That made some of the final sequences a real struggle, and I had to restart from checkpoints because I simply didn’t have enough ammo.

Verdict: not an identity crisis, an identity found

Some reviewers say this game shows a series having an identity crisis. I disagree. I think after 30 years, Resident Evil has found its identity.

Requiem combines the remakes, the classics and the newer entries perfectly. It brings back the lore around the Umbrella Corporation, Raccoon City and zombies, rather than just monsters, and it puts Resident Evil back at the top of survival horror. I hope every game in the series is made this way from now on.