Resident Evil: Requiem Review
“This Requiem is my dream” Written by: Hunter (@ReaperHunter23)
It’s been nearly a decade since the Resident Evil series started on its current winning streak. Whether it’s been mainline entries or remakes, the series has not had a miss since turning the ship around in 2017. That is, as long as you don’t count the weird multiplayer experiments like Resistance and RE:Verse. I’ve reignited my own dormant affection for the series across the previous years as well, with Resident Evil 2 Remake bringing me back in 2019, and I haven’t missed an entry since. This brings us to today with Resident Evil: Requiem. After the game was revealed, the game’s director said in interviews that they were aiming for a mixture of the feeling of Resident Evil 2 Remake and Resident Evil 4. Call me bias, but if you are going to pull from previous works, those are the best two to pull from. Now the only question is, did Requiem manage to play the song, or only hit the notes?
Image Credit: Capcom
The story of Resident Evil: Requiem follows along two different perspectives. The first point of view is that of Grace Ashcroft, an FBI analyst being sent to investigate the latest death caused by a mysterious illness. The scene of the crime also happens to be the place where her mother died. She doesn’t make it very far before being subdued and dragged off to a medical center of dubious intent. The second character we follow is series favorite, Leon Kennedy. Leon is investigating the deaths of Raccoon City survivors, and his investigation leads him to the same shady care center that Grace gets dropped in. Their paths eventually intertwine, and the story begins passing the baton back and forth between the both of them.
I thoroughly enjoyed the story of Requiem. Resident Evil is at its best when it can tow the line between being a crowd pleasing blockbuster while still providing me with enough substance to chew on after the ride is over. I believe that Requiem pulls this off to great effect. There’s the typical shadow organizations to uncover and crazy Umbrella Looneys to fight. But it's also complimented by a solid arc for both of the lead characters.
Grace Ashcroft is the most terrified a Resident Evil player character has ever been. She’s so terrified that the first time she encounters an enemy in this game, her panic overwrites the usual key item menu you get for unlocking doors. Her very normal reactions to the terrors around her pretty quickly endeared her to me. Her arc of overcoming the guilt she’s been carrying around and putting her fears aside in order to move forward was really compelling to witness. I think all of these aspects give Grace the makings to be an instant favorite among fans in the coming years.
As for Leon: His arc is exactly what I would want to see from a legacy follow up. He’s here doing everything we would want to see Leon do. That is to say: roundhouse kick zombies and crack jokes. Thankfully there is more to Leon’s involvement than just showing up to play the hits. They manage to give him a reason to be there and stakes for his involvement. All while drawing on the twenty eight year history of the character to reinforce the pathos of what makes Leon tick.
So while I’d hardly call Resident Evil: Requiem’s story Shakesperian, I do think it does what it sets out to do impeccably. The contrast of the two leads as well as the abject horror of their primary antagonist makes for a very enjoyable ride.
Image Credit: Capcom
The big selling point of Resident Evil Requiem’s gameplay is the dueling gameplay styles of the two protagonists. Grace’s gameplay leans much more on the survival horror side of things, while Leon functions as a cathartic tension purge for much of his gameplay segments. They both control about how you would expect them to if you’ve played any of the other recent entries in the series.
The game does an excellent job at building the tension in Grace’s segments. She starts off with an inventory limit of eight and her only offensive capabilities are a handgun, any panic knife she can get her hands on, a syringe that will make most zombies explode if you stealth attack them, and a magnum for the most dire of emergencies. All of this vulnerability perfectly curates the classic survival horror push and pull. You could travel light: taking only your gun and a healing item in order leave more space for key items and potential upgrades. Or you could stay prepared and bring along extra supplies if you are willing to make multiple trips back to the safe rooms. Item crafting and permanent upgrades fill the rest of what you’ll engage with mechanically.
Grace’s limited capabilities are only one half of the equation though. The other aspect that makes the gameplay sing is just how good the enemy AI is. Almost every zombie you come across as Grace is following some kind of pattern from before they turned. This manifests in a number of different ways. A few examples come to mind. One would be the maid that’s doing her best Lady Macbeth impression and vigorously cleaning the bathroom sink. The other that comes to mind is the floor staff who wants to turn the lights out. These patterns in the zombies make for a great wrinkle in the gameplay. To keep using the lightswitch guy as an example, you can easily flip a lightswitch or two to move him out of the way of where you are trying to go. Another one I had fun exploiting was the patient who would become enraged at loud sounds. I really enjoyed pegging a different zombie with an empty bottle to provoke the sound sensitive patient into killing them.
Now don’t go thinking that the game will be predictable just because the zombies have more defined behavioral patterns. In fact, the game compensates for this really well by clever use of a few other tricks. Nothing ever stays the same at the care center. On your first pass of the West Wing, there will be an absolute brick wall of a chef that is going through his routine in the kitchen. You can pretty easily sneak by him. However, if you double back to the west wing for some reason, the chef will be patrolling the rest of the hallways. Another example that I found memorable were the zombies in the dining room. On your first pass through, Grace can pretty easily slip by all but one of the zombies. The twist this time is that when you go back, the previously feasting zombies just disappear. You’d think that would be a good thing, but I spent the whole time I was moving through there waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The last wrinkle the game will throw at you to keep you on your toes would be the Blister Heads. Once you kill a zombie they have a chance of reviving as a blister head. Blister Heads are much sturdier than a standard zombie and hit much harder. You can prevent them from spawning if you use one of the syringes to make the zombie in question explode. It’s just an additional element that asks you to make another cost/benefit decision but I would say it's a fairly effective one.
The level design of the Rhodes Hill clinic is immaculate. The way the area just folds back in on itself makes it so conducive to the survival horror exploration. There are only two or three safe rooms in the entire building, but putting short cuts and alternate routes at the perfect spots never made it feel like the save points were too sparse. The game does a superb job at lining up all of the threads you can pull on later when you pass through an area the first time. Everytime I picked up a key item I was jazzed to hoof it back to the applicable door and see what kind of horrors awaited me on the other side of the door in question.
Leon’s gameplay swings the pendulum firmly into the action horror category. The game perfectly illustrates the world of difference between Leon and Grace with their basic capabilities. Instead of merely pushing zombies over, Leon can roundhouse kick them. Instead of a limited use kitchen knife, he has a hatchet that can be resharpened. His inventory is exponentially larger than eight spaces.These segments are a pulse pounding release of tension. After a few hours of pushing zombies over and running away, it feels really good to just be able to shoot one in the leg and roundhouse kick it. I think they manage to accomplish a solid balance of making you much more empowered as Leon without letting you completely check out and play like a buffoon. If you don’t stay on top of things it's pretty easy to become overrun. The game really plays into this contrast as well. Leon’s sections are much more linear, but the arenas for each encounter throw some kind of twist on things to make each instance of combat feel relatively unique. A great example of this is that first chainsaw encounter where the zombies will hot potato the chainsaw if you kill the one holding it and don’t manage to pick it up.
Image Credit: Capcom
Resident Evil Requiem is a visually splendid game. One of the first details I noticed was how good Grace’s hair looks. Her haircut is layered in a way that usually doesn’t come through in a lot of games. Another hair detail I noticed early on was during the first Leon section, the way the blood from one of the zombies splattered into his hair looked really good. Both Leon and Grace look fantastic in this game. Grace has so many subtle details to illustrate how out of her depth she is, such as the way her hands shake when she points her gun and falling over after sprinting for a few seconds. As for Leon, he looks like he ate the Resident Evil 4 version of himself. For pushing 50, he looks like he’s in the best shape of his life. The monsters in this game all look suitably grotesque as well. A detail that I appreciate is that most of the unique zombies have a little bit of razzle dazzle to their kill animations if you die to them. The stand outs for me design wise are The Girl, the pursuit enemy of Grace’s segments. And Victor Gideon, the primary antagonist. Anytime this guy smiled, it caused a visible frown to cross my face. The head apparatus he wears really compliments the decaying paint texture of his skin to make him suitably menacing.
The environmental design in this game is no slouch either. The opening section in the hotel is a really good tone setter. The way the game plays with light and shadows is really well done. The way the waning daylight shines through one of the windows early on really made me pay attention to it for the rest of the game.
The audio direction in this game compliments the visuals perfectly. The spatial audio in this game is the most impressive I’ve heard in a game. Not only does it give you the sense of how far away a sound is, but it's also really great at bouncing the sound off of any objects in the area in a believable manner. The way sound moves through the kitchen in the west wing is very different to the way sound moves through the lounge upstairs. It all adds to the paranoia when you can hear something with such specificity but still not be able to see it. Another more minor detail I appreciated is that anytime a zombie moves into frame when you were previously alone the game will hit a scare chord for them.
The voice and performance captures in this game were all top tier. All three of the key performers in this game knocked it out of the park. Angela Sant’Albano brings Grace to life in a way that is so believable. The panic in her voice is so genuine it feels like they actually locked her in a room with a zombie. She really delivers on the more raw and emotional side of things during the flashbacks and later events of the story as well. Nick Apostolides returns as Leon. Tracking the arc of his portrayal of Leon through the different eras of his life makes for very amusing comparisons. This portrayal of Leon walks the line of unfazed and “seen it all” with a level of contemplation and reflection that really brings an additional layer to the performance. Lastly, Anthony Byrne as Victor Gideon is perfect. There’s a level of controlled madness to the way that Gideon carries himself in the early stages of the game. The hissing whispered tone he speaks in feels like it's holding back the true insanity that is trying to bubble to the surface. And once he finally lets loose it is equally as compelling to witness.
Image Credit: Capcom
Summary
Resident Evil: Requiem is a must play for fans of Resident Evil and horror games alike. Its commitment to quality in every facet of the game is commendable. It manages to be an exquisite culmination of this modern era of Resident Evil while still bringing enough new to the table to carve out its own identity in the impressive legacy of the series. Not only does it pay respect to every step that brought the series to this point, but introduced a new instant fan favorite character in Grace Ashcroft, and an impressive new setting in the Rhodes Hill Clinic. I loved the ride this game took me on and I can’t wait to see how the nightmare continues from here.