Resident Evil: Requiem

Gameplay Duration: 9.13 hours (main story + some extras, non-completionist, modern casual mode)

Thirty years after the Raccoon City nightmare, Capcom gets the ball rolling again with Resident Evil: Requiem, a ninth chapter split right down the middle between pure survival horror and over-the-top action. As a gamer who handles anxiety terribly (and isn't ashamed to admit it), I armed myself with courage, a mouse, and a keyboard to discover if this ambitious return to the franchise's roots is a masterpiece or a nostalgic mess. Between moments of sheer terror and roundhouse kicks, here is my experience.

Impressions

Ever since its announcement, something about this title drew me in right away: otherwise, there'd be no explaining what pushed me to buy it, despite never having played any of the previous installments. I was probably swept up by the collective hype and the fact that I had been toying with the idea of catching up on this video game saga for a while.

The reason I usually avoid this genre is quite simple: I scare easily, and on top of that, I don't handle anxiety well. I hope that, after this very blunt introduction, you'll forgive me for playing on the lowest difficulty available, sometimes (and voluntarily) skipping certain exploration phases driven by the rush to finish a chapter or the dread of having to sneak silently past enemies. My impressions, therefore, won't be those of a hardcore gamer or a long-time fan of the series.

NOTE: For the sake of transparency, I should also mention that I played with some active mods (infinite ammo) from the halfway point onwards. Given how hard I find it to handle anxiety-inducing immersion (but also my persistent curiosity to see the story through to the end), I would have most likely abandoned the playthrough altogether otherwise.

Let's start with the most obvious point: playing with headphones perfectly conveys the setting and atmosphere that will accompany us for at least a dozen hours during the adventure. As you might expect, there isn't an intrusive musical soundtrack to accompany our run; instead, there's a series of well-placed audio cues in specific moments of the game. Most of the time, the background noise consists of the inhuman shrieks of enemies and other environmental effects, sometimes meant to support exploration, other times acting as proper jump scares. As far as I'm concerned, the audio department's mission is a resounding success, guaranteeing total immersion.

On the pure gameplay front, I found the mechanics well-balanced, as was the narrative pacing with which they alternate. Setting aside my subjective discomfort with the stealth segments, I found a certain satisfaction in the game's action-oriented, deliberately more destructive counterpart. Even without hands-on experience with past chapters, I had some prior knowledge of their mechanics, and my impression of Requiem was that of a melting pot of the franchise's historical hits and misses, drawn upon to create a blend that, as a newcomer, I found highly successful.

Despite my familiarity with certain dynamics, like the iconic inventory management, I found the game punishing at times. In many instances, firing a couple of extra shots proved fatal a few minutes down the line. Equally punishing was failing to smartly use the storage boxes, leaving me to spend as much time agonizing over what item to discard as I did choosing the ending of Life Is Strange many years ago.

It's also worth mentioning one of the major technical additions of this installment: the game allows you to switch freely between first and third-person perspectives. This game design choice proved fantastic for tailoring the experience to your own playstyle, allowing you to maximize immersion or gain better spatial awareness during brawls.

While I found the aiming and combat movements a bit stiff, I never really saw it as a true flaw, considering this isn't a pure action game after all.

To anticipate the next section, I want to share my thoughts on the character introductions. Picture the most "badass" FBI agent from a 90s cop show: cold-blooded, battle-hardened, armed with a witty comeback for any dangerous situation, and relying on a roundhouse kick as the only known method for opening doors. Now take the exact opposite of all that. These two archetypes (I'm jokingly exaggerating, of course) represent our protagonists, at least based on my initial impressions.

Game Modes

Resident Evil: Requiem is a survival horror game that relies heavily on suspense, tactical resource management, and strategic choices that can allow veteran players to complete it in just a few hours, while severely punishing those who make missteps.

As mentioned, we step into the shoes of two characters with distinct backgrounds, abilities, and traits. Playing as Grace, an FBI analyst, we are more geared towards exploration and a stealthy approach. She is objectively the weaker character, and in most cases, blindly firing at any danger is a terrible tactic. With Leon, on the other hand, we are pushed toward combat, tackling the game's action phases much more directly.

The switch between the two isn't arbitrary but dictated by the story's progression, which hands us one or the other depending on narrative needs and the biome we find ourselves in.

During the exploration phases, which mostly involve Grace in enclosed spaces, the focus is heavily on puzzle-solving. These often require significant backtracking to previously visited areas to unlock once-inaccessible doors or retrieve key items. Simultaneously, exploration rewards observant players with documents and files that expand the lore, clues for opening safes, and hidden corners rich in ammo, upgrades, or healing items.

Saving your progress happens inside the quintessential safe rooms. On lower difficulties, saving at the typewriter is free and complemented by a checkpoint system. On harder modes, however, the sparse use of ink ribbons makes a return; they take up an inventory slot and force you to carefully plan when to record your progress before a tough section.

Combat, whether against common enemies or in boss fights, requires flexibility: some threats must be faced head-on, while others are better bypassed or evaded.

Story

The plot jumps forward from the events of Raccoon City, exploring the legacy left by decades of bioterrorism and showing us a world still bearing those scars. To tell this evolution, the narrative runs on two parallel tracks. As an anxious player, I can assure you that this alternation is crucial not only for the story's development but also for breaking up the pacing and letting your heart rate drop.

On one side, we have Grace Ashcroft. If you followed the pre-release material and are a lore buff, you'll know she's the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft (from Resident Evil Outbreak) and is tied to the dark past of Oswell E. Spencer, who adopted her in his youth, considering her vital to his plans. Her investigation centers around the Wrenwood Hotel, the site of her mother's death. Experiencing the story through Grace means stepping into the shoes of someone facing these horrors with extreme vulnerability; her sections are where psychological tension and survival instincts peak.

On the other side, there is the highly anticipated return of Leon S. Kennedy. Far from his glory days, we find a Leon deeply scarred by the years and a mysterious clinical condition (often referred to in-game as "Raccoon City Syndrome") that is slowly consuming him. On the trail of the enigmatic Victor Gideon, his mission inevitably intertwines with Grace's case. Balancing out the FBI analyst's vulnerability, Leon's sections offer the confident action of someone who knows the enemy perfectly, driving the plot toward a conclusion fans have awaited for years.

Criticisms

If you hang around forums or read online opinions, you'll notice that the reception to this chapter has split the community. Personally, I don't agree with the weight given to some of these controversies, but it's only fair to report them for completeness.

As highlighted by reviews from various specialized outlets, the most widespread criticism revolves around a supposed identity crisis of the work. Many purists complain that the sharp transition between Grace's survival horror and Leon's shooter gameplay gives the impression of playing two different games forcefully glued together. Specifically, Leon's sections among the ruins of Raccoon City have been heavily criticized: many users described them as tedious, lacking atmosphere, and overly linear. Add to that complaints about certain sequences deemed cheesy, like mortar-wielding zombies or a motorcycle chase that defies the laws of physics.

Another target of criticism is the incredibly strong nostalgic undertone. Seeing familiar faces is nice, but a large chunk of the player base feels the game abuses "fan service," resulting in a sort of greatest-hits compilation that stifles any original identity. Veterans expressed disappointment over environmental puzzles that were far too easy and boss fights that often fell short of expectations. Furthermore, a specific and mandatory stealth section where you play as young Chloe in a 1990 flashback was universally panned, dismissed by most as annoying and useless filler.

Finally, much discussion has centered on replayability and the technical side. At launch, the absence of a "New Game Plus" (NG+) mode or the classic "Mercenaries" didn't go unnoticed. It should be noted, however, that Capcom has already taken action, confirming the future arrival of a story-driven DLC and a new minigame scheduled for May. On the PC front, complaints focused on inexplicable limitations in the settings: the lack of a FOV slider, the inability to disable the film grain effect, and the need to restart the game to apply changes to ray tracing. To be fair, some technical hiccups, like an annoying bug related to path tracing, have been fixed with recent patches.