Capcom has taken a lot of swings with the Resident Evil series over the years, but with Resident Evil Requiem they may have delivered one of the strongest entries in the entire franchise. The game feels like a culmination of everything the modern era of Resident Evil has been building toward, with stellar visuals, genuinely gruesome horror, and a version of Leon S. Kennedy who is unsurprisingly still in absolute top form.
Requiem is not perfect, but damn it feels close. But even its flaws feel more like the result of deliberate creative choices rather than mistakes or incompetence, which makes the overall experience land far closer to classic Resident Evil greatness than anything else.
From a presentation standpoint, Requiem is easily one of the best looking games the series has ever produced. The environments are dense, dark, and full of detail, and the lighting alone does half the work when it comes to building tension (though you may want to adjust that a bit to see more of the details of the environment hidden in the shadows). The scares are not just cheap jump moments either. The horror leans hard into the suspense and tension side of the series (though the gore and grotesque are both also very much present) with infected enemies and set pieces that feel closer to the nastier moments of the older games.
As you would come to expect, playing as Grace is more running-for-your-life while Leon emphasizes a more action-oriented play experience. Even with that, though, you come to appreciate the two very different sides of the same coin that each half shares. Grace is thrusted into a world she doesn’t understand, filled with gruesome horrors that were thought to be the stuff of nightmares, while for Leon it’s just another Wednesday afternoon at the office.
The setting of Rhodes Hill in particular does a great job of making every hallway feel like something is about to go wrong, and most of the time it does, especially for Grace. It feels similar to the puzzle-filled experience of the RE2 Remake but also makes you wonder just why anyone in the world would have designed the front door to open only with three separate keys. That is just a fire hazard waiting to happen.
Storywise, the game mostly succeeds at telling a larger narrative that clearly exists to set up future titles. Without going into spoiler territory, some of the villain characters are not fleshed out as much as they probably should have been, as they are introduced quickly, and dismissed almost as fast. And by the time the credits roll there are actually more questions left unanswered than resolved. Normally that would be a problem, but here it feels intentional as the plot is very obviously laying groundwork for more Resident Evil stories to come, and knowing that Requiem game director Koshi Nakanishi has already confirmed that story DLC is in development makes those loose ends feel less like intentional absences designed to be addressed later rather than a lack of satisfactory story-telling.
A message from Koshi Nakanishi, director of Resident Evil Requiem. pic.twitter.com/54aKw80h8K
— Resident Evil (@RE_Games) March 10, 2026
Gameplay is exactly what you would expect from modern Resident Evil, which is mostly a good thing. Movement, combat, and exploration all feel familiar in the best possible ways, although there is one strange omission that stood out during our time with the PC version. There is no separate sensitivity control for vertical and horizontal aiming. That might not sound like a big deal, but when you are trying to line up shots quickly while infected enemies are rushing you in tight corridors, the lack of fine tuning makes precision harder than it should be, especially when you are not using aim assist. We missed more shots than we would like to admit simply because we could not adjust the aiming speed the way most modern shooters allow. It does not ruin the game, not even close, but it is a strange limitation that feels like Capcom wanted you to miss those clutch shots on purpose, which frustrated us on several occasions leading to some severely nasty zombie bites and gruesome Leon death scenes.
Character movement is another area where the game makes choices that will bother some, as it did with us somewhat often. Playing as Grace in particular can feel frustrating because of how slow she moves. The difference between walking and running is barely noticeable, which can make chase sequences feel more stressful and even annoying rather than exciting. To be fair, slow movement has always been part of survival horror design, especially in Resident Evil, and it clearly fits the tone Capcom was going for. Still, there are moments where Grace’s constant fear makes you expect her to pick up the pace a little more than she actually does, creating awkward moments that make you want to shout at her when you are in control of the inexperienced FBI analyst.
The voice acting is another mixed bag. Nick Apostolides delivers exactly the kind of performance you want from Leon, complete with the dry sarcasm and one liners that have become part of the character’s identity. Leon is not exactly known for emotional range, so the performance works perfectly for what the role needs. Grace Ashcroft, played by Angela Sant’Albano, is a different story.
Sant’Albano’s performance is clearly intentional, leaning heavily into exhausting fear and vulnerability, but the constant trembling tone, heavy breathing, and especially the overwhelmingly excessive stuttering become distracting very quickly. Nearly every line of dialogue is broken up with stammers, and once you notice it, it becomes impossible not to hear it every time Grace opens her mouth. Sant’Albano sounds capable, which makes it feel like this was more of a performance direction choice than a limitation on her part, but it is one of the few things in the game that genuinely becomes irritating over time, making Sant’Albano seem like a one-trick pony rather than the voice acting talent she clearly is.
Thankfully, the structure of the game keeps these flaws from dragging the experience down. Requiem almost feels like two games in one, switching between Grace and Leon throughout the story with vastly different experiences and tones. Early on you spend more time with Grace, with Leon appearing only briefly, but the second half of the game shifts focus and puts Leon front and center as the main driver of the narrative. That change in pacing helps break up the tension and keeps the gameplay from feeling repetitive but also helps the player two sides to the same coin- if one side were John Wick mowing down infected and the other side were a young legal secretary with a stuttering problem and no field experience who runs at a walking pace.
In the end, most of the complaints we have are minor, and nearly all of them seem to come from Capcom sticking to a specific vision as opposed to missing the mark. Even the slower movement, the unanswered story threads, and the unusual voice performance choices all feel like part of that vision rather than a misalignment on story beats. And with story DLC already confirmed, it is clear that this is not the end of Requiem’s story anyway.
If this is the direction the series is heading, Resident Evil fans have a lot to look forward to as Resident Evil Requiem is not just a good entry, it is one of the best the franchise has delivered in years, and a near perfect survival horror experience that makes us more than ready to go back when the next chapter arrives.
