Admittedly, I don’t have a huge history with the Resident Evil games – it pretty much starts and ends with the original RE2 on the PS1, back when we had to deal with tank controls, fixed camera angles, and those agonizingly slow door-loading animations that we all thought were “atmospheric” at the time. Since then, I haven’t touched a single entry in the series. But honestly? Something about the trailers for Resident Evil: Requiem got me excited to play this one. Marketing for this game really made it feel like a fan-service call-back to an earlier time in gaming, a time that I’ve been looking for ways to revisit.
The brilliance of this game is that it switches back and forth from tense, stealth-based gameplay with new character Grace (an FBI agent looking for answers) to series-favourite Leon, who, in third-person, rips, shoots and smashes his way through enemies with ease. The swap between the two is fun and gives you kind of the best of both worlds in this type of game. The stealth segments are genuinely nerve-wracking. Think Alien: Isolation-style stealth, creeping through those dark, hyper-realistic hallways really nails that old-school dread. There’s a psychological weight to it; you feel every creak of the floorboards.
And the PlayStation 5 graphics. HOLY graphics. Technically, the game is a beast. We’ve come a long way from the pixelated blocks of RE1+2. The ray-tracing on the puddles and the way the raindrops hit them, the detail on monster skin, and the way your flashlight or lighter cuts through the haze… Resident Evil: Requiem is one of the best-looking games I’ve played in a decade, and really serves to enhance those stealth scenes when you can see grains in the wood, dust on shelves and the way the lighting reacts in various rooms. It’s stunning.
But the real magic happens when the camera pulls back into third-person combat view. Man, does it feel good when you finally stop creeping and hiding and start smashing through enemies. After twenty minutes of being powerless, scavenging for enough blood to craft a hemolytic injector, or hunting for a single clip of ammo as Grace, being able to finally unload a shotgun into a Blister Head or rip through a zombie with a chainsaw as Leon feels fantastic.
The controls feel tight and responsive as well. The haptic feedback on the DualSense controller is a nice touch, too. You can feel the shotgun reloading in your palms, which adds a layer of immersion to an already immersive experience.
One thing I really appreciated was how Resident Evil: Requiem handles its difficulty settings. I started on the standard setting, but I love that the game offers different modes that can bring the difficulty down if you need it and just want to experience the story a bit more easily. It gives you a bit of help with aiming and makes resources like herbs and ammo just a little less scarce – but don’t get me wrong, it’s still challenging where it needs to be.
From everything I’ve read online – again, I haven’t played a Resident Evil game in a while – Resident Evil: Requiem is basically one giant fan service, and you can feel that love in every room. Even with my limited experience, mostly just foggy memories of the Spencer Mansion and Raccoon City, I definitely caught a few of the nods and callbacks. Seeing certain locations re-imagined with 2026 tech felt like catching up with an old friend you haven’t seen in twenty years. That said, while I had a blast, I think having played the stuff I missed (like Resident Evil 4 or Resident Evil: Village) would have made the story beats even more entertaining. From what I understand, there are clearly some deep-cut references and character returns in here that went over my head, though. It’s a testament to the writing that I still cared, even if I didn’t know the full family tree of the villains.
I’d highly recommend Resident Evil: Requiem to any gamer, even if you’ve been out of the loop like me and just want a high-quality “re-entry” point into the genre. But if you’re one of those people who has played every single game in the series from start to finish? This is a no-brainer.
Have you played it? Let us know what you think in the comments!
