Kyle Cave

Staff Writer

“Resident Evil Requiem” is a game in the series that takes a different approach to its style. Normally, “Resident Evil” games are usually either more horror-oriented or more action-oriented. “Requiem” decides to take these two well-known styles and combine them like two green herbs.

In “Requiem,” there are two main characters you play as: Grace Ashcroft, who is the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft from the “Resident Evil: Outbreak” games, and returning character Leon S. Kennedy. I won’t get into much plot details, as that can spoil the game.

To give a brief synopsis of the plot, Grace and Leon are investigating strange deaths occurring due to a new Virus variant that turns people into zombies. Grace is an FBI agent who gets sent to the crime scene, and the plot goes from there.

In “Requiem,” you control Grace & Leon in different sections of the game. Both characters can be played in a first-person or third-person perspective to one’s liking. Grace’s gameplay is more horror-oriented. She has fewer resources, mostly uses pistols and throughout most of the game is pursued by a monster.

Leon’s gameplay style is very action-oriented. He can do a variety of things to the zombies in the game.

For example, Leon gets an axe he can perform executions with. You can shoot a zombie in the leg, and Leon will sometimes perform a very detailed axe kill. Leon can also kick zombies, as he could in “Resident Evil 4.” However, he can do a bit more than the previous game. The zombies can bump into other zombies, walls, objects etc.

If a zombie is pit against a wall, Leon could perform an execution and smash the zombie’s head into it. Zombies in the game can also use objects such as axes, pipes, shovels etc. Leon could take items if dropped and throw them at zombies and even perform executions with them. The parry mechanic from the previous “Resident Evil 4 Remake” also makes a comeback, with Leon being able to parry enemy attacks.

The biggest gameplay weapon Leon could use that fans loved are chainsaws. In “Resident Evil 4” Leon must kill several enemies who chase him with a chainsaw. This was present in both the original and the remake. Now this time, things come full circle as Leon can pick up enemy chainsaws and use them on the enemies.

The boss fights in this game were all very fun and adrenaline-rushing. There’s not one boss in this game I did not enjoy fighting.

In the first half of the game as Grace feels like the freshest survival horror game you could play. It’s very tense, has zombies with personalities who can talk, a scary stalker enemy and a good gameplay loop. In the second half of the game, “Requiem” starts to run into some issues I’ll briefly talk about without spoilers.

In the second half of “Requiem,” you go back to “Raccoon City” as Leon. Which is where he had his first debut as a character in the series. Raccoon City was destroyed in “Resident Evil 3” due to how bad the situation was getting with the zombies and monsters in the city. Raccoon City was a cool location to go back to, but not everything you do in Raccoon City is great.

For example, when you first get to Raccoon City in “Requiem,” the game makes you get detonator parts to blow up a gate to progress the story. In finding these parts, you get to explore a destroyed Raccoon City to get these parts. Personally, I did not mind exploring Raccoon City ruins. However, the exploration for these parts can get very redundant.

Of course, on repeat play-throughs, this can be done faster, but it took me over 2 hours to get these detonator parts. And in this long amount of time, there’s not many callbacks to earlier “Resident Evil” titles with Raccoon City in them.

I didn’t want this game to be an “Avengers: Endgame” scenario where there’s a big team-up of older characters fighting the villains. However, I would have liked a bit more references to the older games in this detonator section that could have made this part a bit more engaging.

Without spoiling, after this section, there is quite a bit of fan service in the game. I think most of it is great. However, I think some of the fan service could have been handled a bit better with certain things. I also wish there were a bit more fan service with certain characters and things.

Overall, “Resident Evil Requiem” is a fantastic entry in the series that you will have fun with, and that will most certainly scare you. However, the second half of the game has more problems than the first half. Despite these issues, I can confidently call “Resident Evil Requiem” an amazing entry.

Score: 9/10

“Resident Evil Requiem” is out now available on all platforms.