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Capcom has spent years moving the Resident Evil series between claustrophobic survival horror and action-heavy spectacle. Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth mainline installment, attempts to bring those two identities together by dividing the campaign between newcomer Grace Ashcroft and returning agent Leon S. Kennedy. The result is a polished and frequently frightening game that understands the strengths of both modern and classic Resident Evil.
Released on February 27, 2026, Resident Evil Requiem is available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC. It is powered by the RE ENGINE and was designed as a single-player survival horror game rather than a cooperative or online-focused entry.
Two distinctive but complementary protagonists
Excellent lighting, environmental detail, and facial animation
Tense resource management in Grace's chapters
Responsive and satisfying combat in Leon's sections
Flexible first-person and third-person camera options
Focused pacing without excessive optional content
The transition between horror and action can feel abrupt
Some locations and mechanics are heavily influenced by earlier games
The story moves slowly in places
Players seeking a consistently frightening campaign may find Leon's sections too action-oriented
A Dual-Protagonist Story With Two Different Priorities
Resident Evil Requiem follows Grace Ashcroft, an FBI analyst investigating mysterious deaths connected to survivors of the Raccoon City incident. Her investigation eventually overlaps with the work of Leon S. Kennedy, the experienced government agent who has appeared in several previous games. The campaign alternates between them instead of offering two completely separate scenarios.
This structure allows Capcom to give each character a different mechanical identity. Grace is inexperienced in direct combat and frequently has limited ammunition, healing supplies, and inventory space. Her chapters prioritize exploration, puzzles, stealth, and decisions about whether an enemy is worth fighting. Leon arrives with more weapons, greater physical ability, and a combat system designed around aggressive encounters.
The contrast is effective because it changes how familiar environments are interpreted. A corridor that feels dangerous while controlling Grace can become an opportunity for a direct confrontation when revisited as Leon. Previously opened drawers, completed puzzles, and defeated enemies also help connect the two perspectives, giving the campaign a stronger sense of continuity.
However, the division is not completely seamless. Resident Evil Requiem sometimes feels like two related games placed inside the same campaign. The slower horror sections and the explosive action chapters are individually compelling, but switching between them can interrupt the atmosphere just as one style begins to build momentum.
Grace's chapters represent the most traditional survival horror side of Resident Evil Requiem. Her restricted inventory and relatively limited combat skills make every supply meaningful. Players must decide what to carry, when to use ammunition, and whether avoiding a threat is safer than trying to eliminate it.
The game also uses Grace's lack of field experience to support its atmosphere. Her movements and reactions communicate anxiety, while her combat is less controlled than Leon's. This makes potentially ordinary encounters more uncomfortable because the player cannot assume that every enemy can be handled through superior firepower.
Stealth is useful without turning the game into a dedicated stealth title. Grace can crouch, move carefully, hide beneath certain objects, and avoid enemies that cannot be defeated with conventional weapons. These mechanics work best when combined with the series' traditional locked doors, interconnected rooms, item puzzles, and limited safe areas.
The horror is not based entirely on sudden appearances. Dim lighting, disturbing environmental details, narrow passages, and uncertainty about nearby threats create a persistent sense of danger. Grace's chapters are consequently the most convincing parts of the campaign for players who preferred the vulnerability of Resident Evil 7 biohazard or the opening sections of Resident Evil Village.
Leon's sections move closer to the action-oriented design associated with Resident Evil 4. He has access to a broader selection of weapons and can use physical attacks, parries, axes, and enemy equipment. His larger inventory and combat experience encourage players to confront enemies rather than quietly search for an escape route.
The change in tone is substantial, but the combat remains tense. Larger enemy groups, limited opportunities to reposition, and the need to judge when to use powerful weapons stop most encounters from becoming effortless. Leon feels capable without making resource management completely irrelevant.
His chapters are likely to appeal to players who enjoyed the Resident Evil 4 remake. Attacks have a strong sense of impact, movement is responsive, and combat spaces provide enough flexibility for players to improvise. These sections also prevent the campaign from relying on the same pattern of hiding and careful exploration for its entire running time.
The drawback is that Leon's confidence naturally reduces the fear factor. Monsters that seem overwhelming during Grace's chapters can become manageable obstacles when the player receives better weapons and defensive options. This is clearly an intentional contrast, but it means the campaign does not maintain one consistent level of horror.
Resident Evil Requiem supports both first-person and third-person viewpoints. The game recommends first-person for Grace's horror-focused sections and third-person for Leon's combat-heavy chapters, but players can select either perspective for both characters.
First-person enhances immersion and makes Grace's limited awareness more intimidating. It brings environmental details closer to the player and makes it more difficult to see threats approaching from the sides. Third-person provides better spatial awareness, which is especially useful when Leon is dealing with groups of enemies or preparing close-range attacks.
Offering both options is more than an accessibility convenience. It allows players to adjust the style of the entire experience. Those who experience motion discomfort in first-person can remain in third-person, while players seeking maximum tension can use first-person throughout the campaign.
Visually, Resident Evil Requiem is one of the most detailed games built with the RE ENGINE. Lighting, facial animation, hair rendering, and environmental surfaces have received noticeable improvements over Resident Evil Village. The outdoor areas are particularly impressive, while some interior spaces reuse familiar visual ideas and level-design patterns.
On PC, the game provides controls for textures, meshes, shadows, reflections, ambient occlusion, ray tracing, and path tracing. It also supports technologies including NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR. Path tracing can substantially improve the lighting, but it is demanding enough that most players will need upscaling or powerful hardware to maintain stable performance.
Rasterized performance is considerably more practical. Testing from specialist PC outlets found that older high-end graphics cards could maintain more than 60 frames per second at 1080p with maximum conventional settings, although performance becomes more demanding at higher resolutions or after enabling advanced ray-traced effects.
The PC version also performs a short shader-compilation process at startup. Technical testing reported generally smooth traversal after compilation, without persistent shader or traversal stutter. Individual results will still vary according to hardware, drivers, resolution, and graphics settings.
Resident Evil Requiem keeps its puzzles closely connected to exploration. Players locate objects, inspect items, unlock new paths, and return to previously visited rooms with additional information. Grace handles most of the slower investigative sequences, while Leon's chapters use lighter puzzle elements between combat encounters.
The campaign is relatively focused. One published review completed it in approximately 10 hours and praised the absence of unnecessary fetch quests or extended stealth sequences. Completion time will naturally vary with difficulty, exploration, puzzle-solving speed, and familiarity with the series.
That restraint is generally an advantage. Rooms and encounters usually have a clear purpose, and the game avoids using a large open world to extend its length. The disadvantage is that players expecting a substantially broader experience than recent Resident Evil releases may find the structure conservative.
The latest Resident Evil does not completely reinvent the series. Grace's vulnerability recalls Resident Evil 7 biohazard, while Leon's combat draws heavily from Resident Evil 4. Its interconnected locations, limited supplies, and investigative puzzles also retain ideas that have defined the franchise since its earlier installments.
This familiarity is both a strength and a weakness. Capcom uses proven systems with considerable confidence, producing a refined campaign with few serious mechanical problems. At the same time, experienced players may recognize too many encounters, environments, and narrative techniques from previous games for Resident Evil Requiem to feel revolutionary.
Critical reception has nevertheless been strongly positive. Resident Evil Requiem holds a Metascore of 89 based on 135 critic reviews on Metacritic, while other major reviews praised its visual presentation and combination of survival horror with action.
Resident Evil Requiem is easy to recommend to players who enjoy modern survival horror. It delivers careful exploration, threatening enemies, environmental puzzles, and limited-resource decision-making without abandoning the faster combat that has become an important part of the series.
New players can follow the central campaign without mastering every previous storyline, but returning fans will understand more of the references to Raccoon City and Leon's history. Players who only enjoy pure horror should be aware that a significant part of the game emphasizes combat, while action-focused players may find Grace's slower sections deliberately restrictive.
PC users should also choose visual settings realistically. The standard rendering modes provide attractive graphics and reasonable performance across a range of hardware, but path tracing should be treated as a premium option rather than an essential part of the presentation.
Resident Evil Requiem succeeds because it does not force horror and action into the same mechanical template. Grace's vulnerability creates the campaign's most frightening moments, while Leon provides energetic combat and a satisfying sense of power. The resulting tonal shifts are occasionally awkward, but both sides are polished enough to justify the experiment.
It may not transform survival horror in the way that certain earlier entries did, yet it offers one of the most complete summaries of what modern Resident Evil does well. Strong visual design, flexible camera options, focused pacing, and two complementary protagonists make it a worthwhile release for horror fans and longtime followers of the series.
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