Midway by means of 2025’s Summer season Recreation Fest, Resident Evil govt producer Jun Takeuchi popped on-screen to acknowledge the anticipation of Resident Evil 9’s reveal. “Bear with us just a little longer,” he stated. “Only a blink of an eye fixed extra, and it will be prepared.” And he wasn’t kidding. By the top of the present, RE9, or Requiem as we now understand it, was revealed, pulling the rug from below our collective toes. The trailer had raised quite a few questions: Is the brand new protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft from Resident Evil Outbreak? Does it happen in a post-bombing, quarantined Raccoon Metropolis? And, most significantly, is it first- or third-person? In one other shock twist, I used to be in a position to get hands-on with the sport for about 20 minutes, and whereas I received just a few solutions, I left with extra questions.
Having now performed a really small portion of the sport, there’s not less than one query I can instantly reply: It is third- and first-person. At any level whereas enjoying, you possibly can pause the sport and change from one perspective to a different everytime you see match, in contrast to Resident Evil Village, which added third-person post-launch and required you to begin a separate save file to play it. Although I want switching views might have been achieved with the press of a button, that is nonetheless a marked enchancment. Moreover, it’s totally clear that Capcom wished Requiem to really feel simply nearly as good in third-person because it does in its current remakes of RE 2, 3, and 4. That is particularly obvious in Requiem’s cutscenes which might be directed cinematically, seeing Grace work together inside the scene, against Biohazard and Village, which by no means broke that first-person perspective. That stated, first-person remains to be really useful by the sport.
For this hands-on, I selected to play it in its really useful first-person perspective. Nonetheless, I took a second to change to third-person, and it felt very comfy and similar to the current RE remakes. It is a far cry from Village’s third-person mode, which did all it might to nonetheless hinder protagonist Ethan Winters’ face from ever being seen. Usually, I choose third-person Resident Evil, however the part I performed felt extra appropriately fitted to first (which I am going to clarify momentarily). Whether or not or not some sections later within the recreation shall be higher fitted to one perspective over the opposite, we’ll have to attend and see. If time had allowed it throughout my transient hands-on, I might have performed the demo once more solely in third-person simply to see. However alas.
The demo started with Grace Ashcroft, an FBI technical analyst and new protagonist to the franchise, strapped the wrong way up to a gurney. With no context to what led to this second, Grace was simply as distressed and confused as I used to be, however finally she makes use of all her may to interrupt free. As Grace, I investigated the room, which seemed to be an upscale medical facility–one that felt a century previous with ornate wood furnishings and tasteful wallpaper. It prompt to me that it wasn’t a hospital, however perhaps an in-house medical middle, probably one inside a mansion.
With no thought why I used to be there or the place I used to be alleged to go, I used to be compelled to maneuver by means of pitch-black hallways, looking for my means. I might work together with mild switches and lamps (a stage of interactivity hardly ever seen in earlier entries and which I believe will play an even bigger position all through the sport), however a fuse had blown. Typical. I got here to a number of lifeless ends that have been masked in darkness and made it incapable of transferring ahead with out mild. This felt simplest in first-person, as experiencing the darkness up-close triggered a way of claustrophobia and tension–a sensation I do not assume can be as efficient if I had performed all of it in third-person.
As to be anticipated, finally I discovered a locked door, a key to open it, after which a lighter to see my means by means of the darkness. Oh, and a terrifying kids’s ebook a couple of lady with huge eyes that watches you in the dead of night, in fact. The lighter was an instrumental instrument, a la Resident Evil Code: Veronica, performing as a key in and of itself for the once-inaccessible darkish areas, permitting me to go scavenging for a fuse to repair the lights and get the hell out of there. That’s till I got here face-to-face with the massive unhealthy, bug-eyed girl. And belief me, that is no Girl Dimitrescu. As an alternative she’s a disturbing and grotesque show of a humanoid creature with big arresting eyes who seeks to raise you in her mitts and actually gnaw in your cranium. This seems to be Requiem’s Mr. X, Jack Baker, or Girl D equal on this space. I snuck across the surroundings, making near-death maneuvers to inch across the small rooms to come up with a fuse.
Whereas it induced controller-gripping stress, all of it felt very acquainted to me–a déjà vu impact bringing me again to Resident Evil Village’s Home of Beneviento. Like within the unbelievable second from Village, I used to be stripped of weapons with no method to defend myself and compelled to navigate darkish, slender hallways, whereas making an attempt to outsmart a terrifying beast. This acquainted feeling of I’ve-been-here-before felt like a distinction from how Capcom has been angling the sport. Throughout Summer season Recreation Fest, host Geoff Keighley stated the sport “marks a daring shift for the franchise, each in tone and gameplay, and at the moment’s reveal is not nearly survival horror. Anticipate high-stakes cinematic motion, too.” None of that was displayed in my hands-on preview, nonetheless.
I perceive that this can be a sliver of the sport and doesn’t signify the complete expertise. However as a gameplay reveal, this transient hands-on left me neither shocked, nor underwhelmed, however slightly unfazed. There wasn’t sufficient there for me to have a transparent thought of the daring new route it is claimed to be heading in. Even with the brand new protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, there wasn’t sufficient there to get a grasp on what sort of character she is. As an FBI technical analyst, it is unclear whether or not she has area coaching to defend herself with weapons, probably making this a extra grounded, stealth-focused expertise. That’s, except there are different playable protagonists. In any case, that would not be a primary for recreation director Kōshi Nakanishi, who additionally helmed Resident Evil: Revelations, which noticed you switching between protagonists all through the sport. Moreover, there is a line in Requiem’s trailer that sounds very very similar to Leon Kennedy, voiced by Nick Apostolides. However in fact, this is not confirmed. Time will inform.
Contemplating its very reveal at Summer season Recreation Fest was a bait-and-switch, with Keighley setting it as much as be from an all-new studio, just for it to disclose itself as RE9 over a minute in, might be emblematic of Requiem’s tone, probably toying with participant expectations round each nook.
Resident Evil: Biohazard was a tough 180 from RE6, and whereas Village wasn’t as stark a maneuver from RE7, it took Biohazard’s core gameplay and thrust it right into a horror-sized theme park. Biohazard might have returned the sport to its sluggish and dread-inducing roots, however Village injected Resident Evil 4’s survive-by-your-teeth motion. And now having performed Requiem for 20-25 minutes, there’s nonetheless no telling what Capcom has deliberate for its subsequent installment. All I can say is, even with the sense of déjà vu, I am on the sting of my seat ready for February 26, 2026, when the sport is anticipated to launch on PS5, Xbox Sequence X|S, and PC.
