>>FULL REVIEW
Grace made me afraid of a hallway.
Leon made me want to clear the entire building.
Resident Evil Requiem somehow builds a full game around those two completely different feelings. At first I was not sure the split would work. Survival horror loses something when the game gives you too much power. Action gets frustrating when every bullet feels like it belongs in a retirement account.
Requiem lets both styles have their turn.
Grace Ashcroft is not another unstoppable action hero walking into a zombie outbreak like she already read the strategy guide. She is an FBI analyst who looks exactly as uncomfortable with the situation as I would be. Her sections are slower and far more stressful. Ammunition matters. Escape routes matter. A noise behind you matters.
I spent a lot of her playtime opening doors like there was a decent chance the room itself hated me.
The environments support that paranoia. Light barely reaches certain corners. Old equipment hums in otherwise silent rooms. Something moves where I thought I had already checked. The game rarely needs to throw an enemy directly at the screen because waiting for one is sometimes worse.
Grace’s limited experience also makes every small victory feel useful. Finding ammunition is a relief. Solving a puzzle creates an actual sense of progress. Reaching a safer room feels like earning a break instead of simply entering the next checkpoint.
Then Leon arrives and the mood changes immediately.
He has survived enough outbreaks to know that sometimes the correct solution is shooting the horrible thing until it stops moving. His combat is faster and heavier. Enemies that made me hide as Grace became targets I wanted to test weapons against.
That switch should destroy the tension.
Instead it feels like finally being allowed to fight back after spending hours getting bullied by the dark.
Leon is still Leon. He walks into impossible situations with enough confidence to make terrible decisions look reasonable. The one-liners return. The ridiculous survivability returns. So does the feeling that every normal door will eventually lead to a collapsing building or a monster that clearly ignored several laws of biology.
The action is great because enemies are not simple bullet sponges. Shots damage specific parts of their bodies and change how they move. Taking out a leg can create breathing room. Removing an arm may limit an attack. A shotgun blast at close range delivers exactly the disgusting result you would expect from an M-rated Resident Evil game.
It is nasty.
It is also extremely satisfying.
The choice between first-person and third-person helps both sides of the game. First-person makes Grace’s sections more uncomfortable because everything feels too close. Third-person gives better awareness during combat and carries the familiar feel of the recent remakes.
I liked having the option instead of Capcom deciding there was only one correct way to experience it.
Returning to Raccoon City could have felt like cheap nostalgia. The series has spent decades pulling material from the same disaster. Requiem mostly earns the return by presenting the city as a wound that never really closed. The familiar references are there but the place does not feel preserved for a fan tour.
It feels dead.
There are moments clearly designed to make longtime fans point at the screen. Some worked on me. Others felt like the game was waiting for applause. Thankfully the actual locations and story carry enough weight that the experience does not depend entirely on recognizing old names.
The sound may be doing even more work than the visuals. Footsteps have just enough variation to make me question whether they belong to my character. Enemies make horrible noises before I know where they are. Weapons sound powerful without making every room feel like an action movie.
Playing with headphones is the best way to experience it.
It is also a terrible decision if you enjoy being comfortable.
The story kept me interested because Grace and Leon approach the same nightmare from opposite ends. Grace is trying to understand what happened. Leon already understands enough to know how bad it can get. Their paths gradually connect the newer story with the history of the series without requiring a full Resident Evil education beforehand.
The plot does get shakier near the end. Revelations start arriving faster. The balance shifts toward action. A few boss fights look more impressive than they actually are to play. I also preferred when Grace and Leon felt closer to equal parts of the game.
Performance is generally strong considering how detailed the game looks. Character faces are uncomfortably realistic. Hair reacts naturally. Gore has more detail than any reasonable person requested. Lighting makes ordinary rooms look dangerous before anything even happens.
There are occasional rough spots and the Nintendo Switch 2 version obviously makes more visual sacrifices than the stronger systems. The fact that the full game works there at all is still impressive.
Requiem is not perfect but it understands why different generations of Resident Evil fans love different games in the series. Some want the helpless fear of Resident Evil 7. Some want the confident action of Resident Evil 4. Some want puzzles and inventory management. Others just want Leon to suplex something that should not have a neck.
WHO THIS IS FOR
Players who want tense survival horror with puzzles and limited resources but still enjoy the heavier action side of modern Resident Evil.
SKIP IT IF
You dislike gore, resource management, backtracking, sudden tonal changes, or games that intentionally make you feel weak before finally letting you fight back.
