It has been a long wait, and finally, Resident Evil Requiem is almost upon us (just roughly a day away from the release of this review, in fact). No doubt, this game has been so anticipated by fans, and before I even got the review copy of this game, I can HONESTLY say I couldn’t stop thinking of this game, especially after the initial experiences I had with it. As of today, I have personally released 3 articles on Resident Evil Requiem, where I have shared my thoughts on the game. What I personally find amazing is how different my perspectives have been with this game with each one.
First, there were my impressions based on the Tokyo Game Show 2025 15-minute demo, where I expressed my excitement about how the game seemingly had a new approach to fear. Next, I had a 3-hour Hands-on Preview, which I experienced a few months later after the TGS demo, where I got a closer look at the differences between the gameplay experiences of Grace and Leon, and finally, I am now able to give you my thoughts on the full game, which… has kinda changed also from those initial 2 impressions.
For context, I was able to do a full playthrough of the game at Standard (Modern) difficulty, which lasted around 10-12 hours or maybe even a bit more since I did reload at times to do a semi-completionist run, trying to scour every nook and cranny as I could to get as many collectibles as possible. With all that said, this is my Resident Evil Requiem Review.
I’ll start by answering the first question everyone is probably asking: “Is it good?” Yes, it is. “Is the game worth getting?” Yes, it is. Heck, I’ll even use this first part of the review to reiterate the parts of my first two impressions that have stayed quite similar and to reinforce what most of you already know at this point. RE9 is indeed absolute cinema, and, truth be told, this was just a gorgeous game and, when it came to setting the mood of horror, the game’s graphics really did go a long way here. The game does a really good job of playing with elements of darkness and gore to set the overall vibe of the environment. As I played through the various parts of the game, I couldn’t really help but sometimes just be in awe of how great this game looked. There were places in the game that just looked so unsettling because of the amount of detail they placed. Next, just as I found out in my 3-hour preview, I can confirm that the gameplay of Leon vs Grace is indeed quite distinct.
Throughout the game, when you are playing as Grace, you are experiencing gameplay that’s very reminiscent of RE1, RE2, and the first parts of RE7. She is all about survival horror. You do a lot of resource management, and you have to really play things smart. You can’t just kill everything without thinking things through, or you’re just asking for trouble. Do you run through the zombies? Is it more beneficial to kill this particular set since this is a place you run through a lot? Do you use your handgun and knife, or will this be the time you tap into your precious Requiem Ammo? Are you placing X and Y items in the stash first because you have the inventory capacity of a person who brought a fanny pack to a mountain hike, because God knows, it’s a pain in the *** when you get to a point where there are a lot of item pick-ups, and you don’t have the inventory space for any of them? These are the types of decisions you’ll be making while you’re playing as Grace. As Leon… hehe RIP zombies. This is where the DNA of RE4, RE5, the latter parts of RE7, and RE8 start peeking out. Well, at least in the first part.
Now, let’s get to the new info.
When you play the full game, it will FULLY DAWN ON YOU how different the gameplay of Grace and Leon is. Sure, there’s the perspective (first person vs third person), but hey, those can be changed in the settings. And like I said, Grace – Survival Horror vs Leon – Action. But there is also one key gameplay difference between the two, and that’s your inventory. I found out in the 3-hour preview that Grace has limited inventory, while Leon has like the suitcase like he did in RE4. However, it was only during me playing the full game that I found out that Leon DOESN’T HAVE A STORAGE CHEST. Yeah, you read that right. Leon carries EVERYTHING on-hand, while Grace has full use of the Chest of Holding, which follows you in every safe room.
But hey, you may think “well, that doesn’t sound so bad if he has like massive inventory space”, right? Well, sure, but then you also find out that items take up space differently in Leon and Grace’s inventory. Grace may just have like 10-16 inventory slots, but her guns literally take up one slot each. Green herb? One slot. Ammo? One slot per type (up to a certain quantity limit, then it’ll use another slot for anything over that). Leon, though? Almost everything takes up multiple slots.
For context, the Requiem takes up one slot in her inventory. The Requiem in Leon’s inventory, on the other hand, takes up SIX. Green herbs take up 2 slots per piece. So yes, Leon has a lot of inventory space to start, but that slowly becomes problematic when Leon also carries gear that can probably supply a small army. So inventory management will be an issue for both, but in different ways.
Next, I’m happy to confirm to everyone that the Devs weren’t lying when they said that Leon and Grace would (roughly) have the same playthrough times. This is because the first area is very Grace-centric with splashes of Leon in terms of gameplay. When you finally move to Raccoon City, the game becomes more Leon-centric with splashes of Grace. It’s here where you now feel the gameplay differences between the two in terms of style. I said earlier that Leon’s gameplay was RIP Zombies, right? At least in the first part. See that qualifier? Yeah, because that all changes later in the game.
In the Leon-centric areas, zombies have suddenly become bullet sponges. In the medical facility, my personal style was to knee-cap zombies to make them kneel, do a melee attack, then finish them off with a knife or headshots while they are prone. I figured that this was very ammo efficient as it would usually only take a single bullet (in a few circumstances, it would be like 2 or 3) to the knee to make them kneel, and then I figured that the action prompt was free bullet-less damage, and it would also temporarily neutralize them, so I could finish them off more safely. In Leon’s areas, zombies would take like 4 or maybe even like 6 to kneel down. Then you would also start dealing with zombies with armor and even guns. So this is how the action really ramps up, and Leon gets nerfed during his parts of the game. Also, it’s worth mentioning that in Leon’s areas, you are actually REWARDED for killing things more because each kill becomes a type of currency that you can use to buy/upgrade your weaponry.
Next, I wanna quickly discuss the story as this did kind of affect my overall review score of the game. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil anything. I will also preface this by saying that THERE IS A CHANCE that I’m just not understanding the plot correctly, so, in that case, this is just a me problem. However, I will say that I finished the story with a lot of question marks in my head. These are the types of questions that were like “eh? but why did this happen earlier?” and “wait, so how does <earlier event> make sense if this was the case?” I guess what I’m trying to say is that the story wrapped up in a way that made me question a few things. Granted, MAYBE these will be addressed in a DLC, but it was a small wrinkle in the experience I had.
Because I will double down and say the gameplay experience of Resident Evil Requiem is indeed GREAT. It’s the RE stuff fans love packaged into one. If you missed the survival horror stuff, you have the Grace sections for that. If you loved that cathartic “well, FU too, zombies” action that Leon is known for in RE4, you got that too, complete with his one-liners and all the aura farming you want.
In my 3-hour preview, I said that I was afraid that Leon would trivialize Grace’s parts, but now that I’ve played through the whole game, I can say that this wasn’t the case. In the first part, Leon felt like a cathartic tension release because the powerlessness you feel during Grace’s parts can weigh down on you after a while. The switches to Leon felt good to alleviate that feeling and would fuel you towards the next parts of the game. In the latter parts of the game, Leon loses the feeling of being OP because his struggle in Raccoon City becomes an entirely different level of intensity. So while Leon was like an action-god in the medical facility, it makes sense because that’s reminiscent of the early stages of infection that was the case during the earlier RE games. In Raccoon City, Leon faces things that have mutated to hell, so him struggling here also makes logical sense. The game’s pacing is good, and the return to Raccoon City will give long-time fans some really nice Easter Eggs and doses of nostalgia. Overall, this was truly an enjoyable game to play.
There are only 2 things that bog down the game, in my opinion. One (which I already mentioned earlier) was some of the story beat resolutions. The second would be the expectations that were set by the dev team before the game even came out. First off, ‘Addictive Fear’ was mentioned as what the theme of Resident Evil Reqiuem would be, but I would honestly say that I didn’t really feel that as much. Grace’s parts would have horror aspects to them, but I wouldn’t really say that it was enough to make it the central theme of the game, especially since you can kiss the fear aspects of the game goodbye during Leon’s parts (at least in my opinion).
Because of how much this was discussed, I did find myself kind of looking for it in the game, but I didn’t really find it. The way the game was marketed made me expect that I was going to see something new, that maybe RE was finally going to dial up the horror by a lot. What we got was more of the usual Resident Evil, but, to the game’s credit, it was an RE experience that was very well-executed. Once again, the game in itself is great, but this was just another small wrinkle that I encountered.
Final Verdict: 8.5/10
Resident Evil Requiem features some nice little gameplay surprises here and there, but also doesn’t really change up the formula as much as the hype leading up to it may have implied. But nothing can take away the fact that what Resident Evil Requiem does what Resident Evil does in probably the best way possible. It is indeed a title that new fans can get into without any problems, and what long-time fans will be overjoyed to return to. The visuals of the game do look fantastic, and there are some scenes that will live on in my head for a very long time. After playing the game to completion, I kinda am excited to see what more the RE team can do with the other characters for future RE titles, if they choose to make more.
Resident Evil Requiem launches on February 27, 2026, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.