Reviewed on PC

The Resident Evil series has seen a ton of games come and go as time moves on. We have seen some of the best entries and some of the worst show up on our radars. But since the Seventh entry and Remake games, the series has seemingly tried its best to keep itself on track for the fans. Resident Evil Requiem finally made its debut for fans, showing us two different perspectives during the story and giving us the tale through the eyes of Grace and Leon.

Fighting For The Future

Taking place 28 years after we had seen Raccoon City’s destruction back in the events of Resident Evil 2. Excluding movies, this marks Leon’s first big role in the series since Resident Evil 6, with his portions of the game being vastly different from the ones we see when playing as Grace. Both of these characters are in this situation for very different reasons.

Leon is looking for answers and tracking down people with ties to Umbrella. Survivors of Raccoon City are suddenly dying, and Leon views this as a personal mission to save as many of them as he can. Grace, also investigating these deaths, is tossed into this conflict in an instant. Leon is fighting to protect and cure those affected 28 years ago, while Grace is fighting to survive.

At first, there are brief sections for both Grace and Leon. Grace is sent to investigate another murder, while Leon is going on to investigate the same string of deaths due to the T-Virus having a late-onset infection. As Leon is directed towards Victor Gideon, the game takes off. With Grace left to fend for herself while the monstrosities within the Care Center come for her, and Leon fights through hordes of Zombies in another section of the building. The perspectives will switch a few times before Grace sets the pace for a good portion of the game.

Like most other Resident Evil games, the story here isn’t incredibly in-depth. You have your heroes, and you have your villains that have been working behind the scenes for years. The series isn’t known for its plotlines and twists, but rather known for the overall world-building around them and execution.

Requiem takes notes from the Remake games and the newer sequel games. Lore is spread throughout the set pieces in the game in the form of files you find, with each location providing background information about experiments and events going on before Leon and Grace arrive.

With the game being split between two vastly different perspectives, you might expect that the difference can be quite jarring. However, this combination is surprisingly well done and works really well. Grace goes through some sections more comparable to Resident Evil 7 or Village. You’ll need to be careful and survive the onslaught of horror that she goes through in the Care Center. While Leon’s portions are more of a reflection of Resident Evil 4.

A Blend of Two Games

When you do get to the meat of the game and play as Grace after she meets Leon for the first time, the classic Resident Evil formula comes into swing. Grace must go through, gather keys, and solve puzzles while moving through each portion of the Care Center, while Leon will provide an experience that is more like Resident Evil 4. He scratches the action itch, maintaining his demeanor from his last appearance, while you fight through enemies.

The two switch fairly often. When Grace moves on to a new portion of the map, we then get a snapshot of what Leon is going through. This swapping of perspectives helps the horror portions of Grace’s gameplay even more than one might expect. Grace isn’t like Leon at all, so after you’ve gotten a taste of what Leon is like and how he can mow down zombies like no one’s business, you end up forcing yourself to switch playstyles when the characters change.

Resident Evil Requiem has two completely different gameplay styles. You have the classic horror themes with Grace and action sections with Leon, and they mix in a great way. With the different ways to play meshing into each other and creating a game that rewards you for getting through the true horror moments by allowing you to let loose as Leon and fight your way through the areas like an action hero.

What might be the only downfall of Resident Evil Requiem is the short time frame between start and finish. The series itself isn’t known for the overall length, so this ends up becoming less of an issue. It is a game that leaves you waiting and wanting more, but doesn’t attempt to overstay its welcome.

Amazing Graphics and Performance

This game looks stunning, with tons of attention to detail from the character models all the way down to their animations. Leon looks older and more grizzled, but is not willing to give up on his fight. Grace is the young blood, fresh on the job, and still has a lot to learn.

Tons of details are in the animations themselves, like Leon’s arm unable to brace for the Requiem’s firepower if you shoot before both hands can hold the weapon. If you choose to play as Grace in third-person, you’ll see her frantic animations as she runs away from the bigger and scarier threats that she encounters.

Each of them has a ton of attention to detail when it comes to how they’ve been portrayed, as do the areas. The Care Center doesn’t feel like a place you would go to for rehabilitation at all, with dead ends and cold bars keeping patients within its walls. Raccoon City is a barren wasteland of what it used to be, with remnants of the past still haunting the ground zero of the original outbreak.

Another thing that I think needs to be mentioned is the performance on PC. This tends to be a hangup on many games; something like Monster Hunter Wilds has had issues on PC since its release. However, I am happy to say that Resident Evil Requiem runs incredibly well on a fairly basic rig.

The specs of the rig I used weren’t amazing, with a GTX 3070 GPU, a Ryzen 5 7600X CPU, and 32 GB of RAM. This PC handled the game very well and without significant framerate drops. The experience was smooth and resulted in a seamless and fantastic adventure in the game.

Final Thoughts

This newest entry into the Resident Evil franchise is easily one of the top ones to enter the fray. There is a ton of optional content that you can take on in the form of challenges within the game, offered as soon as you start playing. These can allow you to unlock new weapons and modifiers for you to use in future playthroughs as well. What you have is the full package of a game that has a ton of replay value on top of just being outright fantastic in its own way.

If you are a fan of these games, this is going to be a fantastic treat that will reward you at every step. It is tied to Leon’s lore from Resident Evil 2 and onward, while still giving a new perspective on a new character and giving you a ton of new and enjoyable gameplay to play through. It is easily one of the best games in the series, showing off that the Resident Evil team can still make some horrific zombie magic for fans to play and experience.