Leon receives more attention, when Grace should indeed be the focus.
**Spoilers for Resident Evil Requiem are below.**
Resident Evil celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Featuring a rich history, the new Resident Evil Requiem is the ninth mainline game. However, it includes numerous spinoffs, remakes, movies, and even a TV show, making it interesting for fans but daunting for newcomers like me. Resident Evil Requiem attempts to cater to both by featuring a new character, Grace Ashcroft, an FBI agent, alongside fan-favorite action hero Leon Kennedy.
Initially, this blend works: the first half of Resident Evil Requiem stands as an exceptionally fresh horror game. Yet, as the game progresses, it gets weighed down by Resident Evil’s history.
Throughout Requiem’s first half, the balance between Grace and Leon is nearly perfect. Most of the time is spent playing as Grace, requiring thoughtful movements due to her limited tools. I was consistently tense as I navigated a medical facility’s corridors, barely evading horrors, including “the girl” and a large zombie with a butcher knife. Despite ties to past games, Grace’s narrative stands alone, freeing me from worrying about missed lore while surviving.
Switching to brief segments as Leon allowed me to easily overcome enemies that Grace couldn’t handle. Leon’s battle experience, acquired across prior Resident Evil outings, offered a hefty sense of relief, particularly when I swiftly dealt with the butcher knife zombie using my shotgun. Still, I soon found myself back as Grace, gripped by terror, anxiously awaiting a chance to play as Leon again for a momentary respite.
Back-and-forth gameplay continued until, after a fulfilling confrontation with the girl, Grace mysteriously departs with a new antagonist who appears abruptly, forcing players into Leon’s shoes as he pursues Grace in Raccoon City. Longtime enthusiasts know Raccoon City as a pivotal series location; it was Leon’s post in Resident Evil 2 and was later obliterated by a nuclear strike to contain a zombie outbreak.
In Requiem, significant time is spent traversing the now desolate Raccoon City, including the ruined police station where Leon’s story began. Yet, without alternating between Grace and Leon, the experience mirrors a drawn-out action film. There are nods to past entries, such as Leon reflecting on a solved puzzle, which might resonate with ardent fans but left me indifferent. Having played only Resident Evil 7, Village, and both iterations of Resident Evil 4, the nostalgia failed to resonate, merely presenting more hurdles en route to reunite with Grace for genuine horror.
The final main area, a high-tech lab, provided some intrigue, particularly with renewed character switching. But for a game starting with Grace as the primary figure, it felt unsatisfactory that Leon assumed dominance, even defeating the game’s final adversary. (The boss itself was underwhelming—a massive plant-like zombie with conspicuous red boils for easy targeting.)
The latter half was a decline from what promised to be a favorite horror title. Perhaps with Resident Evil 2 under my belt, I’d perceive Requiem differently. Due to Requiem’s reliance on Leon nostalgia, what began as a dual-character asset turned into a drawback by its conclusion.