Reviews
‘Resident Evil Requiem’ Bridges the Old and New for a Terrifying, Action-Packed Experience [Review]
For the last decade, the Resident Evil franchise has been one that has had its feet in both the past and the future.
Resident Evil 7 pushed the series forward by giving us not only a new perspective, but a new protagonist, everyman Ethan Winters, and a new threat, the Mold. Despite its success, Capcom did not immediately continue from there, instead deciding to go back and remake the classic Resident Evil 2, giving you the characters you know and love with a modern mechanical twist. Since then, we’ve got more games in both these branching paths, all very successful in their own right, continuing to both move the franchise into new places and satisfy fans’ nostalgia.
Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth mainline entry in the series, also embraces this dichotomy. With its dual protagonists, it not only gives us a new face in the franchise lore, Grace Ashcroft, but brings back the legendary Leon Kennedy, assuring new and old fans will have something to grasp onto. There is some tension here, as Requiem at times dives a bit too much into fan service while still wanting to move the overall narrative into new territory, but for the most part, it’s able to give you that classic Resident Evil vibe without being too pandering to the audience.
Credit: Capcom
As you’re doing the initial game settings, one of the more interesting aspects of this game is made immediately apparent. Much like how the “Winters’ Expansion“ for Resident Evil Village allowed you to do, you can play Requiem in either first person or third person, a setting you can change at any time. Importantly, though, the default is that Grace is first person while Leon is third person, setting the tone for the types of experiences you can expect for each character. Grace’s sections feel more like Resident Evil 7, where your limited field of view contributes to a greater sense of tension, while Leon’s feel like Resident Evil 4, more of an action-packed third-person shooter. Going into the game, I was concerned that this would make the game feel disjointed, but the swapping does a great job of matching up with and justifying the normal power curve of a Resident Evil game.
So who is Grace Ashcroft? She’s an entirely new character with a connection to the PS2 online multiplayer title Resident Evil: Outbreak. Her mother, Alyssa, was a reporter who survived the original Racoon City incident as shown in Outbreak, giving you the first taste of the many ties to the original games that Requiem provides. As an analyst for the FBI, Grace is investigating a series of murders that not only lead her right back to the same place Alyssa was murdered years ago, but also put her directly in the path of Leon’s investigation. Right off the bat, you can see how they are seeding this narrative to tie into the long (and pretty convoluted) history of the franchise, going all the way back to the early games.
Credit: Capcom
Grace doesn’t feel like she’s just there as a plot point to reach back into the history, but rather comes across as another strong addition to the pantheon of Resident Evil protagonists. While she’s not as capable in a fight as Leon, her compassion and problem-solving skills bring to life what could have been a pretty simple role. It’s a great balance with Leon, who’s now older but still just as wisecracking, and their dynamic during the times they get to interact feels great.
At the beginning of the game, both of their investigations lead to the Wrenwood Hotel, the aforementioned site of Alyssa’s murder, and this section does an awesome job as a thesis statement for the rest of the game. Here, we’re reintroduced to the classic Resident Evil monster that started it all, the humble zombie. Since their introduction in the original, we’ve seen all sorts of wilder creatures, but smart twists to the formula make them feel new all over again. The Grace section here makes them feel truly scary as you count your extremely limited ammo, and playing as Leon makes them feel like exciting targets that aren’t overly challenging, but can overwhelm you if you’re not careful.
Credit: Capcom
As someone who initially didn’t like Resident Evil 4 because of its switch away from actual zombies, this was a refreshing return to form for me. The way they slowly stagger, making for a harder target, has always worked so well for me in both first and third person. This adds challenge to a relatively behaviorally simple enemy, but Requiem adds a neat twist that feels relevant to both the gameplay and lore. Many of the zombies here remember some of their past lives as humans, shambling their way through routines that help differentiate them from each other.
One of my favorite examples of this new gimmick was a zombie standing by a light switch muttering, “Lights off.” This was in Grace’s section, so ammo needed to be rationed, which meant tricking him by turning on various lights to move him around the hallway was the way to go. Grace’s parts are full of enemies like this, and it provides variety to the enemies in a manner beyond just making them bigger and more mutated.
Credit: Capcom
Zombies in both parts of the game also have a Crimson Head-like mutation called Blister Heads. It doesn’t feel quite as prevalent or terrifying as it did in the Resident Evil remake, even though it provides the same type of threat – zombie corpses can revive as a tougher version. While Leon can deal with them more easily, I definitely remember times as Grace where they would pursue me nearly all the way across a level, showing up to complicate an encounter after I thought I lost them.
Much like the majority of the newer RE games, Requiem contains a few stalker enemies that menace Grace. These don’t have quite the same personality as the Baker Family, Lady Dimitrescu, or even Mr. X, but they do have their own visual flair to them that makes them creepy. Their size makes them particularly unique and threatening, often feeling like they barely fit in the spaces they occupy as they hunt you through the halls. For me, stalker enemies can be a bit of a mixed bag, as they end up feeling a bit like an obstacle rather than a threat after a while, but these creatures were cleverly used so that they weren’t omnipresent in the whole level, instead reserved for specific sections to keep them fresh.
Credit: Capcom
Speaking of levels, this game features classic survival horror style level design, excellently represented in the Rhodes Hill Care Center, where Grace spends a large part of the game after being kidnapped. This place is textbook Resident Evil, a densely laid out area with new sections unlocking through puzzle solving that always cleverly loops back on itself for easy navigation. It’s my all-time favorite type of level design, as it rewards players’ mastery and familiarity with a location through clever use of non-tedious backtracking. I love the feeling of opening up my map and instantly being able to picture every room while I’m planning my route to an objective, and the Care Center is this feeling perfectly distilled. There are some really fun little puzzles that feel both grounded and absurd, which is a line that the franchise walks perfectly. Most of the other areas in the game are a little bit shorter, but they still exhibit the same level of mastery over design as its centerpiece location.
These places are also presented with a stunning level of graphical fidelity. Right from the start, it blew me away with a gorgeous rainy scene walking through the streets, every element looking sharp as you walked through crowds of people. The character models all look stellar, with the zombies doing some great damage effects as they get blasted away. The more mutated monsters also look equally ghoulish, thanks to a grotesque art style that feels consistent with the series, even if it doesn’t tread as much new ground as I would like it to.
Credit: Capcom
Crafting returns from previous games, with a unique twist on Grace’s end. Instead of having gunpowder to make ammo, she needs to collect infected blood from zombies to be combined with parts to create the items she needs. These can be anything from ammo to health items to the new and extremely useful injector that can be used to blow up zombies or destroy their corpses. This can only be used if you are able to sneak up on them, adding another weapon to her arsenal, albeit one that comes with a good deal of tension.
Leon has the standard gunpowder-and-scrap crafting resources we’ve seen before, which isn’t as thematically fun, but works better for him in context. A fun touch to the game is that when you go into your inventory, Grace has the classic limited slot inventory, while Leon has the RE4-style inventory Tetris, both of which feel appropriate for their specific sections.
In addition to having his own version of the stealth kill, Leon has some tricks up his sleeve that add an extra wrinkle to the combat. Certain enemies will have weapons like spears or axes, and once those are dropped, Leon can pick them up to throw or swing them. It’s a great way to save some ammo during a tense firefight, but it does come with the added risk of having to rush toward the corpse, which is likely surrounded by other enemies. The classic chainsaw shows up again, but this time Leon can get his hands on it. Once you kill the guy wielding it, it spins wildly on the ground for a bit before you can pick it up and swing it yourself. After that RE4 chainsaw guy that’s haunted my dreams forever, it was a great little power fantasy moment for you to be able to finally use it to turn the tables.
Credit: Capcom
While the first half of the game is focused on Grace, once you get past the Care Clinic, the majority of the game is focused on Leon, allowing for some clever twists on the RE4 style of combat. There are some really great setpieces that figure out how to change up the formula in fun ways, keeping it fresh and exciting. I won’t spoil anything because part of the fun of some of these encounters was going into them blind, but there’s one scene in particular that makes great use of the environment that was tactically clever and exceptionally tense.
It’s no big secret, in fact, it’s been a huge part of the marketing for the game, that the story of Requiem will take you back to the ruins of Racoon City. For me, this was part of where the game started to dip a bit for me. It’s the section where the focus on the past is the strongest, and I felt like some of the elements felt like they were a little too much nostalgia-bait for me, added just to make fans point at the screen when they recognize something.
The journey to Racoon City also takes place after a pivotal Grace moment, so switching to Leon for an extended period of time makes that lose a bit of impact. I felt like my momentum in this section was coming from the fact that I wanted to get back to playing as Grace, which made the retreading of the past feel a little more frustrating. This could all come down to personal taste, because this section still had strong encounters and level design to back it up, even if it wasn’t as narratively interesting to me.
Credit: Capcom
Fortunately, the final stretch of the game brings the game to a great conclusion. So many people complain about how Resident Evil games kill the horror by becoming more action-packed by the end, often citing the boat sequence near the conclusion of Resident Evil 7 as a prime offender. While that does happen here, the dual protagonist setup helps keep that from feeling unnatural, allowing that arc to feel like an expected climax. The plot gets a bit in the weeds with Umbrella, and the main villains aren’t the most compelling, but the ending was really clever, with a bit more heart than I’m used to from a Resident Evil game.
Resident Evil Requiem feels like the culmination of how Capcom has been presenting the franchise since its resurgence. They’ve found ways to cleverly tweak the formula of both the first-person and third-person versions of the franchise, allowing it to alternate between terrifying and thrilling to keep the pacing fresh throughout the 14-hour runtime. While it may dip a little too much into the nostalgia pool for my taste, that doesn’t discount the excellent level design, exciting gameplay, and great new twists to the classic lore.
Nine games into the main series, Capcom is proving that Resident Evil still has what it takes to provide top-of-the-class, B-movie style horror.
Code provided by publisher. Resident Evil Requiem launches February 27 for the Nintendo Switch 2, PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and the Xbox Series.
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Reviews
‘The Death of Robin Hood’ Review: Michael Sarnoski’s Ultra-Violent, Dark Subversion of Legend
Myth gets brutally dispatched in The Death of Robin Hood, A Quiet Place: Day One filmmaker Michael Sarnoski‘s dark, loose adaptation of the 17th-century ballad Robin Hood’s Death. The 13th-century outlaw gets a gritty makeover in a subversion of his legendary heroics, forcing a reckoning as Robin Hood seeks peace and death in his final days. Sarnoski’s deconstruction of popularized myth comes forged in shocking violence and poignant introspection, yielding another deeply affecting story of meeting death on your own terms.
The Death of Robin Hood bypasses rehashing the origins of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, instead introducing a grizzled brute who opens the film with a ruthless culling of a young girl seeking vengeance against the outlaw. It’s a downright gentle introduction to Hugh Jackson’s Robin, who only escalates the jaw-dropping carnage when reunited with righthand Little John (Bill Skarsgård) as they seek to reclaim Little John’s home and family from vengeance seekers. These early sequences set up a stark contrast to the Disney-fied legends; Robin Hood’s heroics have been grossly exaggerated compared to the blood debts his violent exploits have racked up over the decades, which in turn have made him a hunted man spanning generations.
Photo Credit: Aidan Monaghan/A24
Grave injuries from battle lands Robin on a remote island priory under the care of Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer, 28 Years Later), where the strange, idyllic community, an enigmatic leper (Murray Bartlett), and a traumatized young girl, Margaret (Faith Delaney), force him to confront his legacy.
Sarnoski, who writes and directs, makes the hero the villain in his adaptation, ensuring a deeply rewarding character arc. At every point in the film, Robin is openly, often actively, seeking death. The stroke of poetic beauty here is that his view of a worthy death seismically shifts from beginning to end. What’s a hero’s death? That answer deepens and evolves along with its “hero” in his waning years. All the impressive survival instincts and battle savagery can’t outmatch or outrun endless cycles of death and loss, after all, despite Robin’s attempts to shrug off his own myth over the years.
Those cycles of violence loom large as a constant threat as the aged outlaw finds himself surrounded by those directly impacted by his past. It breeds conflict, external and internal, reflected in tense encounters and tenuous alliances that let Robin’s humanity slowly slip through his hardened survivor’s shell. It’s the type of role with just enough similarities that’ll draw inevitable comparisons to Hugh Jackman’s stellar work on Logan, but the tenured actor quickly sets the emotionally and morally complex Robin apart, whose primal ruthlessness belies a surprising capacity for aching empathy.
Photo Credit: Aidan Monaghan/A24
While it’s Robin’s relationship with Sister Brigid that drives his final story to its soulful conclusion, it’s the unexpected friendship between the outlaw and the cautious Leper that has the greatest impact. A quiet conversation between the pair comes barbed with soul-shattering revelations, one that irrevocably alters Robin’s outlook while serving as one of the bolder myth revisions. Still, it’s Comer’s quiet heartbreak that yields the film’s biggest devastation.
Sarnoski depicts medieval life for all its cruelty and filth. Death is not remotely gentle in the 13th century; it’s downright nasty and vicious. Cinematographer Pat Scola captures it with startlingly dark realism and grit, but so, too, the breathtaking Northern Ireland landscape that provides this intimate tale with the scale of a sprawling epic.
The Death of Robin Hood removes the simple binary of heroes and villains, combining both into a complicated interrogation of myth itself. But the biggest magic feat is its demonstration of how myth-making and storytelling can heal even the most grievous wounds, and even provide peace if earned.
The Death of Robin Hood releases in theaters on June 19, 2026.
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