Midway by 2025’s Summer season Sport Fest, Resident Evil govt producer Jun Takeuchi popped on-screen to acknowledge the anticipation of Resident Evil 9’s reveal. “Bear with us a bit of longer,” he mentioned. “Only a blink of an eye fixed extra, and it will be prepared.” And he wasn’t kidding. By the top of the present, RE9, or Requiem as we now comprehend it, was revealed, pulling the rug from below our collective toes. The trailer had raised quite a few questions: Is the brand new protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft from Resident Evil Outbreak? Does it happen in a post-bombing, quarantined Raccoon Metropolis? And, most significantly, is it first- or third-person? In one other shock twist, I used to be in a position to get hands-on with the sport for about 20 minutes, and whereas I acquired just a few solutions, I left with extra questions.
Having now performed a really small portion of the sport, there’s no less than one query I can instantly reply: It is third- and first-person. At any level whereas enjoying, you possibly can pause the sport and change from one perspective to a different everytime you see match, not like Resident Evil Village, which added third-person post-launch and required you to begin a separate save file to play it. Although I want switching views may have been executed with the press of a button, that is nonetheless a marked enchancment. Moreover, it’s totally clear that Capcom wished Requiem to really feel simply pretty much as good in third-person because it does in its latest remakes of RE 2, 3, and 4. That is particularly obvious in Requiem’s cutscenes which can be directed cinematically, seeing Grace work together throughout the scene, against Biohazard and Village, which by no means broke that first-person perspective. That mentioned, first-person continues to be really helpful by the sport.
For this hands-on, I selected to play it in its really helpful first-person perspective. Nonetheless, I took a second to modify to third-person, and it felt very comfy and akin to the latest RE remakes. It is a far cry from Village’s third-person mode, which did all it may to nonetheless impede protagonist Ethan Winters’ face from ever being seen. Usually, I choose third-person Resident Evil, however the part I performed felt extra appropriately fitted to first (which I will clarify momentarily). Whether or not or not some sections later within the recreation will probably be higher fitted to one perspective over the opposite, we’ll have to attend and see. If time had allowed it throughout my transient hands-on, I might have performed the demo once more totally in third-person simply to see. However alas.
The demo started with Grace Ashcroft, an FBI technical analyst and new protagonist to the franchise, strapped the other way up to a gurney. With no context to what led to this second, Grace was simply as distressed and confused as I used to be, however finally she makes use of all her would possibly to interrupt free. As Grace, I investigated the room, which seemed to be an upscale medical facility–one that felt a century outdated with ornate wood furnishings and tasteful wallpaper. It advised to me that it wasn’t a hospital, however possibly an in-house medical heart, probably one inside a mansion.
With no thought why I used to be there or the place I used to be presupposed to go, I used to be pressured to maneuver by pitch-black hallways, looking for my manner. I may work together with mild switches and lamps (a degree of interactivity hardly ever seen in earlier entries and which I think will play a much bigger position all through the sport), however a fuse had blown. Typical. I got here to a number of useless ends that have been masked in darkness and made it incapable of shifting ahead with out mild. This felt simplest in first-person, as experiencing the darkness up-close triggered a way of claustrophobia and tension–a sensation I do not assume can be as efficient if I had performed all of it in third-person.
As to be anticipated, finally I discovered a locked door, a key to open it, after which a lighter to see my manner by the darkness. Oh, and a terrifying youngsters’s e-book a couple of lady with massive eyes that watches you at midnight, in fact. The lighter was an instrumental instrument, a la Resident Evil Code: Veronica, performing as a key in and of itself for the once-inaccessible darkish areas, permitting me to go scavenging for a fuse to repair the lights and get the hell out of there. That’s till I got here face-to-face with the massive unhealthy, bug-eyed woman. And belief me, that is no Girl Dimitrescu. As a substitute she’s a disturbing and grotesque show of a humanoid creature with big arresting eyes who seeks to raise you in her mitts and actually gnaw in your cranium. This seems to be Requiem’s Mr. X, Jack Baker, or Girl D equal on this space. I snuck across the surroundings, making near-death maneuvers to inch across the small rooms to come up with a fuse.
Whereas it induced controller-gripping stress, all of it felt very acquainted to me–a déjà vu impact bringing me again to Resident Evil Village’s Home of Beneviento. Like within the unimaginable second from Village, I used to be stripped of weapons with no strategy to defend myself and compelled to navigate darkish, slender hallways, whereas making an attempt to outsmart a terrifying beast. This acquainted feeling of I’ve-been-here-before felt like a distinction from how Capcom has been angling the sport. Throughout Summer season Sport Fest, host Geoff Keighley mentioned the sport “marks a daring shift for the franchise, each in tone and gameplay, and right now’s reveal is not nearly survival horror. Count on high-stakes cinematic motion, too.” None of that was displayed in my hands-on preview, nonetheless.
I perceive that it is a sliver of the sport and doesn’t characterize the complete expertise. However as a gameplay reveal, this transient hands-on left me neither stunned, nor underwhelmed, however moderately unfazed. There wasn’t sufficient there for me to have a transparent thought of the daring new route it is claimed to be heading in. Even with the brand new protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, there wasn’t sufficient there to get a grasp on what sort of character she is. As an FBI technical analyst, it is unclear whether or not she has subject coaching to defend herself with weapons, doubtlessly making this a extra grounded, stealth-focused expertise. That’s, until there are different playable protagonists. In any case, that would not be a primary for recreation director Kōshi Nakanishi, who additionally helmed Resident Evil: Revelations, which noticed you switching between protagonists all through the sport. Moreover, there is a line in Requiem’s trailer that sounds very very like Leon Kennedy, voiced by Nick Apostolides. However in fact, this is not confirmed. Time will inform.
Contemplating its very reveal at Summer season Sport Fest was a bait-and-switch, with Keighley setting it as much as be from an all-new studio, just for it to disclose itself as RE9 over a minute in, might be emblematic of Requiem’s tone, doubtlessly toying with participant expectations round each nook.
Resident Evil: Biohazard was a tough 180 from RE6, and whereas Village wasn’t as stark a maneuver from RE7, it took Biohazard’s core gameplay and thrust it right into a horror-sized theme park. Biohazard could have returned the sport to its sluggish and dread-inducing roots, however Village injected Resident Evil 4’s survive-by-your-teeth motion. And now having performed Requiem for 20-25 minutes, there’s nonetheless no telling what Capcom has deliberate for its subsequent installment. All I can say is, even with the sense of déjà vu, I am on the sting of my seat ready for February 26, 2026, when the sport is predicted to launch on PS5, Xbox Collection X|S, and PC.