No matter what’s been stated about the sport up to now, Resident Evil: Requiem’s director and producer need you to know that the title — scheduled for launch in 2026, the collection’ 30th anniversary yr — has extra happening than a easy deal with nostalgia.
It’s maybe an odd factor to listen to, as Capcom itself has highlighted how Resident Evil Requiem will return to the survival horror collection’ roots again in Raccoon Metropolis, after a number of video games set elsewhere. And it will be there, in the crumbling remnants of the collection’ previous, that Capcom has additionally promised gamers will discover solutions to lingering story threads and open questions from a long time in the past.
However regardless of all of this, and regardless of the big ongoing hypothesis over Leon S. Kennedy’s potential presence in the sport (one thing Capcom particularly declined to touch upon to IGN), Capcom is eager for Requiem to be seen as extra than simply a look again into the franchise’s previous. Talking to IGN final week at Gamescom, in a query particularly about the present focus of fan debate, producer Masato Kumazawa made it clear that Requiem would find yourself being as a lot about the collection’ future, as effectively as its origins.
“We love trying out the conversations which can be occurring,” Kumazawa stated, “however this is not a sport which is fully targeted on trying again. And we’re again in Raccoon Metropolis, however that is not the solely location in the sport,” he revealed.
Certainly, whereas Requiem’s launch has lined up with the Resident Evil collection’ 30th anniversary subsequent yr, Kumazawa made clear that this was not the challenge’s preliminary plan — maybe suggesting that followers anticipating some type of long-planned grand finale may want to regulate their expectations.
“It’s popping out in the 30th anniversary, nevertheless it wasn’t deliberate that method,” Kumazawa stated. “It simply ended up with the growth was completed and the sport is able to launch in 2026, which is the 30th anniversary.
“It wasn’t constructed in to be an anniversary title that’s solely backward going through,” he continued. “So there’s a lot extra to the sport than simply the collection’ legacy. We did not name it Resident Evil 9 in any case. There’s a clue in the brand kind, however in the end the title is Resident Evil Requiem.”
When requested by IGN whether or not Capcom felt the must cater to followers who need to see acquainted issues return, Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi stated this was “powerful to reply with out entering into an excessive amount of we’re not prepared to speak about but.”
“We all know that folks anticipate to be stunned or pleasantly stunned every time they, such as you say, they get the connections or they’re blissful to see this or that they are aware of coming again,” Nakanishi stated, with out mentioning any character in explicit.
“However I am certain that folks can be blissful once they see how we have managed to mix a contemporary method and a contemporary new character with additionally issues that followers will acknowledge.”
For rather more on the sport, together with the origins and fan theories surrounding its new ‘Huge Mama’ monster, take a look at IGN’s full Resident Evil: Requiem interview.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s Information Editor. You’ll be able to attain Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or discover him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social