Review of Resident Evil Requiem (9)

Resident Evil: Requiem was finally released five years after the eighth main installment of the franchise. It has received incredibly positive reviews from the community both on Steam and online. The rest of this article will have heavy spoilers for the events and gameplay of Requiem, so be warned. 

The game follows Grace Ashcroft, an FBI intelligence analyst who is tasked with investigating a crime scene at the Wrenwood Hotel. This hotel was the same place where her mother was murdered 8 years prior. During her investigation, she gets kidnapped by a hooded man. After she is knocked unconscious by the man, the POV immediately switches to our second protagonist. 

Leon S. Kennedy is a DSO (Division of Securities Operations) agent for the government. He originally appears in Resident Evil 2, being one of the two protagonists of that game along with a girl named Claire Redfield. His second main appearance is in Resident Evil 4, where he is the main and only protagonist of that game. Leon is investigating and looking for a cure to a disease that is only found in survivors of Racoon City, which was destroyed due to a virus outbreak. He is hunting down the man who kidnapped Grace, Victor Gideon, to see if the man has a cure for the disease. 

After a quick segment as Leon, we switch back to Grace’s POV. She has been taken to the Rhodes Hill Care Centre, which is where the majority of the game takes place. She is tasked with escaping the facility after meeting Leon, who saves her from a zombie amalgamation. Leon is taken by Gideon after he and Grace are cut off from one another. This is where the game actually starts, as the first two sections served as a tutorial for the first two characters. 

In terms of gameplay, both Grace and Leon play significantly differently. Grace operates very similarly to characters in the early Resident Evil games, where the focus is on conserving items and ammunition. She is a stealth-based character who needs to avoid zombies and stay out of their eyesight. She can gather blood samples from zombies in order to craft items to help her survive and escape. Her segments also feature her having very little inventory space, which is similar to earlier games like Resident Evil 2, where you have a limited inventory and have to find hip pouches to gain more inventory space. Grace’s sections also feature many puzzles instead of combat, which again is something the earlier Resident Evil games were based on. 

Leon’s sections, on the other hand, are combat-heavy. He has many different guns and weapons that he uses to mow through hordes of zombies within the facility. He had similar gameplay mechanics in Resident Evil 4, as his segments focus on killing zombies as opposed to stealth and puzzle-solving. His gameplay is incredibly smooth and fun to play as the POVs switch. You can go from avoiding zombies as Grace to killing the ones you previously avoided as Leon.

Unlike other Resident Evil games, which feature dual protagonists, you constantly switch between Grace and Leon. Previous games with dual protagonists have you play one protagonist's route through the whole game, occasionally interacting with the other protagonist throughout the journey. Once you're done with the first route, you can go back and play the other protagonist’s route. Requiem, however, has you switch between Grace and Leon as the story progresses, which is a refreshing change. Many people describe it as two games in one due to this POV shift. 

All in all, RE9 is a fantastic game and was well worth the wait. I would highly recommend you play the game for yourself, or watch a playthrough of it!