Resident Evil Requiem

12 Mar 2026 By Brendan Caldwell Reviews

Resident Evil Requiem review

Meets the minimum requiements

Requiem wants to be all things to all Resident Evildoers. It is one half Victorian freak show and one half shotgun-toting facekicker. It wants to scare you and to psych you up, empower and disempower you with alternating waves of scares and action. It is both third-person Leon sim and first-person Grace 'em up. Yes, you can change the view of either character in the settings but I kept things default, if only to test the game's thesis - that being stuck in a girl's head is scary whereas watching a big man's muscles move is powerful.

Like many a rotting zombie, it starts to fall apart in the bottom half. I had a good time, even if it sometimes felt like playing a videogame through glasses rose-tinted with indecision. This is a Resident Evil that seeks to please everybody, and you could argue it has done so. But there is a feeling like it has achieved this by hiding in the safe room of nostalgia and bursting out every few minutes with the biggest gun in its inventory - a dude who everyone already loves.

A zombie policeman smiles as he is pierced through the eye socket with a poker. — Eye don't want to use the obvious pun but eye can't help it

09 Mar 2026 By Brendan Caldwell Bits

Resident Evil Requiem’s big text splashes explained

NAMES AND LOCATIONS IN A SANS SERIF FONT

The big font splashes in Resident Evil Requiem are so cool and stylistic! Many might mistake these pseudo-title cards for a stylish flourish that looks neat but remains utterly meaningless as a scene-setting device when you can already see exactly what the giant text is declaring – but you’d be missing the true brilliance of these stylish, cool, aesthetically booming words. Big spoilers in this discussion.

First of all, plastering big all-caps text onto the screen is a great, impactful way to introduce new characters, fresh to the Resident Evil series, like FBI agent Grace Wrenwood.

But it works even for characters we know and love, like former cop and successful car salesman Leon Rhodes Hill.

Oh, wait, no. I see the confusion now. He’s Leon Scott Kennedy. She’s Grace Ashcroft, not Wrenwood. Excuse me. I misunderstood the format. Once you get it, it’s very simple and effective. Clearly it goes:

FIRSTNAME
PLACE

That’s okay, now that we know the format, we can continue to meet new characters like…

Oh, no, wait. I see the new confusion. Elbridge is not a person. That’s okay, the title cards don’t need to be consistent or actually

02 Mar 2026 By Brendan Caldwell Bits

Leon S. Kennedy is a car salesman now

Stop pretending this man is cool

I have been provided a copy of Resident Evil Requiem for review purposes not by Capcom's PR team, but by my own brother, who threw the game at me at 10:30pm on a Saturday night like a £60 baseball pitched at my skull. In our family we call this a "golden spanner" - a nice surprise that fucks up your entire week's plans. But he made the error of not setting a deadline, so our review will be late.

I have played long enough to discover one important thing. It is not only a horror game, but also a big advert. The developers have delivered unto Resident Evil the overt product placement techniques of a James Bond movie. It was previously thought that Leon Kennedy was deemed too heroic and cool to leave out of this story. The truth is he was required to appear because the game needed a man to sell cars and wristwatches.

Leon Kennedy behind the wheel of his vehicle, a Porsche. — Leon S Kennedy, popular videogame hero and noted sellout.

The first advert lands almost the moment Leon appears on-screen. He's inspecting a murder scene - something is rotten in this city. But a call comes in, his handler says he should go check