Resident Evil Requiem PS5 Review
Summary: A perfect balance of survival, action, and horror featuring fantastic set pieces, superb combat and plenty of chills that long-time RE fans are bound to love.
4.5
Dies Irae
Resident Evil Requiem is proof that Capcom has finally figured out how to sate the needs of its often disparate fan base with a game that effortlessly blends its survival-horror and action elements to create an experience that feels far more than the sum of its parts.
The first thing to note is that it isn’t a follow-up to Village, at least in the narrative stakes. It feels more like a sequel to Resident Evil 2.
Set 30 years after the events that led to the destruction of Raccoon City, players are introduced to rookie FBI analyst Grace Ashfield, who is sent to investigate a suspicious body at the Wrenwood hotel, where she witnessed her mother’s murder eight years earlier.
Meanwhile, Leon is now working for the DSO investigating the deaths of several Raccoon City survivors struck down with a strange disease.
This also leads Leon to the Wrenwood Hotel – arriving just in time to see Victor Gideon, a former Umbrella researcher, carry off Grace and cover his escape by infecting several passersby with a modified T-virus using a dart gun.
Undeterred, Leon tracks Victor to the Rhodes Hill care centre, the game then opens up properly, and that’s your lot, because I don’t want to ruin the story.
It’s very much a game of two halves in both tone and, if you stick to the default settings, perspective.
Much of the early game is spent playing as Grace (in first person) as she tries to escape the horrors of the health centre, forced to sneak past enemies and scavenge for supplies. That is, until she gains the ability to use infected blood collected from downed foes and around the environment to craft everything from medicine and bullets to a special concoction that makes zombies literally explode in a shower of viscera if you stick them with it.
It strikes the perfect balance between desperately running for your life and some seriously satisfying retribution in the latter stages of the story, as you find more resources, unlock more crafting recipes, and gain access to more reliable means of defense.
Which Grace will need because the zombies this time are less Dawn and more Day of the Dead. They appear to be barely clinging onto some semblance of consciousness and compulsively stick to routines from their previous lives: Annoyed orderlies turn out the lights, maids desperately scrub away gore, and patients with constant migraines attack anything that makes a noise.
These are flanked by even more sinister abominations that I don’t want to ruin. I’ll just say that flight is definitely your best response.
The other half focuses on Leon’s (third-person) pursuit of Victor and, rather than being a separate campaign, is interwoven with Grace’s chapters, and he tends to take the reins just as Grace gets in some serious trouble, which helps with the pacing.
Leon represents the more action-oriented side of the series; he’s tooled up and ready to kick serious amounts of arse. (sometimes literally) Armed with an expanding arsenal of upgradable hardware and his trusty hatchet. Mechanically, at least, Leon’s campaign feels like an evolution of the Resident Evil 4 remake. Leon has been dealing with these kinds of threats for decades. He is more than capable of dispatching groups of zombies with relatively little effort, even if they now have a horrible habit of yeeting slabs of concrete and the occasional explosive gas canister at you. (He also faces the occasional ex-special forces zombie that loves to randomly spray Uzi fire everywhere, which fast became the bane of this reviewer’s existence.
At its best, though, fighting with Leon is slick, satisfying, and a gore-filled bucket of fun. You’ll soften up a couple of enemies with small-arms fire before kicking them to the ground and tearing their heads off with your hatchet, play hot potato with a chainsaw that every zombie wants to get their hands on, and blast foes away with one well-timed shotgun blast.
It’s gory, it’s brutal, and by and large the best combat in the series, even if it does include the spiritual successor to the Crimson Heads from the REmake, and they are just as annoying to put down again.
Mowing down the undead is also how Leon upgrades his guns. Every kill earns points that allow Leon to buy upgrades for his weapons, inventory space, armour, and other useful items at supply crates found throughout the environment.
This is the opposite of Grace, who uses a more traditional Resident Evil system of Storage crates and typewriters (powered by ink ribbons on higher difficulty settings)
Did I mention it’s one of the best-looking games I’ve played in a while, too? It’s also absolutely gorgeous. The RE Engine remains one of the most visually striking and scalable engines going. Regardless of whether you’re playing on PS5 Pro with full ray tracing (as I did) or a Switch 2, it looks fantastic. I really don’t know how Capcom does it, but it’s incredibly impressive stuff regardless.
Likewise, the soundtrack is a wonderful and creepy mix of ambient noises and discordant notes that feels like weaponized jazz at times. It’s sometimes catchy and absolutely unnerving, and I am here for every second of it.
The principal cast all put in excellent performances as well. Angela Sant’Albano does a wonderful job of making Grace incredibly likable, yet naïve, and her vocal tics when she’s stressed make her even more endearing. Meanwhile, Nick Apostolides gets better as Leon with every performance, and this older, incredibly world-weary take on the character is by far my favourite. Antony Byrne as Victor is also destined to go down as one of the best villains in the series, a softly spoken mountain of a man whose voice rings with a cold menace, convinced he’s finally found what he’s been searching for for decades.
Final Thoughts
Resident Evil Requiem feels like Capcom has finally found the right balance of high action and high tension to satisfy both sides of its often disparate fanbase. For those sitting in the middle of this Venn diagram of survival horror and action, it’s easily one of the best entries in the long-running series, paying proper deference to its origins, recontextualising past plot points in clever ways and tying up some long-dangling loose ends while setting its eyes confidently on the future.
If nothing else, it’s one hell of a ghost house/ rollercoaster ride that’s well worth punching your ticket for.
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