There is a particular kind of quiet that Capcom has mastered over the last decade of Resident Evil games — the quiet right before something goes horribly wrong. Resident Evil Requiem understands that silence better than almost any horror game released this generation, and it uses it as a weapon from the very first hour. Set in a fog-choked, rain-slicked New Orleans, Requiem follows Grace Ashcroft, a young forensic analyst pulled into a nightmare that blurs the line between investigation and survival. After spending close to thirty hours with the final build across two playthroughs, it is clear this is not just another entry in a long-running franchise coasting on nostalgia. It is a legitimate reinvention, and one of the finest horror experiences we have played on console in years.

A New Protagonist, A Familiar Dread

Requiem wisely steps away from the series’ long list of returning legacy characters and instead builds its story around Grace Ashcroft, whose personal connection to the mystery at the center of the game gives the narrative an emotional anchor that some recent entries have lacked. Without spoiling the specifics, Grace’s investigation into a string of disappearances tied to a decaying New Orleans estate spirals into something far larger, involving a shadowy pharmaceutical history and a viral outbreak that feels disturbingly plausible. The writing is tighter than in Village, trading some of that game’s operatic excess for a slower, more psychological build. Cutscenes are used sparingly, and much of the story is delivered through environmental storytelling — water-damaged case files, voicemail fragments, and the kind of unsettling tableaux that longtime fans of the series have come to expect.

What impressed us most is how Requiem paces its reveals. The first several hours deliberately withhold explanations, letting dread accumulate instead of front-loading exposition. By the time the plot’s larger implications become clear, around the midpoint, the game has already established such a strong sense of place that every new revelation lands with weight rather than confusion.

Gameplay: Two Perspectives, One Nightmare

The headline gameplay feature is the ability to freely toggle between first-person and third-person perspectives at almost any point outside of specific scripted sequences. This is not a gimmick. Switching to first-person during tight corridor encounters heightens claustrophobia and makes ammo conservation feel genuinely stressful, while third-person is better suited to exploring the sprawling estate grounds and managing multiple threats at once. We found ourselves naturally gravitating toward first-person for boss encounters and third-person for general exploration, and the fact that Capcom built encounter design flexible enough to accommodate both without ever feeling unbalanced is a genuine technical achievement.

Resource management remains the beating heart of the experience. Ammunition is scarce enough to matter but never so scarce that combat becomes a chore, and the crafting system — building on the framework introduced in Village and refined in the Resident Evil 4 remake — rewards players who explore thoroughly rather than sprint toward objectives. Herbs, gunpowder, and salvaged parts are tucked into corners of the map that require actual backtracking and puzzle-solving to reach, and the inventory’s limited grid space forces constant, meaningful decisions about what to carry.

Combat itself strikes an excellent balance between vulnerability and empowerment. Enemies, particularly the game’s signature “Rooted” creatures, react dynamically to where you shoot them, with dismemberment mechanics that affect their movement and attack patterns in real time. Boss fights are a clear highlight, each built around a distinct gimmick that forces you to use the environment rather than simply unloading your best weapon. One encounter roughly two-thirds through the game, set in a flooded chapel, is genuinely one of the best-designed horror boss fights Capcom has produced.

Presentation: The RE Engine Has Never Looked Better

Running on an updated version of Capcom’s RE Engine, Requiem is a visual showcase on both PS5 and Xbox Series X, with lighting work that rivals anything else on console this year. Volumetric fog rolls through the bayou with genuine physical weight, and the game’s use of practical light sources — flashlights, lanterns, distant lightning — creates some of the most atmospheric environments the series has ever built. Performance mode holds a stable frame rate throughout, while the quality mode’s ray-traced reflections add an extra layer of unease to every rain-soaked window and puddle.

Sound design deserves special mention. Requiem uses full 3D positional audio to devastating effect — distant groans, footsteps overhead, and the wet, organic noises of the Rooted creatures are all mixed with surgical precision. Playing with a good headset transforms the experience entirely, and we would consider that setup close to essential for getting the full effect the sound team clearly intended.

Pacing, Length, and Replayability

A first playthrough on the standard difficulty runs between twelve and fourteen hours, which feels appropriately lean for a horror game — long enough to build a real narrative arc, short enough that tension never dilutes into fatigue. Higher difficulties introduce meaningfully different enemy placement and resource scarcity rather than simply inflating health bars, and a New Game Plus mode carries over unlocked weapons while introducing a harder difficulty tier and cosmetic rewards. There is also a smart accessibility suite, with adjustable auto-aim assistance, subtitle customization, and a dedicated “Story” difficulty for players who want the narrative without the survival pressure, which we think is a welcome addition rather than a compromise.

How Requiem Compares to Village and the RE4 Remake

It’s impossible to talk about a new mainline Resident Evil release without measuring it against the two titles that immediately preceded it, and Requiem occupies an interesting middle ground between them. Village leaned hard into gothic spectacle and larger-than-life set pieces, while the Resident Evil 4 remake refined the series’ action-horror hybrid into something almost surgical in its pacing and combat feedback. Requiem pulls back from both of those extremes and returns to something closer to the slower, more oppressive dread of the original Resident Evil 7, but with production values and combat systems that feel distinctly more modern than either of those games managed at launch.

Where Village occasionally let its bombast undercut genuine scares — werewolves and vampire ladies are memorable, but rarely frightening in the way a cornered, resource-starved encounter can be — Requiem consistently prioritizes tension over spectacle. There are no werewolf castles here, no over-the-top boss transformations that tip into camp. Instead, nearly every major encounter is built around scarcity: limited ammunition, environmental hazards, and enemies that genuinely feel dangerous rather than simply time-consuming to whittle down. If you found Village a little too theatrical for your taste, Requiem will likely feel like a welcome correction.

At the same time, Requiem borrows some of the RE4 remake’s smartest mechanical ideas, particularly around parrying and stealth takedowns, and integrates them into a slower, more grounded combat rhythm. You won’t be juggling crowds of enemies with a knife the way you might in a village square overrun by Ganado-adjacent cultists; instead, most encounters in Requiem are smaller in scale but higher in individual stakes, closer to a one-on-one standoff than a crowd-control puzzle. Fans who preferred RE4’s more actiony crowd management might find Requiem’s pacing comparatively restrained, but that restraint is very clearly intentional, and it pays off in a way that feels true to the franchise’s earliest, most unsettling entries.

The dual first- and third-person camera system is also, in our view, the single biggest mechanical leap the series has made since the RE4 remake’s parry system. It doesn’t just add player choice for its own sake — it genuinely changes how you read and respond to danger depending on which perspective you’re in, and the fact that Capcom built the entire encounter design around supporting both without compromise speaks to how much thought went into this system beyond a simple marketing bullet point. We would not be surprised if this camera toggle becomes a mainstay feature in future entries, the way over-the-shoulder third-person became standard after Resident Evil 4’s original release two decades ago.

Final Verdict

Resident Evil Requiem is not content to simply repeat the formula that made Village and the Resident Evil 4 remake so successful. It takes real risks — a new protagonist, a dual camera system, a slower-burn narrative — and nearly all of them pay off. The result is a game that feels both distinctly modern and deeply respectful of what has always made Resident Evil special: the constant tension between curiosity and self-preservation. A minor pacing dip in the middle chapters keeps it from perfection, but this is easily one of the best survival horror games available on console right now, and a strong contender for game of the year conversations. If you own a PS5 or Xbox Series X|S and have any appetite for horror, Requiem should be at the very top of your list.

Reviewed by the Foremy Team on retail hardware. Review copy provided by the publisher for evaluation purposes.