Resident Evil Requiem preview – how to exceed expectations with Leon S. Kennedy

GameCentral gets several hours to play Resident Evil 9 and it’s clear Capcom has a new survival horror classic on its hands.

Just as there is an unspoken rule that you should never be overly negative about a game at the preview stage, because there’s always a chance it could improve before launch, it’s good practice not to go over the top with praise either. In theory, the publisher could’ve shown off all the best bits in the preview and the rest of the game is a disappointment, but caution be damned because we’re going to call it now: Resident Evil Requiem is amazing.

We already played Requiem back in August and what we saw then was very different. It seemed to be the very beginning of the game (or perhaps a demo constructed purely for the press – Capcom never likes to explain that sort of thing) and had you playing as new character Grace Ashcroft as she tries to escape a horrible monster that’s afraid of the light.

With no weapons of any kind, it was the scariest sequence in a Resident Evil game we’ve played since at least Resident Evil 7. The opening of this new demo we played, though, was the funniest and goriest.

Capcom refused to say exactly where the section of game we played was from but it was clearly very near the beginning, as you control Leon S. Kennedy investigating a dodgy-looking sanatorium that is absolutely, definitely not doing experiments on zombies.

As revealed in the recent Resident Evil Showcase, the game has you playing as both characters, with Leon’s sections being more action-packed and closer to Resident Evil 4, while Grace’s section are more old school and similar to Resident Evil 2 and 7. You can use a first or third person view as either character but by default Leon is third person and Grace is first person, which we felt no need to change.

Playing as Leon in Resident Evil Requiem

Leon’s section started our demo and is the sequence you can see at the start of the latest trailer, with the wonderful corny one-liner about wanting a ‘second opinion’. Leon is an absolute card in Requiem, with lines that hit that sweet spot of endearing awfulness that Resident Evil has always struggled to maintain in the modern era.

But that’s not the main reason we called the opening funny. The sequence starts with a zombie outbreak amongst the staff of nurses and doctors; Leon has a gun (a massive RoboCop-like cannon called… Requiem) and a hatchet but it’s a tight space and there’s a lot of zombies crowding in on you, one of whom has a chainsaw.

So, naturally, we start blasting, with a good headshot causing the chainsaw zombie to drop its weapon. But as it dropped on the floor it was still turned on and skittered about dangerously and we hesitated to pick it up. The other zombies, however, didn’t have the same sense of self preservation and grabbed the chainsaw anyway.

That zombie then lurched towards Leon at the same moment as another, unarmed, zombie accidentally impaled itself on the chainsaw. We shot the now weapon-less zombie but don’t realise that the other one still had the chainsaw stuck halfway through its stomach, still turned on. So, as it stepped forward to grab Leon it, unknowingly, skewered him with the chainsaw that was now protruding from its abdomen.

Even though the sequence ended with Leon’s gory death it was the best bit of sandbox gameplay we’ve seen in an action game for many years, and immediately exceeded our expectations of what Requiem is going to be.

Although the demo was several hours long, the Leon sections bookending it were fairly short, with the initial one segueing into the end of the first preview, where it’s revealed that it’s Leon that saves Grace from the giant monster. They become separated by gates that close across the building, but while Leon gives her the Requiem to protect herself it only has one bullet left.

Playing as Grace in Resident Evil Requiem

Since Grace is essentially unarmed at first, this part of the game plays similarly to Resident Evil 7, as you start exploring and come across a safe room, with a typewriter and a magic storage box – that can be accessed from any other box of the same ilk.

It’s even playing soothing music, as all Resident Evil safe rooms should, and if you play on a higher difficulty you have to use a finite number of ink ribbons to save your position. You don’t get anywhere by hanging around in a safe room though and so we started to explore the lobby, realising that the two main wings are locked by keycards.

The first one is found easily enough but since Grace still doesn’t have a weapon, you have to creep around warily, especially when entering the kitchen and finding the zombie chef muttering to himself about his work. This is the first proper example of a zombie that retains some memory of their previous life, and if you make it out of the kitchen there’s also a former maid forlornly trying to clean the toilets.

Other zombies are more classically brain dead, but some will try to turn the lights off, as they, like the larger monster from the first preview, are sensitive to light. We assume that’s also why bad guy Dr Gideon is wearing a weird set of what look like opticians’ glasses. He cropped up quite a bit in cut scenes and his softly spoken delivery is a lot of campy fun, especially as you just know he’s going to transform into a horrible monster sometime later in the game.

At this point there’s no real indication of the wider plot of the game, although it does seem as if Leon is infected with some kind of slow-working virus – which is possibly what the name Elpis relates to. It’s not clear whether Grace is too, but her immediate priorities are collecting a more practical gun (extra Requiem bullets are very rare) and then getting hold of three weird Perspex keys to open the main door out of the building.

Although Grace’s sections are relatively standard old school Resident Evil there are a number of unusual features, including a room you find early on with useful new equipment that can only be unlocked if you collect coins from elsewhere in the building. You’re also introduced to the idea that you can collect the blood of zombies to use for crafting, while unique blood samples can be taken to a lab in order to unlock new craft-able items, such as health and special ammo.

The most useful piece of equipment is a device you can use to stealth kill zombies. This includes the chef, who is so big he can even tank a headshot from the Requiem, but sneak up behind him, as he wanders the halls, and you can one shot him. That’s especially handy as he then drops an item that leads to a special pendant that confers useful buffs, of which there are presumably many in the game.

Zombies can follow after you, and open doors, but the chef in particular wanders around a fairly large area, if it chases you out of the kitchen. There’s another even bigger creature that works in a similar way and is responsible for the biggest scare of the demo. It’s a grotesque blubber monster that smashes apart door frames as it chases after you, and its surprise first appearance works not dissimilarly to that sequence in Resident Evil Village.

It also screams and swears at you the whole time but as far as we understand it could be killed like the chef, although we never got the chance. There are other, easier-to-kill, zombies with specialised abilities, such as a couple that scream at such a high pitch they can disorient you or even explode your head.

The biggest danger though is the downed zombies that appear to be dead (again) and which can mutate into ‘blister heads’, similar to the concept of crimson heads from the Resident Evil 1 remake.

You can use a one hit kill injection to make sure they don’t ever revive but those are expensive to make and while Leon can deal with them a little more easily, they’re a real problem for Grace. We found the best bet was to kneecap them and try and take out their heads, as they’re otherwise both fast and unpredictable in their moments.

Progress through the game includes some typically nonsensical Resident puzzles (and we mean that as a positive) but also some great set pieces, including several moments where you know something awful is going to happen and yet you have no choice but to trigger it, such as a tense moment in a garage and another involving a creature on an operating table, whose organs you have to reattach.

The whole thing was thoroughly enjoyable and while you could argue it doesn’t change the formula that much, the twists and additions are substantial, including when you realise you’ll never have enough bullets for everyone and yet running away isn’t as effective as it would normally be when the zombies just chase after you.

Leon’s second section was also just 20 minutes or so, starting with a chat with Dr Gideon and a mini-boss battle against a blubber monster, where both of you are able to roam about freely in a small, fenced off area – although this time with a shotgun.

The final encounter was a room full of blister heads, which was marvellously chaotic. For some reason there’s a large axe on the floor (everywhere’s covered in blood so it’s presumably something that a doctor was using to defend themselves) which you can instantly fling at an approaching zombie, while a combination of hatchet usage and shotgun blasts was just enough to bring the blister heads down.

We enjoyed every minute of the demo and it’s especially encouraging because the sanatorium is clearly only one small part of the game. The map was almost completely cleared by the end of the demo and given Capcom’s hints on the matter it seems likely that much of the rest of the game takes place elsewhere.

The only real flaw we could pick out was that weirdly you can’t close doors behind you, which seems madness given zombies are often wandering around outside a room and it would be very useful if you could avoid catching their eye. We’re also not convinced the game couldn’t do with a dedicated dodge button. We thought that with the Resident Evil 4 remake too and this has less excuse not to include it.

Exactly what the rest of the game offers we do not know, but we can’t wait to find out as the two playable demos have been more fun than any new entry since Resident Evil 4. The fact that Requiem is basically that combined with a more traditional outing seems perfect and sets it on course to be one of the best games of the year, if not generation.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (previewed), Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
Price: £64.99
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: 27th February 2026
Age Rating: 18

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