Celebrating The 30th Anniversary Of 'Resident Evil': How 'Resident Evil Requiem' Is A Love Letter To The Franchise

Resident Evil Requiem Key Art Courtesy of Capcom Europe Press

Over the last thirty years, Resident Evil has been chasing the perfect balance between action and survival horror, and this time, they got it just right. Over their thirty-year journey, CAPCOM has enjoyed major commercial successes, yet this has also led the game company into a recurring cycle of experimentation that sometimes pushed the game away from its core identity. With the release of Resident Evil Requiem, it looks like they have found that identity yet again. 

When discussing horror games, Resident Evil will undoubtedly always come up. CAPCOM, the game company responsible for the hit franchise, defined a new era of survival horror with their first instalment in 1996. Since then, CAPCOM has explored various angles of how a horror game can be experienced. Here, I will discuss a handful of Resident Evil instalments, looking at how each one pioneered a new era for the franchise and its successes and failures.

When Resident Evil 4 was released in 2005, it paved the way for a new era of Resident Evil: action horror. With a departure from the fixed-camera angles of previous games, Resident Evil 4 introduced a third-person perspective and was designed for high-stakes, action-filled gameplay. The remake of the game, released in 2023, attracted an even larger player base, positioning it as a major moneymaker for CAPCOM. This game was an immense success both critically and commercially, and for many, it is not just the best Resident Evil game of all time, but the best game of all time.

After the success of Resident Evil 4, CAPCOM released the fifth and sixth instalments of the franchise in 2009 and 2012. Both were commercial hits, with Resident Evil 5 selling upward of 5 million copies within a few months of its release and Resident Evil 6 selling around 4.8 million copies one month after its launch. However, after Resident Evil 6's initial release, sales began to plateau, proving costly for CAPCOM, as their sales goal was 6 million. Because of the praise Resident Evil 4 received for its turn to action-based horror, CAPCOM tried to shift entirely to action-based gameplay for both 5 and 6, which missed the mark with the playerbase, as the series started to turn into an action-shooter instead of an action-horror game. This focus on action began to erode the identity of what Resident Evil was in the first place. Thus, these games demonstrated that there could be too much of something good.

Resident Evil had begun to lose its survival-horror aspect, which had defined the franchise's identity. Therefore, CAPCOM had to find a new way forward; another misstep and the company might lose its fanbase. To revive the series, they needed to take the game back to its roots, where fear and terror were one and the same with the name Resident Evil. This is where we see the birth of the first-person perspective in the franchise, with the release of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. The producers and directors of the seventh instalment concluded that a first-person survival horror would be necessary to capture the suffocating nature of the survival-horror genre. They were right. In addition, the game features a different kind of humanity from the other games. The lead character, Ethan Winters, is an average person whom the players were able to empathise with, and the "monsters" in the game are not your typical tyrant mutants synonymous with the other Resident Evil games, such as Mr X or Nemesis, but normal humans that carry a terrifying monstrous presence throughout the game. The 2017 release of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was a commercial hit and received overwhelmingly positive critical reception. Today, its lifetime sales hover around 16 million units sold. However, the game was not without its flaws. It was, without a doubt, a scary game. Incredibly scary at that. But this had led many players to criticise it for being too overwhelming in the horror department.

Resident Evil Requiem Screenshot Courtesy of Capcom Europe Press

After 30 years of trial and error, CAPCOM released its brand-new instalment, Resident Evil Requiem, which hit the market on February 27th this year. The game itself is a nod to the past, combining Resident Evil 4's action elements with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard's horror elements. The game follows two main protagonists: FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft, whose story players experience through the first-person perspective, and a return to the beloved Leon S. Kennedy, whose story players experience through the third-person perspective. However, CAPCOM did something this time that they had never done before: Requiem permits the player to change the perspective they play through. So, you can change Grace's gameplay to third-person and/or Leon's to first-person, leaving it up to the player how intimate they want their experience to be. Grace's parts are filled with the classic elements of survival horror, with ammo being scarce and having to pick wisely between sneaking past enemies or risking a fight. On the contrary, Leon's parts are your typical blockbuster Resident Evil 4 type action, where he has an abundance of ammo, fighting and killing anything that gets in his way. Furthermore, having two protagonists gives the game a unique rhythm of tension and release as the narratives switch, and, in the words of the game's director, Koshi Nakanishi, it is like "jumping into a cold bath after sitting in a hot sauna".

Resident Evil Requiem Screenshot Courtesy of Capcom Europe Press

By combining the two combat and perspective styles, they become more than the sum of their parts, bringing Resident Evil back to its true identity. Another reason why Resident Evil Requiem brings the identity back to the series is that in this game we return to Raccoon City, where it all began. Players are faced with nostalgia, while Leon is faced with an irreconcilable trauma of being back in the place that started it all, the place that catapulted the events of other games in the series. For me, being back and seeing how the city looks after all this time, unchanged and plagued with time, felt so raw and authentic, leaving a lingering sadness in my heart. In my experience, every hour of that game was worth the price tag. Everything about the game, from the alternating perspectives to the characters and the story, was breathtaking. The concepts of survival-horror and action-horror have married beautifully in Resident Evil Requiem. This truly is the essence of what a Resident Evil title should entail. With that being said, Resident Evil Requiem is a true love letter to the franchise and everything it has hoped to accomplish.

---

Edited by Joanne Baranga, Gaming Editor