Resident Evil Requiem just launched, and it is already a monumental success. The game sold 5 million copies in just the first five days. Consequently, it has officially become the fastest-selling Resident Evil game to date. The game has sold more than 6 million copies in just 17 days.
The Resident Evil franchise has existed for nearly three decades. It spans roughly thirty unique games and countless ports. You would expect a franchise this old to feel milked dry and devoid of substance. However, Resident Evil Requiem proves the series still has plenty of high-quality meat on its bones. The franchise undeniably hit a rough patch around Resident Evil 6. Fortunately, Resident Evil 7 cured that plague and breathed new life into the series with intense, first-person horror. Now, Requiem takes that intense RE7 formula and marries it seamlessly with the timeless, action-oriented gameplay of Resident Evil 4. Ultimately, the developers have created a Top 5 Resident Evil game.
A Tale of Two Tones: Grace & Leon
Resident Evil Requiem splits its playtime evenly between two wildly different protagonists.
First, you play as Grace Ashcraftoft. She is the daughter of a character from Resident Evil Outbreak, Alyssa Ashcroft. Her gameplay leans heavily into the RE7 style of survival horror. It is slow-paced, intense, and heavily resource-starved. You cannot simply run and gun. Instead, you must use stealth and struggle to survive. A basic pistol and a powerful magnum, the “Requiem”, are all the firepower you carry as Grace.
Furthermore, Grace utilizes a highly creative crafting system. She uses a “Blood Collector” apparatus. You extract blood from dead enemies or find buckets of blood in the environment. Then, you combine it with other items. For instance, you can combine this infected blood with an “Herb” for Medical Injectors or “Scrap” for Hymolytic Injectors. Additionally, stealth kills are not free. You must craft a Hemolytic Injector using one scrap and 60 infected blood. You stab this vial into an enemy, and they explode.
Conversely, you also play as the iconic Leon S. Kennedy. Leon’s gameplay delivers exactly what fans of RE4 expect. It is bombastic, high-octane, and cheesy over-the-top action. You kill hundreds of zombies. Moreover, the game introduces a new Aggression Tracker for Leon. This system tracks your kills and rewards you with credits. You then spend these credits on ammo and weapon upgrades. Previously, optimal strategies often involved kneecapping enemies and running away to conserve ammo. Now, the game heavily incentivizes you to annihilate everything in the room.
Unfortunately, Leon’s arsenal feels slightly underwhelming. The guns lack “a unique identity”. In older titles, players passionately debated the merits of weapons like the Red9 versus the W870 shotgun. Here, the weapons feel very generic and standard. They are still fun to use, but they lack distinct character.
The Missing Puzzles & Pacing Shifts in Resident Evil Requiem
Puzzles have always been a core part of the Resident Evil identity. Resident Evil Requiem largely abandons them. The game features only about three instances that remotely resemble puzzles. In each case, the solution sits directly on a picture in the exact same room. Instead, the game relies on basic fetch quests. You grab an item, backtrack to a previous area, and open a door. While this absence is noticeable, it actively keeps the pacing cutthroat. You are constantly moving forward.
It is kind of understandable why they did that when you see some Twitch streamers and YouTubers getting stuck on the most basic stuff and wasting hours just wandering around, all confused and directionless.
However, the game does feature a few sections that unnecessarily pad the runtime. The most notable example is a childhood flashback sequence. You play as a child hiding from danger. Initially, the sequence is cool. Eventually, it drags on for far too long. At one point, you literally hide in a single spot for two straight minutes doing absolutely nothing.
Overall, this is the easiest Resident Evil game to date. Playing on the standard modern difficulty takes roughly 12 hours. Active playtime clocks in at just over eight hours. This duration includes thorough exploration, reading notes, opening safes, and finding charms and bobbleheads.
Narrative Triumphs & A Deflating Bait-and-Switch
The story in Resident Evil Requiem remains incredibly strong. The narrative avoids cheap nostalgia bait. It does not shoehorn in beloved characters or old items merely for fan service. The plot revolves around Grace. Her investigation goes wrong, and she encounters an oddball named Victor Gideon. Victor kidnaps her. Subsequently, Leon enters the fold. He is kind of forced to journey back to Raccoon City, where his story originally began, to unravel the mystery of Grace’s kidnapping.
Grace is a fantastic new character. She exhibits heavy anxiety and acts completely different from superhuman veterans like Leon. Fortunately, her voice actress delivers an unbelievable performance. She conveys terror and panic with extreme realism. Sometimes, the writing gets a little wacky and misses the mark. Thankfully, the stellar voice acting across the board salvages those awkward moments.
However, the narrative makes one severely disappointing decision. (Spoiler Warning) The game introduces a new character named Zeno. Zeno is a Wesker clone. He is positioned as the primary villain and a massive, superpowered threat for half of the game. Players anticipate a massive boss fight against him. Instead, Victor Gideon instantly kills Zeno with a single hit.
You never fight Zeno. He is a total fraud. This decision feels incredibly deflating. It does not subvert expectations cleverly. Rather, it feels like a weak narrative choice designed purely to save Zeno for the next sequel. Some theories suggest that there might be more clones like Zeno out there, just like there were more experimental girls like Emily from the Care Centre.
The Final Verdict: Is Resident Evil Requiem Worth $70?
A 12-hour game with a $70 price tag will inherently draw criticism. The game also lacks significant replayability outside of the “Insanity” difficulty mode. Nevertheless, these 12 hours are extremely solid. The game never falls off a cliff or loses its momentum. It completely avoids the massive dips in quality seen in previous titles, such as the widely disliked boat section in RE7.
Resident Evil Requiem is an airtight, thrilling heater from start to finish. Despite minor pacing hiccups and a disappointing villain fake-out, the game successfully blends two vastly different styles of horror into one cohesive package. It is, without a doubt, an incredible game. We at TechJuice put Resident Evil Requiem in the Top 5 of our most anticipated games releasing in 2026 list, and we are very glad that we did that.
