While the Resident Evil Requiem reveal trailer during Summer Game Fest Live offered fans their first look at the 9th mainline entry in the series, it wasn’t entirely clear what was gameplay and what was a cutscene. Luckily, during a brief behind-closed-doors session at SGF’s Play Days event, we saw some Resident Evil Requiem gameplay, running on a PlayStation 5 Pro. It wasn’t a significant demo by any means, but what Capcom chose to show did highlight two key aspects of the game, both of which should make longtime fans of the series very happy.
Resident Evil Requiem is Going Back to the Series' Horror Roots
The demo kicked off with the moment in the trailer where new protagonist Grace Ashcroft finds herself strapped to a gurney, hooked to an IV, and hanging upside down. Using a little ingenuity, Grace gets herself free and then quietly assesses her surroundings. It’s unclear if she’s in a hospital or some sort of facility, but the interior feels clinical in nature. As she carefully ventures around, Grace finds a lighter, which gives her just enough illumination to see a bit further in the distance, but not enough to offer any respite from the spooky environment.
In true RE fashion, the Resident Evil Requiem preview featured a locked door with a unique symbol and later a fuse box. As one might expect, Grace needed to do a little bit of exploration to find the key, a screwdriver to get to the fuse box, and the fuse itself. Although there were moments where the demo faded to black to speed things along, the atmosphere was classic Resident Evil. The mere suggestion of danger, rather than actual danger, ratcheted up the tension and the sense of unease was further amplified by Grace’s unsteady breathing.
Grace is by no means safe in this facility, and it isn’t long before a grotesque, oversized creature reveals itself and starts stalking her through the environment. Without a weapon, Grace is forced to run for safety, closing doors and keeping the monster at bay. With bulbous eyes and a maniacally massive mouth, the gangly creature was the type of unsettling obstacle that only Capcom can deliver.
Where things differ from past Resident Evil games, though, is that this sequence never relied on combat. Grace needed to sneak around while finding the objects necessary to progress, fearing the monster could pop out at any moment. It did, plenty of times, and all she could do was run. Once, the creature even got a hold of her and took a big bite out of Grace’s arm, forcing the use of a syringe to regain some health.
The demo was quick, but the message Capcom wanted to send was clear: Resident Evil Requiem is leaning into survival horror more than the recent entries have. There’s no doubt that combat will eventually come into play, but for Capcom to present something that was focused on atmosphere felt like a nod to the earlier games.
The Game-Changing Feature in Resident Evil Requiem
While the survival horror tone felt like a return to form for the Resident Evil Requiem presentation, it was how the preview ended that left Summer Game Fest attendees cheering. The clip popped open the menu and showed that you can switch between a first or third-person perspective.
We only got to see Grace in third person for just a second, but it was enough to suggest a big shift for the series, now and presumably moving forward. For the last few years, there has been a split between the mainline, first-person entries, and the successful Resident Evil third-person remakes. Resident Evil Requiem is seemingly uniting those worlds with a game that gives you the choice to play how you want. If you want to use the wider camera to peek around corners and better avoid that monstrosity, you can. Or if you want the claustrophobic uncertainty that comes from the first-person perspective, that’s an option too.
Something as simple as a menu toggle rarely generates the type of excitement that this did, but it was just enough of a tease to make for a perfect demo-ender. There’s still a lot of Resident Evil Requiem left to see, and plenty of time between now and Resident Evil 9's release date in February for Capcom to show how the perspective shift works.
I also expect that there will be more combat-focused sections of the game shown off as well. But for this first taste, Resident Evil Requiem offered up two big reasons to be excited. Capcom is putting the horror back in the franchise and uniting fans old and new.
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