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Last year, I played through View Resident Evil Requiemwho controls the terrifying Grace Ashford, who has no weapons and is concerned that this entry in the horror series will prioritize helpless fear over the fantasy of zombie-killing power. But recently, I sat down to play the game’s latest preview, finally taking control of the series’ beloved pretty boy Leon, and within minutes, I was chopping up zombies with a chainsaw.
“We’re back, baby,” I want to say, even though there’s a lot of game still to be seen. However, the short time I spent with Leon (less than an hour of playtime) had me excited for his return, including everything that made his iconic appearance in Resident Evil 4, from the action hero’s antics to the cheeky quips to the humble grid-based item box.
In this preview, the two parts I played with Leon were set around an extended playthrough with Grace, who suggested how the game would play out, alternating between the two as distinct flavors of play.
Two approaches, both satisfactory
Let me put to rest a common fear: Grace’s sections are nothing like the infamous sections of previous Resident Evil games, where players must control helpless side characters who can only sneak around threats (like the malicious Ashley chapters from Resident Evil 4).
Instead, Resident Evil Requiem appears to showcase the franchise’s two distinct gameplay styles around each character: Grace’s sections resemble the eerie, puzzle-filled atmosphere of the original Resident Evil, while Leon embodies the horror action of Resident Evil 4.
Requiem customizes each character’s experience to suit each playstyle. Grace starts out with a limited number of inventory slots that require players to juggle items, and has limited ammunition – sneaking past enemies is a terrible necessity. It’s slow crawling, solving baroque puzzles, and making the most of a new crafting system that uses zombie blood (yuck) to craft ammo and defensive weapons.
After Grace’s tense and moody exploration sections, Leon’s sections are a purgatory release, allowing players to dish out plenty of ammo and tough enemies, as well as some satisfying executions with Leon’s new best friend – a carbon fiber hand axe.
This dichotomy is embodied in a new feature in Requiem: the ability to switch between first-person and third-person cameras on the fly. The Capcom folks running my preview suggested that I play through Grace’s sections in the former to build tension, and then switch to the latter for action-oriented Leon sections.
Grace is less strict than Leon, but she has defensive abilities of her own.
3 hours with Resident Evil Requiem
At Summer Game Fest 2025, CNET’s Sean Booker I got to play The first excerpt from Capcom’s Requiem, in which Grace awakens from her kidnapping and sneaks around an abandoned hospital, evading a hideous mutant chasing her through an abandoned ward. This final preview begins just after that moment, as Leon arrives at the hospital to find zombie doctors and nurses – easily eliminated by gunfire and his combat kicks.
When a zombie came with a chainsaw, I shot him, picked up the tool, cut open two more zombies and cut a door with bars. That’s when Leon met Grace, literally picking up where the previous preview left off. Using a powerful gun – named, I’m not kidding, Requiem – I shot the wise mutant. Before the hero duo could work together properly, a portal closed between them. The tall hospital superintendent, Dr. Gideon, who runs the building from a remote control room, has other plans for them.
This is where control passed to Grace for a two-hour segment of gameplay, as the wayward FBI agent was placed in an environment familiar to Resident Evil veterans: a foyer between two stairs, with a door that can only be opened by three Crystal Gems. Echoes of the Spencer Mansion from the first Resident Evil game are evident in the mysterious puzzles and ornate wood furnishings, as well as avoiding zombies rather than shooting them to conserve scarce ammunition.
Although you can switch between third-person (over-the-shoulder) and first-person view at any time, Capcom recommended playing Grace’s sections in the latter for maximum excitement.
It’s an atmosphere of dangerous exploration, which can be controlled with another twist: for whatever reason (explained in the full game), these undead retain their memories and wander around the specific paths they walked in life. By sneaking around and not making noise, I was (mostly) okay.
But as with the original Resident Evil that Grace’s sections evoke, I ended up having to run back and forth to retrieve key items from save rooms to solve puzzles across the map. Traversal became so tedious that I switched to the over-the-shoulder third-person camera to make it easier to get around the undead.
Then the match featured another surprise. Returning from 2002’s Resident Evil 1 Remake are zombies returning to an abnormal, crazier and deadlier life. I took out my powerful Requiem pistol (which Leon had handed to Grace through the gate separating them) and fired the only shot I had to kill me—a precious resource, like a one-hit kill safety blanket, that now placed me even more at the mercy of the hospital’s horrors.
Capcom clearly wants players to feel vulnerable while controlling Grace, but not desperate. During the preview, Capcom staff impressed me that the FBI agent’s ability would grow throughout the game. Mechanically, this was represented by her somewhat shaky aim, which took a second or two of concentration to calm down enough to fire accurately (e.g., contracting the crosshairs after equipping her gun) – which could be improved by finding or crafting injectable reflex boosters. Despite gathering resources and tools, including a lab-created offensive drug that I can stab zombies to literally make them explode, the ragtag undead are still dangerous in the face of Grace’s uncertain shooting style, and there are worse things stalking the halls.
One of these children was a terrifyingly large mutant (distinguished from the terrifyingly large mutant child in Resident Evil 8) who chased Grace around one of the hospital wards. She turns to Leon, who has escaped the clutches of Dr. Gideon only to have to deal with the hideous infant the only way he knows how: with lots of guns and chops from his axe.
Unlike Grace, Leon can run to launch melee attacks after stunning enemies.
After dispatching the terrified child, Leon runs around some of the same areas of the hospital she infiltrated as Grace – but this time with guns blazing. Even an ambush of several of the deadliest resurrected zombies was an exciting piece of cake for our hero and his trusty gun.
If the preview is representative of the overall flow of the game, players will be able to survive through weak and tense periods of gameplay in Grace, while the later chapters with Leon will serve as release valves for the action and bloody gunplay. This is a fun combination…when done right. Resident Evil Requiem appears to be an attempt by Capcom to combine two flavors of its franchise into the same game. Independently, playing with either is fun, but how they feel together will prove whether the game can sink or swim.
However, what little I saw (including a few I was asked not to reveal) showed a game that looked like an interesting mix of the familiar and the new. After the Ethan Winters saga Resident Evil 7 And 8, it’s a relief to return to fan-favorite Leon and discover Grace’s story.
Running around a strange hospital ward overrun by undead residents, living in a purgatory of their old routine, is both strange and exhilarating. The same applies to looking into a microscope to search for a way to manufacture lead from scrap metal and blood. Resident Evil’s mix of surreal horror has always been better when it tries out new elements to add to the beloved tune – and this duo between newbie and veteran, survival and action, feels like we’ve just come back, dear (unconverted).