So we’ve got a ninth Resident Evil now. The ninth entry in just about any series often represents a long-accumulated but little-addressed identity crisis: how do we make this feel meaningful still?

There aren’t a lot of success stories to draw upon. Final Fantasy went delving for nostalgia and came up with mere pastiche with its much-beloved, but in my opinion emotionally hollow, ninth entry. Mega Man 9 went all the way back to the visual style and limitations of its 8-bit ancestors, delivering a game that felt authentic but ultimately unnecessary. Dragon Quest IX aimed for some creative online features but wound up delivering another rote Dragon Quest, one that even fans of the series, the people who kinda just — said with love! — want more Dragon Quest, don’t hold in high esteem.

With Resident Evil Requiem, Capcom decided to have it both ways: a game for fans of every era of Resident Evil, somehow all wrapped up into a single game. It’s kind of a risky proposition — didn’t they try that with the much-maligned Resident Evil 6? — but this time they delivered a game that, at its best moments, is a truly excellent ride. And at its worst moments? Well, it’s still all right, but it lacks the courage to follow through on its telegraphed intentions and close the book on a bygone era.

We’ve got to start with the game’s structure and presentation. Like many games in the Resident Evil series, Requiem starts out quite scary. You’re alone, vulnerable, under-resourced, and in an unfamiliar labyrinth full of untold horrors, and it’s going to take a lot of caution and courage to make it through. By the second half, though, we’ve largely abandoned that sense of powerlessness for a merely creepy action power fantasy.

This is by design, and the game communicates this intention to the player through its recommendation about which camera system to use. Before playing, you’re instructed to choose a default camera view — first- or third-person — for the two playable characters, Grace Ashcroft and Leon Kennedy. Grace’s sections are designed for first-person, much like Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil Village; they lean heavily into themes of vulnerability and terror, and they’re best experienced in first-person for maximum impact. Leon’s sections, on the other hand, are more action-themed and far less scary. You can mix and match as you like, but I chose to follow the game’s recommendations: give me horror when you’ve got horror to give, and give me stupid action when that’s what’s on the menu.

We’re mostly in Grace’s shoes for the first half. We’re treated to, yes, another mansion to explore, but one that is immaculately designed and populated with a delightfully creepy host of undead creatures to disable or flee from. The pacing is, in my view, nearly perfect: it’s taut, exhilarating, and interspersed with quiet victories and sinking terror in equal measure.

The game swaps between player characters frequently in the first half of the game, which allows it to convey even larger tonal shifts to the player than in the series’ earlier games. I remember a palpable relief when I saw a cutscene starring Leon begin to play just after finishing a stressful Grace sequence, knowing I’d get a hit of catharsis while I run-and-gun some zombies down. The inverse also applies: just as my victory lap with Leon comes to an end, I’m thrust back into fresh horrors as the far-less-powerful Grace.

For the first half of the game, I think this all works marvelously. My sense was that this game was trying to grapple with the very real challenge of being the ninth entry in a long-running series, one with sky-high expectations placed upon it. The first-person games are critically beloved, but the intense horror of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was a step beyond anything from prior games, and its hard commitment to a first-person perspective drove some fans away.

So now we have a Resident Evil for everyone. Play it all in third-person if you like! It’s up to you! From an accessibility standpoint, I think that’s lovely. From a game design standpoint, however, it becomes apparent that this is a particularly unbalanced experience, even when compared to the rest of the series.

It probably goes without saying, but this is a truly breathtaking game, full of dozens of striking environments, with powerful use of light and shadow.

In the second half of the game, we all but dispense with playing as Grace. Leon steps into the spotlight for a lengthy action-adventure romp through a hub-and-spoke environment in broad daylight, delving into abandoned buildings and dank sewers for good measure. We’re treated to what feels like a truncated Resident Evil 4-style metagame, where we kill zombies to earn points that we can spend to upgrade our guns and buy new ones. The in-game explanation is ludicrous, but hey: that’s classic Resident Evil, baby.

I think the back half of the game is attempting to venerate the middle era of Resident Evil, which began with Resident Evil 4, also starring Leon Kennedy. That this sequence also takes place in an area that’s likely to be deeply meaningful to long-time series fans further reinforces the intent behind it: this is a victory lap, a treat. You’ve eaten your vegetables, so here’s a generous heaping of dessert.

I had fun playing this part. I was certainly engaged; after ten hours of intense terror, it felt like a vacation to jog from location to location, tactically dispatching dozens of the undead with Leon’s delightfully stupid action-hero quips to keep me company. My brain had shifted from reactivity to tactics; now I was finally in control. The world was my canvas, and Leon’s ludicrous arsenal was my palette.

It was fun, at first. But after a half hour of it, I missed the novelty of the exquisitely paced first-person terror of the game’s first half. Playing as Grace felt like a triumphant declaration that Capcom’s design team was still discovering plenty of fertile ground for novel and meaningful horror exploration and puzzle design. But playing as Leon felt, I dunno, stale. We’ve already done this several times, and it was better the first time we did it. Sure, it’s fun to go back to Disneyland a second time, but it’ll never capture your imagination like the first trip.

But the Grace-focused first half did feel novel to me, even as someone who devoured the other first-person Resident Evil games. There’s so much more to be done in that space; to abandon it for a polished but dull retread of past glory felt to me like when your favorite athlete is well past their prime but refuses to retire before they collect one more ring. You still love them, but you can’t watch them without recalling how great they were in their prime.

Capcom reflects on its legacy.

Resident Evil’s embrace of horror for horror’s sake has always had its limits. From its earliest days, the series has understood the fundamentals of tension and release, even during the scariest stretches of each game. Granted, I’ve played only the first part of 1, 2, and 3, but I’ve completed 4, 5, 7, 8, and now 9. But in my recollection, each game front-loads its scariest parts — the long stretches of mysterious, dark labyrinths, a paucity of ammunition and healing herbs, and the most extreme manipulation of the player’s cortisol levels.

Like a good roller coaster, I love these stretches of each game: they’re exhilarating, even if I have to pause routinely to stand up, turn a light on, and walk around for a bit to remind my poor lizard brain that I’m not actually in danger. I like to play a great horror game; I like to have played them, anyway. In the moment it demands a lot more from me than the average game does, in that feeling compromised is part of the fun. And, as far as I can tell, that’s not a skill you can strengthen; if you attempt to, the fun is diminished. Maybe that’s part of why I love horror games: I’m usually quite good at most games, and it feels exhilarating and novel to suddenly feel powerless.

For what it’s worth, 7 is my favorite game in the series, but I’d much rather replay one of the more action-heavy entries like Resident Evil 4 or Resident Evil Village.

It feels like a deliberate choice that the near-fossilized console in the image above is a Sega Saturn, a console made by a company that stopped making consoles more than twenty years ago. If it were a PlayStation, that might feel like a celebration of an ongoing legacy. But the Saturn is long-gone, perhaps even unknown to many of the people playing a new Resident Evil in 2026.

All of this leaves me feeling like Resident Evil Requiem wanted so badly to close the door on its past with a lovingly realized swan song. It wanted to showcase the best of its modern approach to design (which it absolutely does! that part’s excellent) while also paying tribute to the games that got us here and the hero who epitomizes them. The first half of the game is a perfect realization of this goal; the second half, despite many high points, gets a bit muddled. It all culminates in a finale that closes some doors, at long last, but stubbornly refuses to commit to pushing forward in bigger ways.

I guess what I’m saying is: they should’ve killed Leon. The end!