(Credit: Capcom)
There's no horror game series more renowned than Resident Evil. Now nearly 30 years old, the franchise continually finds new hooks from developer Capcom, and it's about to happen again with Resident Evil Requiem (aka Resident Evil 9). Capcom brought the upcoming survival-horror game to Summer Game Fest, where I experienced a closed-door, hands-off demo. Was it enough to get a longtime Resident Evil fan excited? Absolutely.
Story: A New Hero and a Return to Raccoon City
The demo opened with the distraught heroine, Grace Ashford, strapped upside down to a medical gurney, her blood being siphoned by what looked like a transfusion bottle. Like Ethan Winters in Resident Evil 7, Grace is a fresh series face and one that's far more vulnerable than previous Resident Evil protagonists. She won't pull John Wick-esque takedowns like Leon S. Kennedy or Ada Wong in Resident Evil 4. Instead, she relies on cunning and deductive skills to survive the frights.
(Credit: Capcom)The demo continued with Grace freeing herself from the gurney by knocking over the transfusion bottle and using the glass to cut the straps binding her wrists and ankles. The third-person perspective shifted to a first-person perspective—more on that in a bit—as Grace explored an eerily clean room that invoked the original Resident Evil's Spencer Mansion.
What's most interesting about Grace is that she's connected to the Raccoon City outbreak in a way you wouldn't expect. It turns out that she's the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft, an investigative journalist from Racoon City Outbreak, the multiplayer entry for the PlayStation 2. Canonically, Raccoon City was nuked, wiping out the zombie threat. It seems Requiem will have you revisit the wrecked city in some capacity.
Gameplay: An Emphasis on Horror
Continuing, Grace crept through the sanatorium's dark halls until she arrived at a door with a busted fuse. In traditional Resident Evil fashion, Requiem uses this opportunity to make you hunt for a replacement. And just like other Resident Evil titles, Requiem ensures you won't be alone for very long. Resident Evil Requiem emphasizes horror more than explosive set pieces (in this demo, at least), a balance Capcom successfully nailed in Resident Evil 7 but lost sight of in Resident Evil Village.
As Grace fumbled through the dark, she headed toward a red light and found a dead body. However, a giant, grotesque monster burst through the door, toward the corpse. Like Saturn devouring his son, this disgusting monster took a huge bite out of the corpse, spewing blood everywhere. The creature turned its attention to Grace, causing the hero to bolt into another room and lock the door.
The chase is not new to Resident Evil, of course. It's especially prominent in the Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 remakes, where Mr. X and Nemesis ruthlessly pursued players. However, Requiem's monster didn't follow Grace through doorways; it seemed to scurry between tunnels.
Later in the demo, Grace returned to the room where the body was shredded, which triggered another chase sequence—this time to a locked gate. With the monster hot on her heels, she sprinted through the dark halls, slammed a found fuse into a panel, and crawled underneath the raised gate into another building wing.
The gorgeous graphics rendered the chaos in beautiful fashion. Shadows danced as Grace's lighter cut through the inky black halls, and the gore was satisfyingly gross. The capture was done on a PlayStation 5 Pro, and I could tell that Capcom used every development trick in the book to make Resident Evil Requiem as shockingly realistic as possible.
As the exciting demo wrapped up, Capcom reps revealed another surprise that I teased earlier: You can play Resident Evil Requiem in either first- or third-person perspectives. It's a best-of-both-worlds situation for fans of the new Resident Evil games and the recent remakes.
(Credit: Capcom)Resident Evil Requiem: Platforms and Release Date
Series creator Shinji Mikami once famously said, "Don’t pee your pants!" when demoing Resident Evil 4. That's an evergreen series statement, especially for ones like Requiem that really lean into frights more than action. Resident Evil Requiem heads to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S on February 27, 2026.