After 25 hours, Resident Evil Requiem keeps me coming back for one more replay thanks to these 8 fantastic features

Resident Evil Requiem might technically be the ninth mainline game in the series, but it's a culmination of 30 years of the horror series that evolves on all the games over that period including spin-offs and remakes. Capcom has brought us some of the best survival horror games ever made across their years of refining Resident Evil, and Resident Evil Requiem feels, true to its name, like a real celebration of all of that, while also redefining what the series can mean in the future – which is why we loved it so much in our Resident Evil Requiem review.

After I finished Resident Evil Requiem once, I immediately had to start playing it again. And again. And again. I've played both characters using multiple camera angles, weapon configurations, and play styles while hunting for every collectible and secret in each area I can find, and it's fast become one of my favorite Resident Evil games. Splitting survival horror and action horror between two characters mean you never quite settle into one completely, but that does mean that Resident Evil Requiem has a unique rhythm in how it juggles both that helps it to stand apart. Join me as I take you through why that is, and count down the eight features I love the most that have kept me playing.

8. Graced by terror

Resident Evil 7 is easily one of the best Resident Evil games as far as I'm concerned, with its fresh hero and smaller, quieter stakes taking the horror back to basics. While Resident Evil Village went more bombastic and strayed from this, Resident Evil Requiem returns to it in spades. Grace Ashcroft might be an FBI agent, but she's best suited to desk work – and you really feel her struggling to survive as you play. Focused on first-person evasion, Resident Evil has never felt quite as tense, the sense of danger carrying throughout her sections the whole way through in a way that even Resident Evil 7 couldn't keep going. Early on, even simple regular zombies feel like a real threat, and you need to be careful with how to get past them.

7. Getting Leon with it

Leon isn't like Grace at all. His own fresh-faced turn back in Resident Evil 2 remake is well behind him at this point, and he feels every bit the veteran zombie slayer from the very first time you take control of him. Building on his fast-paced style of play that began in Resident Evil 6 and was perfected in Resident Evil 4 remake, he's able to stun and then melee enemies before finishing them off with this sharp hatchet (replacing RE4's knife). This loop is slicker than ever in Requiem, and joined by some truly brutal environmental kills, the ability to temporarily use dropped enemy weapons, and an upgrade loop that has you tuning your guns with points earned from smushing infected. I am begging for a Mercenaries mode to let me go hogwild with Leon Kennedy.

6. That special moment

While the regular T-Virus zombies are better than ever, smart deployment of Special Infected keeps things interesting – especially early in the game when you're playing as Grace very much on the backfoot, struggling to escape a care center lockdown. From evading a patrolling zombie chef determined to find flesh for the perfect soup (this strain of the virus keeps infected fixated on the last actions they took in life), to a pair of singers who alert nearby enemies, or Chunk, a very large and swollen man who slowly advances while taking up whole corridors. With limited resources, trying to stand your ground – especially on harder modes – can be rough, and Resident Evil Requiem can feel great when you're focused on evading these special infected enemies while staying alive.

5. Popping blisters

Speaking of special enemies, how about these Blister Heads? Essentially filling a similar function to the Crimson Heads added way back to the 2002 Resident Evil remake, certain zombies can reanimate a second time if their bodies (and crucially, heads) are intact. With huge red noggins, these faster, twistier, deadlier foes can take a serious beating. They're only truly vulnerable in their swelling heads, but still able to soak a lot of handgun bullets, which is especially deadly for Grace. I love the lore additions around this as well, explaining the rogue mutation as a blood-based factor that can spread even to other infected.

4. Requiescat in Pace

One way to deal with Blister Heads without breaking a sweat? Firing a round from the absolutely massive Requiem revolver right to the head. With very limited ammo, and a high bar for crafting bullets even when you track down the recipe, this powerful gun spends a lot of time in your inventory as a break-in-case-of-emergency weapon. And Resident Evil Requiem likes to serve up tempting emergencies quite often, especially when you're getting to grips with the game. Whether to reach for the Requiem, or save it for a more dangerous encounter later, builds on the classic Resident Evil feeling of hoarding your best bullets for the late game. Except, here, it's something you need to wrestle with from early on.

3. Once bitten, thrice Leon

Leon Kennedy has been through it. With Resident Evil 2 remake and Resident Evil 4 remake in recent years, we've revisited his entire history across these classic rivals, seeing him go from rookie cop in a bad situation, to a jaded agent. It almost feels like, with Resident Evil Requiem, that character arc from the remake series has finally come to the modern day, and with how each of these games has built off one another mechanically, like we're seeing through a real trilogy for Leon Kennedy. Not only is it great to see him return and finally get a handle on what life for him is like in the modern era of the survival horror series, but we get to see how he's changed and evolved and, through the nostalgic-tinged events of Resident Evil Requiem, put all the tragedy he's been through in perspective.

2. Open wide

Classic Resident Evil games have always excelled at giving you large, zombie-filled spaces to explore as you pursue your goal to escape and solve puzzles, but it's been tough to bring that into the modern era before. Resident Evil Requiem mixes together this style with some more linear sections, but it's these wider bits that really stand out. Grace's opening has her gradually exploring more of the huge care center as she searches for three keys to get out, while Leon has a much wider and much more open space later on with a similar 'find three things' premise. I wonder if this could be a test run across both survival horror and action horror genres to see how a more open format could fit Resident Evil in the future, but it certainly works well here.

1. View for a thrill

With both first-person and third-person options, it's recommended when you begin the game that you play as Grace with the former, and with Leon in the latter. It's a smart way to delineate the survival horror and action horror styles of play both characters embody, and Capcom has really made the most of each camera viewpoint. First-person really does emphasize the horror aspects, with peeking around corners not only enhancing the feeling of hiding, but legitimately conveying lines of sight in a way that's beneficial in play. Likewise, action master Leon benefits from a wider view of the hordes of zombies coming his way and the many items and weapons that spill forth. While both characters are fun to play in either perspective, I've really grown to appreciate how well done their default camera angles have been crafted.

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