"It's not a full game mode, but here": Resident Evil Requiem gets kawaii makeover as Capcom tries to appease Resident Evil 2 director, who's been begging for a scare-free game since 1998

There's plenty of beauty to observe in Resident Evil Requiem – it's called Leon Kennedy's eyes – but I can't blame Resident Evil 2 director Hideki Kamiya for being more distracted by the game's lobotomized mutants eager to plunge a chainsaw into his chest cavity. Capcom is doing its best to soothe him, then, with a special image of nearly-helpless protagonist Grace Ashcroft being choked to death.

"It's not a full game mode, but here…" Capcom writes on its official English Resident Evil Twitter account, alongside an image of infected drama queen Selena Corey grabbing Grace's head while she shrieks. Selena's eyes are sadly still jaundiced, her lips are shriveled grapes, and black bile sticks to her gums, but Capcom has also scribbled little pink cat ears onto her head, which is nice.

The developer has also added some cherry blossom branches as a border, with a few floating petals to collect on Grace's head as she huffs Selena's undoubtedly spoiled breath. Lovely, really lovely stuff.

Hopefully it's good enough for Kamiya, who, despite wishing "ten thousand deaths" upon all of the "assholes" who leaked Requiem last month, maintains he doesn't enjoy horror. A DeepL translation of his March 10 Twitter post that sparked Capcom's reply expresses Kamiya's wishes for a more relaxed Resident Evil. He's looking for Resident Delightful. He recommends blood splatter turn into cherry blossom petals, as Capcom rendered beautifully, and cheerful background music to help him sleep more soundly at night.

And before you start raving about how he literally directed a Resident Evil installment in 1998, Kamiya says in a March 2 post (also translated by GamesRadar+ with DeepL) that he complained to Capcom about needing a "safe mode" back then, too. Resident Evil mutants should look like happy cartoons from the Japanese clip art library Irasutoya, he decides, and say adorable things like "Ufufu." That's Resident Agreeable.

Resident Evil Requiem is too scary for series veteran Hideki Kamiya, who argues Capcom "should make a 'non-scary' mode" because "look, I just want to enjoy the puzzles."