I've been playing Resident Evil games for 25 years – Resident Evil Requiem doesn't need Leon Kennedy

Resident Evil is my favorite video game franchise ever, and it's all because of Leon Scott Kennedy. His calm-in-the-face-of-danger, middle-part-framed face defined cool to my seven-year-old self in 1998's Resident Evil 2. Now, it's 2025, I'm no longer seven (I'll let you do the math), Leon's pushing 50, and I'm ready for some more new blood in Resident Evil Requiem.

Resident Evil 2 isn't the first game I played as a kid, but I think it's the first where I really clocked what was going on. In the same way that Drew Barrymore's gruesome death at the beginning of Scream left an everlasting imprint on my developing psyche, I'll never forget the first time I saw Leon Kennedy roll into Raccoon City in his Jeep Wrangler and do his very first tango with flesh-eating zombies. Cut forward to Resident Evil 4, objectively one of the greatest action-horror games ever made, and Leon had cemented himself as a video game icon right up there with Lara Croft and Solid Snake.

I give you this slice of personal history to preface what I'm about to say with deep, sincere reverence for this character: Resident Evil Requiem doesn't need Leon Kennedy. Again, he's an icon, but aside from remakes, the enduring survival horror series has been absolutely thriving without him for almost a decade now, and I firmly believe that's because of Capcom's willingness to reject nostalgia bait, leave the past in the past, and take creative risks.

Leon who?

Resident Evil 7 was a huge risk. The series needed a comeback after the one-two self-punch of 5 and 6, and instead of going the safe route and bringing back best boy Leon in a single-player survival horror setting, Capcom introduced a whole new setting, a new cast of characters, and a story that had very little to do with Leon Kennedy, Chris and Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine, or Raccoon City. It didn't even look like Resident Evil, with a distinct grindhouse, Hills Have Eyes vibe that basks in a Louisiana dusk. And hot damn, what a comeback it was.

Right from its gruesome opening scene, Resident Evil 7 sets the stage for something wildly different. Dark, unpredictable, gruesome, stomach-churning even. The game starts with protagonist Ethan Winters exploring a dank, seemingly abandoned house in the American South in search of his wife, who violently attacks him and cuts off his hand with a chainsaw, forcing him to kill her.

Imagine that in Silent Hill 2. 'In my restless dreams I see that town… and oh, there's Mary! Hi Mary! Wow, that was easy, didn't even have to look very hard… Wh-Why are you holding a chainsaw, Mary? Oh god, oh god!'

That's what I want to see in Resident Evil 9! I want to be shocked and disturbed, not comforted by a familiar face. Fuck it, kill Leon right in the opening cutscene… respectfully, of course. (For the record, I kid, I kid.)

This is just the beginning

Remember, it's the same Koshi Nakanishi, who directed Resident Evil 7, in charge of Resident Evil 9's development. Nakanishi recently said Leon "is quite a bad match for horror," and I agree. Right from the announcement of Resident Evil Requiem a year ago, the messaging has been, this is a game that will "scare the hell out of you," and it's a lot less scary being a badass cop with the plot armor of a beloved video game superstar than it is playing a newbie, untrained, vulnerable person.

In Nakanishi's words, "he wouldn't jump at something like a bucket falling. No one wants to see Leon scared by every little thing."

I'm also more interested in Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Resident Evil Outbreak's Alyssa Ashcroft, who Capcom insists is "the new main character" of Resident Evil Requiem despite my skepticism. My reasoning is simple: she's new! I've been smacking zombies as Leon for 25 years! I know him. I get him. He's unstoppable. He's unflinching in the face of unfathomable danger. He's maddeningly handsome. He's… boring?

Compared to Ethan Winters, and even to villains like Jack Baker and Lady Dimitrescu, there's just not enough there in Leon to sustain my interest in another game after decades of character development that's seen him evolve from unceasingly likable video game protagonist to, well, pretty much the same thing all these years later. He shoots. He heals. He broods.

Don't get me wrong, I hope Leon at least makes an appearance in Resident Evil Requiem, and I strongly suspect he will, possibly alongside Jill, Claire, and Chris for the series' 30th birthday, but I really, really hope Capcom isn't using Grace as a Charlie Brown-style football to be yanked away in a grand reveal of, 'Sike, it's Leon again!'

We're leaving this place together

Resident Evil Requiem – prominent Resi leaker Dusk Golem has long claimed Leon is actually the main character of the game, despite Capcom's insistence to the contrary. Next year also marks the series' 30th anniversary, which admittedly would be the perfect time to bring back the face of the franchise in a big way.

The thing is, there's a way to deliver that fan service without losing what made Resident Evil 7 and, to a slightly lesser degree, Resident Evil 8, so good. I'm hyped to see the RPD back in action, but I'm even more excited to see what Grace is all about and to navigate whatever horrors await me from the perspective of someone new, and ideally less morally and emotionally ironclad than Leon Kennedy.

I want to see Resident Evil Requiem honor the series' legacy in a more prominent way than Resident Evil 7 and 8, but in a way that doesn't undermine its new hero by letting the old guard steal her spotlight. I get it, Leon feels like home, but Resident Evil isn't supposed to feel like home. It's supposed to be scary! For my money, the series is at its best when it takes big strides forward, and putting players in the boots of Leon Kennedy would be an almost literal step backwards.

Counterpoint: I don't care what Capcom says, Leon not being in Resident Evil Requiem makes no sense