Scary Resident Evil is back, baby. Capcom says Resident Evil Requiem shares some similarities with by far the scariest scene in Resident Evil Village, and for my money quite possibly the scariest scene in series history, but dialed up even more.
Director Koshi Nakanishi, who also helmed the absolute nightmare that is Resident Evil 7, has said from Requiem's announcement that it "should scare the hell out of you," which I said at the time is precisely what I wanted to hear from Capcom on the future of the series.
Now I'm starting to think I should be more careful what I wish for. There's definitely a threshold somewhere in me that determines how scary a game can be before it's too scary. The first half of Resident Evil 7 definitely approaches that limit, and the House Beneviento sequence from Resident Evil Village pushes even closer to 'OK, that's enough' territory.
Speaking with GamesRadar+ over Gamescom 2025, Nakanishi says you can expect something similar in the beginning of Resident Evil Requiem - except even scarier.
"There are similarities to that section for sure," he says. "I think each Resident Evil title has these sort of standalone parts where maybe you don't have the weapons you're used to. We can increase the horror feeling with that."
Yeah, one very reliable way to crank up the scare factor is to simply reduce the amount or effectiveness of the player's defense mechanisms, and Village's House Beneviento and that cursed giant baby is prime that.
"We kind of structurally brought that horror aspect to the forefront right at the start of the game, in order to gel with the characterization of Grace of someone who you know is completely unfamiliar with and not expecting to be thrown into such a horrible situation.
"But we want to add something fresh as well, so rather than just copying and pasting over House Beneviento, [there are] things like the mechanism for how you protect yourself from the creature in the demo, and the creature itself and its design, and how it feels to be pursued by it in this section, are something that I think bring another level to that concept of the claustrophobic, unarmed character section of the game."
Like in House Beneviento, you're left with virtually nothing to defend yourself in the beginning of Resident Evil Requiem, except instead of being chased by a giant messed-up baby, it's a giant humanoid that eats people's heads. And while you can't defend yourself in House Beneviento, you're still Ethan Winters, whereas in Resident Evil Requiem, you're the anxiety-riddled and clumsy Grace Ashcroft, who will trip and fall in her panicked escape, making the whole situation even tenser.
Thankfully, as is Resident Evil tradition, Grace will eventually become familiar with a variety of weapons, and Nakanishi tells us "you can't keep the horror tension to the max through the whole game, because it's quite exhausting," which I genuinely, wholeheartedly agree with. Even the most battle-hardened horror sickos don't have the endurance for an entire game's worth of House Beneviento-level scares.
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