Resident Evil Requiem Fixes a Problem That's Plagued The Series For Almost a Decade

Resident Evil Requiem is fixing one of my biggest gripes with the RE Engine era, thank you Capcom.

I’ve been a Resident Evil fan for years and after my preview with Resident Evil Requiem I’m excited to play the game in full. To me it’s already striking the perfect balance between tense, survival horror and goofy action-comedy. Grace and Leon find themselves in the same boat but are having very different experiences. For Leon’s it’s another day in the office, for Grace it’s unbridled fear.

I touched on this briefly in my preview but I already adore Grace as a protagonist, because she fixes one of my biggest issues with the last two mainline Resident Evil games.

In Resident Evil 7: Biohazard we were introduced to Ethan Winters. He was an average joe looking for his missing girlfriend who, upon finding her, gets trapped in a house of horrors. His initial reaction to this situation is exactly how you or I would react, fear.

This was a nice change of pace as somewhere after Resident Evil 3: Nemesis the Resident Evil series started to get less and less scary. Characters like Leon Kennedy and Chris Redfield were still compelling characters but not because they were scared, it was because they weren’t. We saw Chris survive the Spencer Mansion and Leon survive the detonation of Raccoon City so when we next see them geared up and ready for action it’s understandable as we know what they’ve been through.

Capcom

Ethan had a similar adjustment to the horrors of the Resident Evil universe but in my opinion the change happened far too quickly. As if he was infected with the T-Virus Ethan’s personality and demeanour changed in just a couple of hours, whereas other characters have needed years to come to terms with what they’ve been through.

That’s not to say I don’t love Ethan. He was a loveable character in my opinion and his more cocky/determined personality makes a lot more sense in Resident Evil Village. By this point he’d had experience, received proper training and was motivated by the rescue of his daughter.

Resident Evil Requiem’s Grace Ashcroft however is a near-perfect protagonist in my eyes, and I only say near-perfect because I’m yet to play the full game. The bulk of my preview session placed me behind Grace’s eyes though and it didn’t feel like a second went by where she wasn’t overwhelmed with dread and anxiety.

The way her hands shook as she aimed a pistol or jumped at a noise down the hall immersed me in a way playing as Ethan never did. You could feel the fear radiating from her and even when she tried her best to be assertive or brave the act would quickly fall apart when the next monster reared its ugly head.

Capcom

Of course by the end of the game I’m expecting Grace to have conquered her fears but I imagine that change will only come in the last hour or so of the game, if it ever comes at all. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if Grace barely survives the events of the game and never shows up again, eternally traumatised by what she had to endure. If she does stick around I’d expect her to join the DSO with Leon as a member of the communications team, leaving field work to more experienced operatives.

I’m afraid I can’t predict the future though. What I do know is Grace has quickly become one of the most endearing protagonists in the series for me and that’s only after a few hours of gameplay. Capcom were incredibly smart to pair Grace and Leon together as it creates a fantastic balance of authentic survival horror and over-the-top, Resident Evil 4-esque action.