Ranking the Scariest Moments In Resident Evil Requiem

During the opening moments of Resident Evil Requiem, we’re playing out a short flashback segment featuring a young and naive Grace Ashcroft and her mother, Alyssa, who we first got to know in Resident Evil Outbreak.

Alyssa is close to exposing a sinister secret, and with her life in imminent danger, she is about to reveal all to Grace. However, out of nowhere, an infected man slices her throat, right in front of Grace, which would understandably trigger lifelong PTSD. It was at this moment that the tone of Resident Evil Requiem was set to let everyone know that no one is safe.

I’m not a fan of over-excessive jump scares, because if used too frequently in a horror video game or movie, it can cheapen the experience. They exist in Resident Evil Requiem, and just fall short of overdoing it, in my opinion. But used sparingly, they most certainly have a place.

One of the early jumpscare moments in Resident Evil Requiem happens just before Grace encounters the female stalker enemy for the first time, and it’s a classic, but appreciated trope. Grace opens a door, already on edge after being kidnapped, and a zombie doctor falls on her, scaring the poor girl witless, and this moment made me jump too, with an additional curse word for good measure.

I hate this enemy, but in a good way. I wanted her to go away, but only because she had me wanting to cower behind the sofa. I will be vague with this female stalker's true identity and story to avoid spoilers, but the way she torments Grace, stalks in the shadows, and shuffles around in the ceiling gave me major Xenomorph vibes from Alien: Isolation. Which, by the way, is probably the scariest game I’ve ever played!

A safe room is supposed to do exactly what it leads you to believe, to feel safe. After Grace encounters the female stalker for the first time, the game lets you subtly know that a previous, well-lit room is a safe place, or so we’re led to believe. After running back into this room once or twice, the stalker's main deterrent, light is extinguished, and this terrifying moment lets the player know that a well-lit room isn't always a haven for Grace.

Later on in the game, as Grace ventures further into Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Centre, it becomes clear that this hospital has been a place of cruel experiments for many years. One of those experiments is for a large stalker enemy that is always hungry and wants you in its belly. When Grace unnervingly grabs a key item from a corpse, like an RKO out of nowhere, this grotesque creature wants to gobble you up and chases after a petrified Grace. While not on the same level of terror as that baby from Resident Evil Village, this moment gave me instant flashbacks to a moment I wished I’d forget.

One of the most unnerving aspects of the zombies in Resident Evil Requiem is that they retain routines and personality traits from when they were human (and there’s an in-story explanation for this). Whether it’s cleaning a mirror, flicking a light switch on and off, or, in the case of this zombie, singing and dancing.

Perhaps the most terrifying thing about this particular zombie is that she has a fantastic singing voice. When I first heard her voice echoing down a corridor, I assumed this had to be a happy human, and boy, how wrong I was! When I opened the door and saw her singing and dancing around the room, my instinct was to slowly back away, just like that Homer Simpson hedge meme.

There’s another flashback moment for Grace later in the game, and it takes us to the Raccoon City Orphanage, a place that we got to visit in the 2019 Resident Evil 2 remake. I’ll keep this brief to avoid spoilers, just in case you’re not at this point yet, but I hate these creepy clone kids. When I say they’re nightmare-fuelled, it’s no exaggeration.

This is one of the biggest spoilers in Resident Evil Requiem, and if you’ve not finished the game yet, what on earth are you doing this far into the article? Anyway, when Leon S. Kennedy makes an emotional return to the RPD, he gets reacquainted with an old friend, T-OO, otherwise known as Mr X.

To be honest, when I first encountered this enemy once again, due to storyline reasons, I thought Leon was hallucinating. However, as soon as Leon got punched in the face, I realised this was no fever dream, and I had to run as fast as Leon’s legs would allow. It was both an epic and truly intense moment in Resident Evil Requiem.