***Minor spoilers ahead***

“Resident Evil Requiem”, the ninth title in the Resident Evil series, brings back a couple of familiar faces and introduces a couple of new ones. We play as both the famous Leon S. Kennedy and our new protagonist FBI tech and intelligence analyst Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of a previous protagonist, Alyssa Ashcroft from “Resident Evil Outbreak”.

The first half of Resident Evil 9 (RE9) takes you from Wrenwood Hotel to Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center where the game is more grounded, and feels similar to the Racoon Police Department from RE2/3 or the Bakers house from RE7. The map is more open world but still linear.

The second half of the game takes you back to, lo and behold – Racoon City. This time Racoon City is destroyed after being nuked in RE2/3. After that, you head to the Racoon Police Department but it is destroyed and from the Racoon Police Department to the Racoon City orphanage which leads to ARK Umbrella’s secret facility and bioweapon repository.

The game lets you choose between a first person camera or a third person camera for both our protagonists in the game. It is recommended that you go first person camera when playing as Grace and third person camera when playing as Leon for the best experience. 

It is a perfect hybrid of RE7 and RE4’s remake when it comes to atmosphere and gameplay. Playing as Grace makes you feel like you are in Ethan Winter’s shoes again, with the first person camera and the haunting dreadful hallways of the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center. Playing Leon feels almost exactly like how he did in RE4’s remake with the kicking ass but no unnecessary backflips since our boy is pushing 50 years of age.

There are new features in the game that are awesome. The zombies during the first half of the game retain parts of their personality while being infected, so you will hear stuff like, “you’re fired” and singing from a couple zombies. Leon’s breakable knife is replaced with a hatchet so when its durability goes down, you sharpen the hatchet instead of it breaking and forcing you to find another one.

There is a new mechanic while playing as Leon – the credit system. In the second half of the game Leon uses this new credit system. Basically every time you kill a regular zombie you get 500 credits and you can save up these credits to purchase upgrades, guns, items, and armor. The usual.

The game has two possible endings, the ‘good’ ending and the ‘bad’ ending (but I won’t say what happens in either one).

The game follows the classic Resident Evil formula of puzzles, item management, survival horror, stalker enemy, and its infamous ‘go here to get this key to open this door that leads you back to where you were at’. 

The community has been loving the game and so have the critics with a 5.0 on steam, 9.4/10 on IMDb and 89% on metacritic.

Jose Alvarez, a Resident Evil fan, had this to say after playing the game, “I like how they made Grace feel vulnerable and not some kind of super human like Leon, Jill, or Ethan. (Ethan could be debatable with RE7.) The way both Leon and Grace play throughout the game really shows how much of a difference there is between a regular human being and someone who is known to dominate in the franchise.” 

“For example when Grace shoots her hand cannon for the first time the recoil stuns her as well as when you are aiming a gun as Grace you can see her visibly shaking,” continued Alvarez. “That’s all I could think of, oh also the way the Grace stumbles while running in third person.”

Overall, “Resident Evil Requiem” is a phenomenal game that all kinds of Resident Evil fans will enjoy. Who knows what we will get for Resident Evil 10 as it is being rumored that “Resident Evil: Code Veronica” is the title for the next remake.