Resident Evil 9 is “a Requiem to Those Who Came Before”
Capcom’s Spotlight event in June 2025 showcased a small number of upcoming, and currently available, titles from the studio and publisher. Of particular interest was a deep dive into the ninth entry into the Resident Evil series, formerly titled Requiem.
Given that Capcom’s been on something of a hot streak with reinventing the series over the last few years, any news about Resident Evil is worth a look. In this case, Resident Evil Requiem involves what Game Director Koshi Nakanishi calls “addictive fear.”
“There’s something about the catharsis you get from overcoming your fears,” he said in the Spotlight video. “It creates an addiction that makes you want to do more, to play more. That intense focus, while scary, makes for a really fun game. This served as our launching point for Requiem.”
Audience Proxy
The latest trailer was revealed at gamescom 2025. However, a previous trailer revealed the protagonist this time is an FBI analyst, Grace Ashcroft; Nakanishi revealed more details about her, too. “She’s introverted and easily scared, which is a new type of character for Resident Evil. We wanted someone that experiences horror from the same perspective as the player.”
The studio hopes that Grace becomes as popular as previous protagonist Ethan Winters turned out to be. “Conceptually, Grace is a character who overcomes challenges with her wit and ingenuity,” said Art Director Tomonori Takano. “She survives using her own strength – that’s part of her charm.”
The developers also spoke about certain technical issues, including how they tried to accurately model Grace’s hair to behave in a realistic fashion. In the end, they ended up looking at the work of upcoming sci-fi action game Pragmata; the team on that side developed a process called Strands to show realistic movement of things like hair, which the Requiem team could use for themselves, too.
“It turned out better than expected,” Takano added. “Not just the softness from using Strands, but also scenes where she’s holding a lighter while being chased. There’s a moment where light shines through her hair, and when you see the light passing through the strands I believe you can see that it was a visual success.”
Addictive Fear
Nakanishi touched on popular lead character Leon Kennedy, and explained why he’s not the focus this time around as making a horror game around him is difficult. “He wouldn’t jump at something like a bucket falling. No one wants to see Leon scared by every little thing. So he’s actually quite a bad match for horror.”
In an accompanying Creator’s Message video that expanded the talking head segments from Capcom Spotlight, the Game Director also spoke about how integral fear is to the franchise, but in terms of how each game presents it. For example, although the Leon-starring Resident Evil 4 is action-heavy, fear comes through in the environment design as many areas hide terrors from sight until it’s almost too late.
Nakanishi said he especially wanted to take the focus on fear inherent in part 7 and take it a step further, and repeated his words on Requiem’s fear factor: “For us, an ‘addictive fear’ means even though you might be scared, you just can’t stop playing. You want to see what’s next. You die, but wonder, ‘What if I tried this? Next time, I’ll do it differently.’”
“You want to keep going – as it’s almost addictive,” he added. “That’s the kind of gameplay experience that we are aiming for in Resident Evil Requiem.”
Resident Evil-ution
Producer, Masato Kumazawa, appeared to talk about the evolution of the game, and how this time around players will be able to switch freely between first and third person perspectives. This gives players the choice between feeling immersed or having a wider view of surroundings for action-heavy scenes.
Nakanishi revealed that early development included testing out ideas for online and open-world play. But, the team soon realized that this isn’t what players wanted, so the studio went back to the drawing board to redesign the game into what it is now.
Defcon One
One of the overriding themes with the redesign included looking at the series’ history and considering how this might impact a modern story. This included taking a look at past locations, of which Raccoon City is arguably the series most famous; it’s been the setting for, or appeared in, (fittingly) nine Resident Evil games.
Racoon City was glimpsed in the reveal trailer – or rather, what’s left of it following events from previous games. “The game is set about 30 years after the missile strike on Raccoon City,” said Takano. He also spoke about how the idea this time was to try and come up with a story that looked at how the events in Raccoon City would impact people afterwards.
Nakanishi added, “This game is a requiem, a eulogy to those who came before. Resident Evil is a series that was born from Umbrella and the Raccoon City zombie outbreak and we chose the title ‘Requiem’ to mark a milestone in the series.”
Resident Evil Requiem is currently slated for release on February 27, 2026. March 2026 is the series’ 30th anniversary, and the hope from the development team is that part 9 lives up to the game’s history.
