Resident Evil Requiem Metacritic score shows reviews think RE9 is a tale of two games

With two protagonists carrying loads of emotional baggage, Requiem isn't afraid to get personal

The wait is nearly over. Resident Evil Requiem — the ninth mainline entry in Capcom's long-running horror franchise — is almost here, but reviews are already pouring in. As of this writing, based on nearly 100 critic reviews, Resident Evil Requiem is sitting at an 88 on Metacritic.

Directed by Koshi Nakanishi (the mastermind behind Resident Evil 7: Biohazard), Requiem follows two protagonists. The first is Grace Ashcroft, daughter of Resident Evil Outbreak's investigative journalist Alyssa Ashcroft. Grace, now an FBI agent, is still mourning her mother, who was brutally murdered in front of her. But she's attempting to carry on with her life until an FBI investigation goes sideways and drags her into a nightmare she never could have imagined. She eventually crosses paths with protagonist number two: an older, more mature version of former RCPD rookie Leon Kennedy. Leon is returning to what's left of Raccoon City, investigating some rumors he's heard about survivors of the Raccoon City incident.

"Requiem isn’t just a spectacular bit of digital closure for one of gaming’s most likable heroes or for an era of PlayStation nostalgia; it’s a reminder to confront our world’s darkest atrocities rather than hide away from them," Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio wrote in his review. "Evil can only truly prevail when there are no more good people left to stand up and fight back."

Requiem swaps back and forth between a first- and third-person POV. The game's opening, which follows Grace, is a first-person experience (though you can switch to a third-person perspective in the settings). But by the time players return to Raccoon City as Leon in the game's second act, it swaps to third-person. Some critics say the switch from first-person perspective in Grace's sections to third-person perspective in Leon's sections makes Resident Evil Requiem feel a bit jarring, while others think it offers the best of both worlds.

"Whereas Grace’s sections leave you feeling defenseless as you try to fend off howling witches and hulking butchers with nothing but a dinky handgun, Leon’s bits have him tearing through the same creatures like it’s another Tuesday," Colantonio wrote.

GameSpot's Phil Hornshaw rated the game an 8/10, and agrees that Requiem is a tale of two games, writing, "One game is a slow, frightening, gory haunted house story following an everyday person as its protagonist, hewing close to the horror-first approach of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. The other is a fast-paced, panic-inducing experience starring an action-hero badass that draws directly from Resident Evil 4. … Disparate as they may be, though, both halves are extremely compelling."

Overall, Resident Evil Requiem looks to be taking a more grounded, even mournful approach to storytelling than previous entries in the series (hence the name "Requiem"), but offers no shortage of scares, varied approaches to combat, and obligatory funny one-liners.

You can read Polygon's full Resident Evil Requiem review here, but we've also rounded up a look at what other outlets are saying about the latest entry in the Resident Evil franchise:

Eurogamer

"Requiem isn't just a horror game; it isn't just an action game; it's a joyful, honest-to-goodness celebration of Resident Evil, this legendary series, as it enters its 30th anniversary year. And the longer it goes on — the more it borrows and repurposes from the past — the more it plays like a gift to fans. It's there in that sprawling mansion that feels like a return to the start; in its shifting camera perspectives and shifting tones. It's there in its different inventory systems from two different eras, in the typewriter ribbons, and the wonderfully old-school puzzle contrivances. It's there in a bifurcated campaign that feels like a Resident Evil 6 callback, in an upgrade system for Leon that feels ripped right out of Mercenaries, and it's there in so many other ways. I'm not going to say too much more — partly because Capcom understandably wants to keep Requiem's biggest surprises secret, and partly because I wouldn't want to spoil their impact anyway — but the more it played into its legacy, the bigger my smile became." —Matt Wales

Game Informer

"Instead of ramping up Grace’s adventures to a comical level of silliness and heroism — an issue I have with the series’ past — her time on screen remains a dreadful march of atrocity, agony, and heart. And just as it starts to feel overindulgent, in steps Leon, just the man for extravagant set pieces with mortar-firing zombies, motorcycle chases, and monstrous boss fights. It’s nothing new for him, after all. Capcom masterfully weaves Leon and Grace’s stories together to ensure her horrors never persist for too long and that Leon’s ditzy drive never overextends its enjoyment.

"I would have welcomed another dozen hours of this back-and-forth with joy, and I am looking forward to optimizing my route through this nightmare to achieve a cleaner, faster completion time. That myriad post-game rewards and unlockables remain after the first playthrough demonstrates Capcom's confidence: it knows I will be playing it again, and again." —Wesley LeBlanc

GameSpot

"For almost a decade, Capcom has been refining Resident Evil, finding ways to modernize the storied franchise and to maintain what has made it so beloved. With Requiem, Capcom has dialed in Resident Evil maybe as far as it can. The result is a game that leans too hard on past successes and nostalgia, and so doesn't show its fans any new ideas. But it knows its hits backward and forward, and it plays them near-perfectly." —Phil Hornshaw

IGN

"Like the result of an experiment conducted in an underground Umbrella Corporation lab, Resident Evil Requiem successfully splices two separate strains of survival horror together into the one highly infectious new mutation. It signals the return of a series legend and the arrival of a likeable new lead, amps up the gore to a new stomach-turning standard, and unleashes a scarier breed of zombie alongside some truly beastly boss fights. The lack of any meaningful side content like The Mercenaries mode is a touch disappointing, and I do wonder if a slightly more consistent balance could have been struck with the ebb and flow from jaw-clenching moments of tension to all-out assault, rather than frontloading the story with frights before giving way to a more bullet-riddled back half. Even so, from my first trembling steps into its shadows all the way to the tremendous, titan-sized takedown at its climax, Resident Evil Requiem kept me completely absorbed and consistently entertained whether it was all hair-raising or all guns blazing." —Tristan Ogilvie

Kotaku

"Requiem starts with a lot of promise, seemingly striving to pave the way for the future of the series that it then seems too afraid to follow through on, but the bigger swings it had the chance to take only happen if a game is interested in real introspection about its legacy. Resident Evil is 30 years old now, and we’ve reached a point in this medium’s existence where a lot of franchises are celebrating long lives and considering what the next 30 years looks like. Requiem seems mostly content to think about the past and not give much thought to the future. But hey, the guns shoot good, the scares still hit, and Leon still looks good in a tight shirt. So maybe there’s no real need to make sweeping changes when the formula of multiple eras still goes down real smooth, even if it leaves me feeling a little bit empty." —Kenneth Shepard