Resident Evil Requiem’s dual protagonists will represent two styles of gameplay, which its developers describe as like “jumping into a cold bath after a hot sauna”.
At last night’s The Game Awards, Capcom revealed Leon Kennedy will indeed be playable in the next mainline entry of the horror series, after plenty of fan speculation and a leak earlier in the week. Since then, director Akifumi Nakanishi and producer Masato Kumazawa have shed more light on how the dual protagonists will differ.
“Grace is ‘the biggest scaredy-cat in Resident Evil history’,” Nakanishi told Automaton, while “Leon is a seasoned veteran, so seeing how those personalities interact is part of the fun.”
He also confirmed the two characters are “almost equally split”, with a similar structure to 3DS game Resident Evil Revelations.
“I’ve said before that Leon isn’t well suited to horror,” said Nakanishi. “Since quiet sections where you cower before monsters don’t fit him, his chapters focus on intense, adrenaline-pumping action. Grace’s sections, on the other hand, are the scarier ones. We’re really emphasising the difference in their experiences this time.”
He continued: “It’s almost like having two games with completely different types of tension mixed together. Early on, we worried players might not be able to keep up, but now we feel that the contrast gives the game a unique rhythm, like jumping into a cold bath after sitting in a hot sauna. It was important to combine the slow and fast segments well, and Grace and Leon turned out to be the best combination for that. Leon also has lots of new actions, giving you a strong sense of release compared to Grace’s sequences.”
As such, Grace’s sections resemble Resident Evil 2, while Leon’s will be closer to Resident Evil 4. After all, these are arguably the two most popular games in the series.
Confirmation of the two characters and their differing gameplay styles also speaks to the “tension and release throughout the game” Nakanishi previously told Eurogamer. “That’s something that I think Resident Evil is really unique with among horror games,” he said. “We don’t just scare you – we offer you a chance to release that tension by overcoming it all.”
Nakanishi also spoke to Automaton of Leon’s design, who’s been refined into an ‘ikeoji’ – slang for a cool and attractive older man. “There are plenty of Leon fans inside the company too, after all,” said Kumazawa.
Added Nakanishi: “Also, this is Leon’s first return to Raccoon City since Resident Evil 2, so seeing how he responds to the ‘place where it all began’ now that he’s older is another major point of interest.”
Resident Evil Requiem will be released next year on 27th February across PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2 and Steam. Resident Evil 7 and Village will also be coming to Nintendo’s console.
