Resident Evil: Requiem Devs Say They Can't Tell if the Game's Actually Scary Anymore

Resident Evil has been 1 of the video crippled industry's quintessential, flagship fearfulness games for years now, delivering everything implicit the years from unsettling, atmospheric haunting to outright jumpscares. But arsenic its improvement squad continues to hunt for caller ways to freak radical out, a fewer of its leaders are admitting that they're not ever 100% definite what elements of Resident Evil are really scary anymore.

This comes from our interrogation with manager Koshi Nakanishi and shaper Masato Kumazama astatine Tokyo Game Show 2025. We started by talking astir Resident Evil: Requiem's caller protagonist, Grace, and her differences from the much action-oriented Leon S. Kennedy. That led to a treatment of wherefore the bid was pulling backmost connected the dense enactment elements successful Requiem, arsenic Nakanishi explains:

I deliberation you tin broadly classify Resident Evil titles connected a standard of however overmuch they're similar Resident Evil 2 oregon Resident Evil 4. Resident Evil 7 was decidedly connected the 2 broadside of that, arsenic it returned to endurance fearfulness roots and was precise acclaimed for that. Resident Evil Village built connected that and added successful much enactment and gunplay and brought it toard the RE4 broadside of that peculiar scale. But if we kept going successful that absorption there's astir an ostentation effect, wherever you person to support adding much and much enactment to outdo the erstwhile title, and by doing that you yet extremity up wherever Resident Evil 5 and 6 went, and though they're inactive large games, the wide statement is that they pushed Resident Evil truthful acold successful the enactment absorption that it was nary longer horror. I didn't privation to person to bash that with Resident Evil's ninth rubric wherever I conscionable tried to outdo the enactment successful Village and ended up making thing I didn't privation to make. Firmly swinging the standard toward the Resident Evil 2 benignant was our intention, and it's astir an upgrade of that Resident 2 style.

But that led to a follow-up question wherever I asked Nakanishi astir the different broadside of the coin, of trying to outdo their ain scares with each caller title. Nakanishi noted that their extremity isn't needfully to innovate horror, but determination is simply a definite numbing effect that moving connected these games for truthful agelong has, wherever they truly request to spot assemblage reactions to cognize if what they've made is really scary oregon not.

"We've made truthful galore of these that we can't archer anymore until idiosyncratic other plays it," Nakanishi says. "There was really a spot of a interest internally earlier we showed the [Resident Evil: Requiem] hands-off astatine SGF and the archetypal hands-on astatine Gamescom, was this really scary? Because we don't adjacent cognize anymore. This is our breadstuff and better, what we marque each day."

I ended up asking Nakanishi if determination was thing they had chopped from the crippled for being excessively scary. He couldn't callback thing circumstantial that was really removed from the crippled aft it had been added, but helium did retrieve 1 anecdote that mightiness marque fans of Ethan Winters chuckle:

"We didn't truly instrumentality it, truthful it wasn't cut, but- we don't cognize if something's scary. So we say, we'll bash this, we'll bash that, we support adding connected stuff, and astatine 1 constituent we were like, what if [Grace] gets a large gash successful her leg, oregon her limb gets chopped off, due to the fact that that happening attacks her, and ohio my deity it's truthful scary, but we talked ourselves down a small bit."

So astatine slightest we cognize Grace astir apt isn't going to person the aforesaid issues Ethan did with hands. Probably.

We previewed Resident Evil: Requiem conscionable past month, and you tin work our impressions of what we've seen truthful acold close here. You tin besides cheque retired the remainder of my treatment with Nakanishi and Kumazawa, including however Reqiuem came to the Nintendo Switch 2 and what's going connected with Leon Kennedy. We've besides antecedently spoken to the brace connected a fig of different topics, specified arsenic Raccoon City's instrumentality and the game's caller monster design.

Rebekah Valentine is simply a elder newsman for IGN. You tin find her posting connected BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a communicative tip? Send it to [email protected].