Halfway through 2025’s Summer Game Fest, Resident Evil executive producer Jun Takeuchi popped on-screen to acknowledge the anticipation of Resident Evil 9’s reveal. „Bear with us a little longer,“ he said. „Just a blink of an eye more, and it’ll be ready.“ And he wasn’t kidding. By the end of the show, RE9, or Requiem as we now know it, was revealed, pulling the rug from under our collective feet. The trailer had raised numerous questions: Is the new protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft from Resident Evil Outbreak? Does it take place in a post-bombing, quarantined Raccoon City? And, most importantly, is it first- or third-person? In another surprise twist, I was able to get hands-on with the game for about 20 minutes, and while I got a few answers, I left with more questions.
Having now played a very small portion of the game, there’s at least one question I can immediately answer: It’s third- and first-person. At any point while playing, you can pause the game and switch from one perspective to another whenever you see fit, unlike Resident Evil Village, which added third-person post-launch and required you to start a separate save file to play it. Though I wish switching perspectives could have been done with the press of a button, this is still a marked improvement. Additionally, it’s very clear that Capcom wanted Requiem to feel just as good in third-person as it does in its recent remakes of RE 2, 3, and 4. This is especially apparent in Requiem’s cutscenes that are directed cinematically, seeing Grace interact within the scene, opposed to Biohazard and Village, which never broke that first-person perspective. That said, first-person is still recommended by the game.
For this hands-on, I chose to play it in its recommended first-person perspective. Still, I took a moment to switch to third-person, and it felt very comfortable and comparable to the recent RE remakes. It’s a far cry from Village’s third-person mode, which did all it could to still obstruct protagonist Ethan Winters‘ face from ever being seen. Generally, I prefer third-person Resident Evil, but the section I played felt more appropriately suited for first (which I’ll explain momentarily). Whether or not some sections later in the game will be better suited for one perspective over the other, we’ll have to wait and see. If time had allowed it during my brief hands-on, I would have played the demo again entirely in third-person just to see. But alas.