Requiem is my first Resident Evil game – I had no idea what was happening, but loved it anyway

I’ll paint a picture. I’m playing as Leon. I have no idea why he’s so loved, but he makes me feel safe, has nice hair, and it’s a break from Grace’s stuttering and heavy breathing. I’ve been investigating Raccoon City for a while, something bad apparently happened here, but I couldn’t tell you what, and now I’m at the old police station, which seems like a big deal because it’s littered with references I don’t understand.

There’s a puzzle! Great, I love puzzles. I approach it and it says ‘that was a weird puzzle’. Was it? So, I wander around for a bit, not knowing how to solve it, until I realise this is another throwback to a game I’ve never played and an ‘in’ joke I’ll never get. But I weirdly smile anyway, because I’m happy for Resident Evil fans – I bet this gave them a little chuckle.

Requiem is the first Resident Evil game I’ve ever played, and when I say I have no knowledge of Resident Evil, I haven’t even watched the films, and working in the games industry has only meant I know that Leon Kennedy is cool and Chris Redfield is important. That said, Requiem is an absolute blast and I enjoy every minute of it – even the regular experience of being wildly confused. In fact, it might be fair to say I enjoyed it more without the high expectations that veteran fans might have.

Playing as Grace in survival horror with her shaky hands and “w-w-w-w-what was that?” moments every two seconds is effective at making me scared, but I soon decide that there’s no one as scared as Grace, not even me, so I can sit back and enjoy solving puzzles and lightly jogging away from mutated monsters. As the game progresses, I unlock a blood device that lets me mop up infected blood and use it to craft. Why wouldn’t infected blood and a green plant create a med injection? I love this type of crafting on the fly and risking resources to get more resources which enables me to make bad choices, like unloading all my bullets into a zombie chef because he was in the way and I wasn’t feeling particularly sneaky. But I have to be careful and considerate with my limited supplies, and taking out that zombie hinders my approach to enemies waiting around the corner. Sometimes I just have to run away and hide.

Then on the flipside, is the action of Leon Kennedy – who I knew by name but not by sight. This is a man who isn’t scared of anything. In transitioning from Grace’s first-person to Leon’s third-person POV, I almost feel like I’m just watching Leon’s parts of the game play out. It has a great arcadey vibe to it, and big powerful weapons I can upgrade into oblivion – a far cry from Grace’s little makeshift knife. I don’t have to worry about sneaking or rationing bullets, I can unload my shotgun noisily (and in style) into anything coming my way, and even find axes, flammable containers, and chainsaws that happen to be lying around to hurl at enemies. It’s almost like releasing the breath which Grace’s part of the story forces me to hold.

The details of the many throwbacks go as far as the collectibles – little bobblehead raccoons are lying around which you’re apparently supposed to shoot, but even more blatant than that, there are just straight-up flashbacks to previous games. I don’t know what most of it means; I think I’m supposed to be sad as I stare at this pile of bones, but I don’t know these people. I’ve grown to know Leon, though, and it helps me get a sense of his drive – that this is about repentance, not revenge.

I enjoy it when I’m scared, I enjoy it when I’m looking down at Leon taking out hordes of zombies. I even enjoy it when some guy turns up and there’s a slight pause giving us the time to scream “OMG IT’S BLAH BLAH FROM RESIDENT EVIL 3” (oh, is it?) before we miss any more lore-dumping dialog. I only know things are references because Leon will say things like “you again.” I even enjoy being confused, of not knowing why there are even zombies in the first place – T-VIRUS? TTTX-VIRUS? TTTZQZ-VIRUS? Well, it’s definitely A VIRUS, and even though I’m supposed to gasp when people turn up, or cry when I read an old note from – I’m guessing – some dead friend or other, I still feel it all. And I’m also safe in the knowledge that there’s no one as confused as Grace.

I can’t spoil this game for you, because I don’t really know what happened. I’m sure there are many more things that went over my head, but I had the best time anyway. I’m looking forward to finding out what it all means one day, and maybe even actually understanding what originally went down in Raccoon City.