The Resident Evil universe will expand very soon, with the new chapter Resident Evil Requiem set to release next year. Announced during the Summer Game Fest 2025, the game has been met with immense enthusiasm by the community for two very specific reasons: the choice of protagonist and, above all, the location.
The protagonist of the new Resident Evil Requiem will be the young FBI agent, Grace Ashcroft, whose surname is certainly familiar to the most loyal fans of the series. Grace is in fact the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft, one of the eight protagonists of Resident Evil Outbreak, the spin-off chapter released in 2003.
Grace, a novice as a technical analyst within the FBI, is assigned to a new case in a very particular location. Like her mother many years earlier, the young Ashcroft finds herself among the ruins of a now destroyed and quarantined Raccoon City.
And here’s revealed the second reason why Resident Evil Requiem has been met with great enthusiasm: players will have to return to Raccoon City.
But the news isn’t over yet. Capcom, aiming to keep the community’s interest high, has unveiled another crucial detail about the title, revealed during The Game Awards 2025 just a few days ago. Alongside Grace Ashcroft, we’ll also have another protagonist, namely Leon Kennedy, the most beloved police officer of the series.
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Presented with a trailer during the TGA, Leon will be the second playable character in Resident Evil Requiem and his story will intertwine with that of the young Grace. It’s natural to wonder how the two parallel stories will be handled within the game, and for this question, we’re helped by two key figures behind Resident Evil Requiem, namely director Akifumi Nakanishi and producer Masato Kumazawa.
The Resident Evil Requiem campaign will be unique and well-defined, but the player will have the chance to experience some moments with Grace and others with Leon. It will therefore be possible to explore the plot and approach situations with two completely different styles.
As stated by Nakanishi himself, Leon Kennedy is now a mature man, with years of field experience behind him. Throughout the saga, Leon has found himself in the most disparate situations, surviving catastrophic scenarios and escaping death by a thread. In Resident Evil Requiem, Leon’s gameplay sections will therefore be more frenetic and focused on action, where players can take on the role of a confident, assertive character.
On the other side of the medal, we have Grace Ashcroft, a young FBI technical analyst with no field experience. The girl has a very different personality from Leon — she’s more timid and might react with apprehension in the face of threats. Her gameplay sections in Resident Evil Requiem will therefore be much slower and unsettling, where the player must move stealthily and with cunning to evade enemies.
This intertwining of the two protagonists’ paths and the management of their two distinct gameplay styles will allow players to experience a unique journey in Resident Evil Requiem, alternating moments of pure tension with frenetic action phases. The game’s pace will remain relentless throughout the campaign, a characteristic that will keep our attention high.
An interesting aspect of Resident Evil Requiem is certainly its connection to the past, given obviously by the return to Raccoon City and Grace, daughter of one of the survivors of the 1998 disaster. Capcom’s decision to reconnect with the past through this new chapter is certainly very intriguing, and in the future, the franchise might perhaps explore some of the stories of the many characters who have appeared in these years, many of whom have not been at all deeply explored.
Also, the dual protagonist mechanic is not new in the series. For example, Resident Evil Revelations, where the stories of various characters were interwoven to form a single narrative. And we must not forget the timeless Resident Evil 0, where the two protagonists, in this case also controlled by the player, had to work closely together, performing specific actions to continue the story and advance through the enemies.
Remember that the release of Resident Evil Requiem is scheduled for 27 February 2026 on PC and on next-generation consoles, including Nintendo Switch 2.
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