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Following many a showing at various events, I finally got a chance to take my turn at playing Resident Evil Requiem this week. The demo, which takes place in a mysterious sanitarium, follows series newcomer Grace Ashcroft as she attempts to escape from a frightening new creature. It’s a simple setup and a simple premise, one which has done great work in keeping us intrigued as Capcom remains deliciously coy about the rest of the game.
After the demo, I was able to interview Masato Kumazawa, producer on the game, who has previously worked at Capcom on Kunitsu-Gami, Resident Evil 4 and it’s expansion Separate Ways. He had a lot to say about Requiem, and even indulged a few of the questions I’ve always wanted to ask as a long-term fan of the series. You can read the entirety of my interview below.
How do you decide to focus on characters like Grace and tie her back to a character like Alyssa, from deeper in the lore?
By putting Grace as the main character, we just wanted to have a fresh new start. So this is for the new players who haven’t played the old Resident Evil games so they can enjoy themselves without prerequisite. But we also wanted to put in a tie-in for the series fans. When you play as Grace and she’s the most scared protagonist in the entire series, it allows us to give a new sense of the new type of survival horror.
We decided to put Alyssa’s daughter in the game because when we decided we wanted to revisit the Raccoon City incident, we wanted to have someone who was involved in the incident as well. We wanted to have a character with a nice tie-in, so this is why she was chosen like that.
On that topic, when you make a new Resident Evil game, do you have a lot of freedom in who can go back and pick out from the past to bring back? Is there a “lore book” or “lore bible” that you can refer back to with rules, or can you do whatever you want?
We don’t have a “lore bible” or anything like that.
In the past, we already have a lot of games that have been remade and brought in past characters to life for the modern day. But we wanted to try and make it different from the remakes. We do choose carefully who to bring back to this new game.
So when we’re looking into making a new game, and especially the new story, we can kind of think about how we can bring these characters in and how we can offer a new game experience as such. If we do bring in Chris or Leon, you know it will be more action-packed. We try not to insist too much on the past characters, but we do consider them as well.
With this game, you’ve let people play first or third person. How challenging is it to make the game remain scary for players regardless of the viewpoint they choose?
In terms of first person, I don’t really need to explain too much, you can easily immerse yourself in the gameplay and be closer to enemies, so you are easily scared.
For third person, it might seem milder, but by introducing Grace, she is a lot more scared compared to other characters. You will be able to be more scared with her this way. We have added animations when she rushes things when she is scared, or trips over at times. By adding these sort of animations, it adds to the scarey element for the player.
I did notice that. Does that mean you think third person adds more challenge than first?
Uh, yes, it is, but saying that, we have already made a lot of games that are third-person in the past. We use the experience from these games and bring them into this game.
Allowing players to choose between the two perspectives is like making two different games, so it’s challenging in that way.
All of the footage we have seen of Requiem so far showcases a new stalker enemy – some people call her Big Mama – but does she have an official name? Do you think the stalker enemy type is integral to the Resident Evil experience now?
First, in terms of the stalker, there is an official name. But we can’t disclose that here, because if we do tell you, it will take away from the horror.
By saying it’s stalking Grace, we just want to say that we can’t quite say it’s stalking. We can’t say why it looks like this or how it acts like that. We are saying it “might be” stalking her. We just want to say it’s not quite stalking her.
Looking back to the last mainline game, Village, if you had to liken the horror to one of the sections from that game, the Castle, the House, the Dam, the Factory, which would you say Requiem most resembles?
So we can’t say – we made this game to try and fit in lots of scary situations. We can’t really compare it with Village’s particular scene. If we put Resident Evil 7 as the scariest game, we’d say this is closer to Resident Evil 2.
In one of the recent presentations for the game, Nakanishi-san mentioned that the game was originally conceived as an open-world, online multiplayer game. Did any of this design remain in the final game?
There are some remaining elements, but we can’t disclose what it is and how it is.
Are you sure?
*laughs* [in English] Yes, yes.
Looking at the game when it was multiplayer, the horror part was very mild. However, in that build, we made a game that was fun to play. But we looked deeply into this game and wondered if a fan of the franchise would really like this, so we thought they would probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much. That’s the reason we made it back into single player. But because it was fun, we added elements from that build to the final game to ensure it was fun.
On that note, Nakanishi-san mentioned that this version was scrapped because it was not what fans wanted. What do you think fans want from Resident Evil?
I believe fans of the franchise want is survival horror and being scared. That is the number one thing that fans want. So by saying that, we can’t just slap on new skins and new characters and give you the same experience. It wouldn’t be that good.
That’s why we wanted to make sure we added new elements that ensured this feels like a new survival horror game.
At the end of Village, people have concerns that the series is slipping back into being too action-heavy. Do you feel pressure to ensure the series doesn’t head into the same territory as Resident Evil 6?
Looking back, I understand how Resident Evil 4 and Village became more action-heavy. Yes, that we have to admit. Looking back at the feedback, we understand how fans prefer more horror. Requiem was in development way before Village. We just wanted to make sure in this game, we wanted to focus on the horror and horror be the main part.
I am not sure if all development teams are doing this, but I personally try to read as much or all the comments on social media. So please make sure you give your opinions! My mental health is very strong, I am fine to read the comments.
How long has Requiem been in development for, then?
So looking back on the online multiplayer game, it’s been in development for around six years or so.
In terms of action, Resident Evil 7 and Village both feature action-heavy sequences towards the end. I know you can’t speak about Requiem too much, but do you think it’s “too much” to have a game that’s scary from beginning to end?
Yes, you’re correct that towards the end, Village and 7 became very action-heavy, very ACTION ACTION ACTION.
So, with Requiem, we decided to make sure it was scary until the end. But to put more details and be more specific, it’s not about scaring people the entire way but using elements of non-horror to improve the horror. For example, you have horror, but then you put a bit of action in there. By putting in the action, and making sure the player isn’t thinking about the horror, the next horror part will scare more effectively than non-stop scares.
So we have thought about what order [of scenarios] will be important, and what will be the best order of events that will keep players scared for the whole duration.
A Nintendo Switch 2 version was recently revealed for Requiem, which is the first time in a long time that a game has launched day and date with a Nintendo platform. What are some of the unique challenges in developing for the Switch 2 that you’ve encountered?
Looking back on Switch, there were Resident Evil games before on the Switch, so what we did, is we used the past experience of developing these games on the Switch to help develop Nintendo Switch 2. But also, we made a lot of versions of the games for PC as well. In fitting with PCs that have a wide variety of specs, we could also just make sure the game was optimised for the Nintendo Switch 2 too. So it wasn’t too hard, so to speak.
Can you tell me if there is mouse functionality or anything for the Switch 2?
Actually, we tried really hard to implement mouse controls for Nintendo Switch 2. When we did put it in, it confused and convoluted the gameplay and became too complicated. So actually, we are using gyro instead.
This is a specific question I’ve personally wanted to ask, so I’m sorry in advance: In the recent Resident Evil games, there haven’t been spiders like they appeared in the original Resident Evil 1, 2 and 3. I’ve heard rumours that there is worry that people who are arachnophobic would not play the game, so they have not been in modern games for that reason. Can you confirm if this is true or not?
*laughs* No I don’t think so. I think it’s just a coincidence. The series has been going for a long time and what happens is that with every new game, we have to present like a new element of scary or we have to put in a new variation of scares. So I believe what happened is that, with time, it has dissipated. I think that’s what it is. By the way, Resident Evil 7, there is a spider.
Yeah, but they’re not the same, I want BIG HAIRY SPIDERS.
*laughs* So you like Spiders?
You personally produced Separate Ways, featuring my favourite character Ada Wong. Who is your favourite character?
I mean, it could be because I am a producer, but Grace is my favourite character. I mean when you compare Grace with other characters, they’re all strong and ready to combat zombies. Grace is the most scared. She’s very vulnerable, so to say, so when you look at that, I want players to see how Grace will grow and I hope you will grow to like her as you play the game.
To finish up, is there anything you want to tell me about Requiem, that you want people to know, that you can’t see in that demo?
I guess the one thing I want to let people know is that because Resident Evil is a long-running series, I want people to know they can still play Requiem and enjoy it. There are no prerequisites for the game or prior knowledge required. If this is a new game for them or their entry into the series, I want them also to enjoy this, and that any player can play thanks to difficulties like Casual. Please don’t think there are entry barriers to this game.
But by saying that, I am not ignoring series fans. There are elements I have put in this that are very familiar, in the demo you can see leads and links that series fans will enjoy.
Resident Evil Requiem launches on February 27th 2025 for PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X|S.
The author travelled to Sydney, Australia, as a guest of Capcom and Five Star Distribution.
