In a conversation with Resident Evil Requiem developers, we got an inside look at what promises to be one of the most ambitious entries in the Resident Evil franchise. Director Koshi Nakanishi and Producer Masato Kumazawa, opened up about their vision for Resident Evil Requiem, a title that brings veteran agent Leon Kennedy back to where his nightmare began, while introducing newcomers to the series through the eyes of Grace, an entirely new character.

Resident Evil Requiem marks a pivotal moment for the long-running survival horror franchise. After the bold experimentation of Resident Evil 7 and Village, Capcom is taking players back to where the nightmare began in Raccoon City.

Balancing Two Distinct Gameplay Styles

One of Requiem’s most striking features is how differently its two protagonists play. Leon delivers the hard-hitting action fans remember from Resident Evil 4, while Grace offers a slower, more methodical experience filled with tension, careful exploration, and intense resource management. When asked how the team balanced these contrasting styles throughout the game, Nakanishi explained that the development process involved extensive trial and error.

“During the research stages of the game, we did a lot of mixing, especially which part each character has to play,” Nakanishi said.

“Since each character has their strong suits and their weak spots, we obviously tried to fit and spread out their play portions to most highlight their respective parts in that regard.”

While the preview build leaned more heavily on Grace’s sections, Nakanishi assured players that the final game splits playtime almost equally between both characters at roughly 50-50. “As you probably have all tried the preview run that we prepared for you, you probably have felt that you played Grace’s part a bit more than Leon’s. But just rest assured that, as we mentioned in prior interviews, Grace and Leon are split almost equally 50-50,” he explained.

“So it’s just the convenience of the play part that we prepared today that you have felt. Be assured that Leon will have a lot of things to show during this game.”

Addressing the Leaks

Recent unauthorized disclosures about Resident Evil Requiem have made waves in the gaming community. When asked how these leaks affected the development team’s morale and promotional strategy, both Nakanishi and Kumazawa shared their personal perspectives, though they emphasized these views don’t represent Capcom’s official stance.

Note: While individual producers or directors may share personal views, Capcom’s official position is that leaks are not condoned under any circumstances.

From his personal viewpoint, Nakanishi admitted he doesn’t feel particularly negative about the situation. “The answer would be almost from a personal perspective, but I’m actually really not feeling that negative about leaks myself,” he began.

“I kind of have this view that since all the users are so much invested in the game, we’re actually trying to leak as much either truthful or even made-up leaks to the community. It kind of feels like it shows how deeply loved the Resident Evil series and especially the new title is. So I’m mostly confused about the leaks and don’t feel that pressured.”

Kumazawa shared similar excitement about player enthusiasm but expressed concern about a different issue one stemming from his personal perspective, not Capcom’s official position. “I also agree with director Nakanishi’s statement that I am also kind of excited about leaks in the way that users are also excited about the game. So I’m amused about that,” Kumazawa said.

“But in terms of the whole development team of the game, of course, each member has their different opinions about how leaks are perceived by them. So I cannot say for all of them.”

He pointed out that with AI technology making fake leaks increasingly convincing, the real pressure falls on users who must distinguish between official information and fabrications.

“But in general, I think that since especially recently with all of the AI technology and all the fake leaks that cannot be produced, it kind of puts the pressure on the end user. All people have to actually decide and have this ability to perceive which leaks are actual official information or not official information, what is fake and what is right. So I feel a bit worried, especially how people will perceive information in the future. I hope that in the future, users will trust official sources and when the timing is right.”

Nakanishi lightened the mood with a joke: “Even with our online interview, we ourself don’t know if we’re talking with AI or not.”

Addictive Fear for Both Characters

The game’s central theme is “addictive fear,” which Nakanishi previously mentioned when Grace was first revealed. But how does Leon fit into this concept? According to the director, both characters embody this theme in different ways.

“Addictive fear is a theme for both Grace and Leon,” Nakanishi clarified.

“For Grace, she has this fear of horror in a more silent, subtle way with all of these shadows lurking in the dark and all of those things. For Leon, it’s more of a thrilling action, impactful, high-speed tension in that addictive kind of manner. It’s both horror, but you’re actually addicted more and more to it. Both of the characters actually have this theme for themselves.”

Leon Kennedy has been fighting bioterrorism for decades, and Requiem doesn’t shy away from acknowledging the toll this has taken. At 49 years old (to be precise, as Nakanishi specified), Leon is returning to Raccoon City the place where his story began.

“Yes, Leon is quite old, as you mentioned. Actually, to be more precise, he is 49,” Nakanishi confirmed.

“And he has been living most of his life fighting with different biohazards, different bio-terrorism and all sorts of things. He has encountered quite a lot of people, some of them he wasn’t able to save one way or another. So although his portrait as this character was really cool visually with a really particular sense of humor, actually he has a really heavy burden, and has been there with him for quite a long time.”

The game explores this complexity as Leon confronts his past in the very place where it all started. “For Resident Evil Requiem, we have been constantly thinking about how we should portray this complex character and also how we should handle his problems in Resident Evil Requiem, especially since he will be coming to Raccoon City to face the beginning of his own story,” the director added.

“So that’s one of the very important things that we’re struggling with during development.”

Why Leon and Grace?

The decision to bring back Leon wasn’t made lightly. After Resident Evil 7 and Village took the series in different directions, the team wanted to return to the franchise’s roots. “Outside of Resident Evil Requiem with previous new entry titles like Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village, as you can probably remember, there have been quite a different approach to the Resident Evil series,” Nakanishi explained.

“For Resident Evil Requiem, we actually thought, ‘Let’s take a step back and try to retrace our original steps, how Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, all those original titles were approaching the horror genre.”

Once they committed to this approach, Leon and Raccoon City felt inseparable. “We kind of took an original approach from those times, so when we decided to do that for the main theme of this game, we felt that Leon and Raccoon City are both so closely intertwined concepts that we didn’t consider any other characters,” he said.

Grace serves a specific purpose in the narrative. “Additionally, since we decided to leave Leon as one of the protagonists, we thought about how we should handle telling the story of Resident Evil Requiem and Raccoon City itself to the new characters,” Nakanishi noted.

“So Grace is the medium through which newcomers to the series can experience the game and learn about the Raccoon City tragedy. She also learns about Raccoon City from zero herself, since she is not originally involved in any of this.”

The two characters’ paths will cross multiple times throughout the game, with their brief encounters building toward something more significant. “And if you remember during the gameplay, you probably saw that Leon and Grace briefly meet for maybe like five minutes and that’s it. After that, they are again on their own, doing their own things,” Nakanishi explained.

“In the game itself, they will meet multiple times. Their paths will interchange and the drama that they will have, like the story progressing will be focusing a lot on their connections to that. So, please look forward to it.”

With two characters exploring the same locations, questions naturally arose about how the game handles overlapping exploration. Nakanishi kept some details close to the chest while offering a glimpse into the game’s structure.

“So we do not reveal a lot at this point, and some places will have a similar way of exploring from both Leon and Grace as expected, and some places will have only Leon or only Grace exploring their respective things,” he said.

“So we will leave it to your imagination, so please try the full scope of the game once.”

Flexible Camera Perspectives

Interestingly, the preview build showed Leon in third-person and Grace in first-person, but this isn’t set in stone. Nakanishi clarified that the final game allows players to choose their preferred perspective for each character from the start.

“The game-by-game experience is basically a thing that is caused by the game limitations, so we can only show you this particular part for the preview at this point,” Nakanishi explained. “But to be honest, the actual final retail version of the game, when you just start the new game, users will be able to pick from the get-go if they’re going to play Grace from the first person or the third person and Leon the same way. So if they feel like they tried a bit in first person and didn’t like it, they can switch in settings anytime they want.”

He emphasized the freedom this system provides.

“To put it plainly, we don’t have a really set direction for each character which perspective they have. So we will leave it to the decision of each user.”

The Most Resident Evil Zombies Ever

The zombies in Requiem have sparked conversation for their unusually human-like behavior, some talk, some sing, and they go about tasks as if still performing their roles from before infection. When asked about the inspiration for this design, Nakanishi pushed back against comparisons to other franchises.

“Each stage will have different settings, which we cannot reveal in full detail unfortunately,” he began.

“The current zombies in Resident Evil Requiem are the most Resident Evil-like zombies that we could have made. Actually, we were not thinking about any other characters or franchises in terms of inspiration for this game.”

He elaborated on the design philosophy behind these zombies. “We’ve probably taken all the inspiration from previous entries into a Resident Evil series. And as I mentioned in a few questions before, we kind of decided to take a step back and retrace our roots into how the Resident Evil series was before, we tried to lean more into the mainstream games with Resident Evil 7 and 8,” Nakanishi said.

“We thought that this new version of, new type of zombie is actually really fit inside of what we envisioned for zombie characters in Resident Evil series way, way before.”

This design choice adds unpredictability to encounters. “The development team actually thinks that since they have been creating the Resident Evil series for quite a long time, players have been really accepting how the zombies look like in Resident Evil games,” he explained. “But when we add this level of unpredictability by adding different versions of zombies, like zombie that was previously cooked and he has his knife and doing things with his knife, or zombie that is cleaning inside of the clinic center, you can kind of see that each zombie has sort of level of unpredictability to their actions, and it amplifies the level of horror, since players cannot just blindly rush zombies and go past them. They have to actually think about what each zombie does and sometimes be scared about some of the things they are doing.”

As for non-human enemies, Nakanishi kept things mysterious.

“Outside of the human-like zombies, we’ll also have other zombie types, maybe dogs, maybe not. You’ll have to see inside the game. But rest assured that not all zombies are the human type. Not all zombies are the human type.”

Character Progression Systems

Grace’s progression involves antique coins and booster shots that gradually make her stronger and more capable. Leon, however, follows a different path that players won’t experience until later in the story.

“Yes, Leon will receive a similar system, and it will be a bit later in the story progression, so that’s why you couldn’t experience it during your gameplay,” Nakanishi revealed.

“His version of leveling up is quite similar to the system in Resident Evil 4, which means that he will be able to customize his weapons, add different conditions on them, and make them stronger. So his upgrade path will be more in that approach.”

Kumazawa added that Leon’s inventory management will become more complex as the game progresses. “Something you might have noticed, you might have not, but actually in the gameplay that you experienced, Leon had quite a lot of space left in his inventory,” he pointed out. “So as the story progresses, he will receive more and more different things, ammunition, weapons, whatever you can name. So the resource management aspect will also be properly implemented in Leon’s part.”

Resource Management and Difficulty Options

Resource scarcity has always been a hallmark of Resident Evil, and Requiem aims to strike a careful balance. Nakanishi drew on lessons learned from previous entries in the series.

“In Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 7, it was quite prominent that resource management was really on edge. You have either too many items or almost no items. So it was quite a challenge for the research team at that time,” he recalled.

“And personally, as the director, I think my ideal is to have this line of having just enough resources to just survive but barely. So you have this decent level of enjoyment from both actually managing resources and defeating your enemies and stacking up those resources. So me and the team have been heavily focused on implementing that and making it an actual thing in Resident Evil Requiem.”

Difficulty settings will adjust both item quantities and enemy numbers, though not drastically. “The item quantity and also the number of enemies will be different depending on the difficulty, but not drastically. So it will be slightly adjusted to have either really simple for the beginners, or as you said, the higher the difficulty, it will be more and more challenging,” Nakanishi explained.

The classic difficulty adds an extra layer of challenge by bringing back ink ribbons, which limit the number of saves players can make. “And to add up, as actually was revealed during Resident Evil Showcase, the ink ribbons will be a feature for the classic difficulty. So, there will be a limited number of save states that Grace has to manage. So it’s one of the research management aspects that is also added to the difficulty options,” he said.

“So, not only ammunition and enemy numbers, but also things that involve saving inside the game are a part of experience in different difficulties inside the game.”

Gore as Storytelling

Requiem may be the goriest Resident Evil game yet, and this wasn’t just for shock value. The director explained that the graphic violence, particularly when Leon uses his hatchet, serves a narrative purpose.

“You’ve probably seen, maybe even tried it during the gameplay, when you play with Leon and use this hatchet on the enemies and basically slash off the heads of enemies,” Nakanishi said.

“The grotesque expressions inside the game are quite a big factor for Leon’s part, and it’s a way to express Leon’s struggles internally. It’s actually really a sort of way to show how he has been really just exhausted with all the years of struggling with Resident Evil and grouped up with different biohazards, and he’s just really sick of it. So yeah, that’s pretty plainly yes, it’s an important point to Resident Evil Requiem, in that regard.”

He concluded this thought by tying it back to the game’s larger narrative themes. “So, to sum it up, with all of the struggles and fed up emotions that Leon has, we as a development team are actually excited for users to experience how Leon needs Grace, how he returns back to Racoon City and who he was in the beginning, and how he resolves his story.”

Interconnected Gameplay and Multiple Playthroughs

One fascinating detail emerged about how Grace and Leon’s sections interact. In Grace’s segments, enemies that aren’t properly dealt with will mutate. One journalist asked if this means Leon might have to clean up Grace’s messes throughout the game.

“So the team is actually really impressed with your idea, because actually it’s one of the ways you can handle the game,” Nakanishi responded.

“So, you can leave all the enemies in Grace’s part, have them mutate, and then have Leon deal with it.”

This creates interesting strategic possibilities for subsequent playthroughs, as players can experiment with different approaches to see how the two storylines affect each other. “It definitely can become one of the strategies on how to approach this game. You can leave certain parts of the game to be later handled by Leon, or you can choose to have Grace actually deal with the enemies,” he explained. “And so, this type of cooperation can be really useful for multiple runs, for second, third, fourth playthrough. So, each player can have their own playstyle.”

An Entry Point for New Players

Despite being the ninth numbered entry in the series, Requiem aims to welcome newcomers. Nakanishi emphasized how the game’s structure makes it accessible to those unfamiliar with the franchise.

“For newcomers to the series, Resident Evil Requiem is really a unique title that allows all of the newcomers to have the most easier understanding of the series because it features both prominent, very distinctive gameplays of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4,” Nakanishi said.

“And you also get a really easy opportunity to learn from scratch how the Resident Evil incident formed and how it’s solved. So, it’s a really easy entry for all the newcomers, despite how it’s numbered as number 9 in the series.”

The game also offers multiple difficulty settings, with the easiest option designed to let newcomers enjoy the experience without frustration. “To add to that, because there are all sorts of different difficulty settings, especially with the easiest one, all of the newcomers can have a relatively fun way of playing the game, even despite not having played the Resident Evil series before,” he noted.

For veterans, the promise is different. “And for the veterans of the Resident Evil series, as probably all of us think, we are coming back to Raccoon City. And although Leon is a very strong character, he is quite tired of all the things he is experiencing. But he actually will be put to his limit as no way before in all the previous titles,” Nakanishi explained. “To put it plainly, he will be put on the really hard spot, on the really tight spot, basically on the very thin line of what he can handle. So in that way, we hope that all of you will enjoy how Leon will perform in the Resident Evil Requiem, and how we all come back to Raccoon City.”

Kumazawa also took a moment to address rumors that have been circulating online, clarifying a key aspect of the game’s structure that some fans had misunderstood.

“Recently, there have been a lot of rumors that this game is an open world game. I hope that you will understand that this game is not an open world game,” he clarified.

“As you probably have seen during your gameplay session, it’s really the same old Resident Evil inside of the closed space and inside of the designated areas. So in that way, we feel that it will be easier for users to actually experience and fully enjoy the game without worrying that they have to do a lot of different things throughout the world to manage different sorts of things. So please rest assured that you will have proper fun with this game.”

Looking Ahead

As our conversation wrapped up, Nakanishi left us with a final thought about what makes Requiem special and how it fits within the broader Resident Evil landscape.

“The ability to play two completely different types of gameplay through Grace and Leon is in itself a unique identity of the Resident Evil Requiem,” he said.

“And this gap between horror and action, is what we envisioned for this unique touch of the Resident Evil Requiem during production.”

With its dual protagonists, return to Raccoon City, and blend of classic survival horror with intense action, Resident Evil Requiem is shaping up to be a love letter to the series’ history while pushing the franchise forward. Whether you’re a longtime fan eager to see what becomes of Leon or a newcomer curious about what all the fuss is about, it seems there will be something here for everyone when the game launches.

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