Category: Resident Evil

After years of increasingly action-oriented entries, Resident Evil 9 Requiem is making a bold statement: pure survival horror is back. Director Koshi Nakanishi has been crystal clear about his vision for the upcoming title, explicitly comparing it to the horror-focused approaches of Resident Evil 7 and the RE2 remake rather than the more combat-heavy Village and RE4 remake.

But what does this really mean for players, and why is Capcom steering the franchise back toward its terrifying origins?

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The Action Problem

The Resident Evil series has always walked a tightrope between action and horror, but recent entries tilted heavily toward the former. Village, while critically acclaimed, often felt more like a supernatural action-adventure than a horror experience. Players could accumulate massive arsenals, mow down enemies with ease, and rarely felt the resource scarcity that defined classic RE games.

Even the RE4 remake, despite its masterful execution, leaned into its action roots. Leon’s knife parrying system and abundant ammunition made players feel empowered rather than vulnerable—the exact opposite of what survival horror should achieve.

“If I had to compare it to past titles, it’s more along the lines of Resident Evil 7 or the Resident Evil 2 remake,” Nakanishi explained in a recent interview. “You could call it so-called old school Resident Evil, you know, with exploration and backtracking and that kind of thing.”

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Grace: The Perfect Protagonist for Pure Horror

RE9’s return to horror starts with its protagonist. Grace Ashcroft isn’t a superhuman government agent or a mold-powered entity – she’s an FBI analyst thrown into a nightmare scenario she’s completely unprepared for.

“The start point for her is to be incredibly vulnerable and helpless,” Nakanishi revealed. “She hasn’t got any weapons on her and she’s completely unaccustomed to being thrown into this kind of intense situation.”

This vulnerability isn’t just narrative window dressing – it’s fundamental to the horror experience. Unlike Chris Redfield punching boulders or Leon performing superhuman knife combat, Grace represents genuine human fragility. Players will experience authentic terror because Grace herself is genuinely terrified.

The Gamescom demo perfectly exemplifies this approach. Grace wakes up strapped upside down in an unknown facility, with no weapons, no backup, and no idea where she is. She’s pursued by a towering creature that she can’t fight – only hide from or distract with light sources. It’s pure, distilled survival horror.

Learning from House Beneviento’s Success

Nakanishi isn’t shy about drawing inspiration from Village’s most celebrated sequence: the House Beneviento section. This weaponless, puzzle-focused segment was universally praised as the game’s scariest moment – precisely because it stripped away all player empowerment.

“There are similarities to that section for sure,” the director acknowledged. “I think each Resident Evil title has these sort of standalone parts where maybe you don’t have the weapons you’re used to and we can increase the horror feeling with that.”

But RE9 is taking this concept much further. Rather than relegating vulnerability to a single section, the entire game is built around Grace’s journey from helplessness to competence. Players will gradually find weapons and grow stronger, but the foundation remains rooted in fear rather than power fantasy.

The Return of Classic RE Elements

Beyond protagonist vulnerability, RE9 is bringing back several mechanics that defined classic Resident Evil:

Limited Inventory Space: Like RE7, players will face tough decisions about what items to carry, forcing strategic thinking over hoarding.

Resource Scarcity: Ammunition and healing items will be precious commodities, not abundant resources to be wasted.

Exploration and Backtracking: The interconnected world design rewards thorough exploration and requires players to revisit areas with new tools – a hallmark of classic RE design.

Puzzle-Focused Gameplay: Environmental puzzles take precedence over combat encounters, emphasizing brain over brawn.

Ink Ribbons: The return of save limitations adds tension to every decision and progress milestone.

Why the Shift Makes Perfect Sense

This horror renaissance isn’t just nostalgic pandering – it’s a smart business and creative decision. Resident Evil 7’s return to pure horror was both critically acclaimed and commercially successful, proving that audiences hunger for genuine scares. The RE2 remake similarly demonstrated that classic survival horror mechanics could work brilliantly with modern technology.

Moreover, Nakanishi understands that effective horror requires careful pacing. “You can’t keep the horror tension to the max through the whole game because it’s quite exhausting,” he explained. “So you need to have this kind of dynamic pacing curve.”

RE9 promises to perfect this balance, creating what the director describes as “a complete roller coaster ride between the different aspects of the series.”

The Dual Perspective Advantage

RE9’s innovative dual camera system also serves the horror mission. Players who find first-person too intense can switch to third-person for slight relief, while those seeking maximum immersion can stay locked in Grace’s terrified perspective.

“If you start the game off in first person perspective and you’re finding it’s too much, then third person is almost a way to step slightly back from that level of horror,” Nakanishi noted. This accessibility ensures that pure horror can reach a broader audience without compromising intensity for dedicated fans.

A Necessary Course Correction

RE9’s return to survival horror represents more than just a creative choice – it’s a necessary course correction for a franchise that had arguably strayed too far from its roots. While action-heavy entries have their place, the series’ identity lies in making players feel genuinely afraid and vulnerable.

By putting horror first, RE9 isn’t just returning to what made Resident Evil great – it’s potentially defining what the franchise can become in the modern gaming landscape. Grace’s journey from terrified victim to capable survivor promises to remind us why we fell in love with survival horror in the first place.

Sometimes, to move forward, you have to go back to what worked. For Resident Evil 9, that means embracing the darkness once again.

Sources:

GamesRadar+ Interview at Gamescom 2025: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/resident-evil/resident-evil-9-requiem-interview-gamescom-2025/

GamesRadar+ – “RE7 was possibly too scary”: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/resident-evil/resident-evil-7-was-possibly-too-scary-and-some-people-couldnt-handle-it-says-director-koshi-nakanishi-and-thats-why-resident-evil-9-has-a-third-person-mode-to-make-it-slightly-easier-to-deal-with/

GamesRadar+ – “Old School Resident Evil”: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/resident-evil/resident-evil-9-requiem-interview-gamescom-2025/

WCCFtech Coverage: https://wccftech.com/resident-evil-requiem-complete-rollercoaster-ride-never-before/

In the chaos of Raccoon City’s final hours, a miracle occurred that few remember and even fewer understand. Dr. Peter Jenkins at Raccoon University successfully developed a cure for the T-virus – a vaccine he named “Daylight.” This breakthrough could have changed the course of bioweapons history, yet it seemingly vanished into obscurity after the city’s nuclear destruction. But what if it didn’t disappear? What if the Daylight vaccine’s legacy lives on in the bloodstream of survivors – and their children?

Resident Evil 9 Requiem’s central mystery may hinge on this forgotten cure and its most precious carriers: second-generation survivors like Grace Ashcroft, whose blood could hold the key to either humanity’s salvation or its destruction.

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The Forgotten Vaccine of Raccoon University

While most survivors escaped Raccoon City through luck and determination, some had an ace up their sleeve: access to Dr. Jenkins’ revolutionary Daylight vaccine. This T-virus cure represented one of two possible salvation routes for survivors, alongside Umbrella researcher Linda Baldwin’s competing treatment.

Those fortunate enough to receive the Daylight vaccine didn’t just survive – they developed robust antibodies against T-virus infection. Their immune systems learned to recognize and neutralize the bioweapon that had claimed over 100,000 lives. Among these lucky survivors was investigative journalist Alyssa Ashcroft, who would carry these life-saving antibodies in her bloodstream for the rest of her life.

But here’s where the science gets interesting: antibodies don’t just protect the person who develops them. They can be passed from mother to child during pregnancy, creating what immunologists call “passive immunity.” Grace Ashcroft didn’t just inherit her mother’s investigative instincts – she inherited her mother’s biological defenses against the world’s most dangerous bioweapon.

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The Blood Harvest

The opening of RE9 shows Grace awakening on a medical gurney, blood being systematically extracted from her unconscious body. This isn’t random violence – it’s precision harvesting. Medical notes track the “extraction” process, suggesting her captors know exactly what they’re looking for: decades-old T-virus antibodies, now evolved and concentrated in second-generation blood.

Grace’s blood represents something unprecedented in bioweapons research. Unlike first-generation survivors whose antibodies developed through direct infection and cure, Grace carries naturally inherited immunity – antibodies that have had thirty years to mature and adapt within a healthy immune system. This makes her blood invaluable for multiple applications:

Bioweapons Development: Understanding how these antibodies work could help create new viruses designed to bypass natural immunity. If you know exactly how the body defends against T-virus, you can engineer pathogens that sidestep those defenses entirely.

Enhanced Countermeasures: Grace’s evolved antibodies could be reverse-engineered into more effective vaccines and treatments, providing superior protection for select groups while leaving others vulnerable.

Strategic Biological Advantage: Controlling the source of T-virus immunity means controlling who lives and who dies in future bioweapons conflicts. It’s the ultimate strategic asset in an age of biological warfare.

The Thirty-Year Hunt

The systematic targeting of both Alyssa and Grace Ashcroft suggests this conspiracy has been decades in the making. Whoever is behind these abductions has been patient, methodical, and well-informed about Raccoon City’s survivors and their biological significance.

Think about the logistics involved: tracking survivors across thirty years, monitoring their families, waiting for the right moment to strike. This level of coordination requires significant resources and long-term planning. It also suggests the organization behind it has been studying bioweapons immunity far longer than anyone realized.

Alyssa’s murder eight years ago might not have been about silencing her investigation at all – it could have been a failed abduction attempt. Perhaps they tried to take her alive for blood harvesting, and only killed her when extraction became impossible. Grace, however, represents an even more valuable target: younger, healthier, and carrying three decades of evolved immunity.

The Government Connection

The U.S. government’s interest in Raccoon City survivors extends far beyond simple witness protection. Leon Kennedy’s recruitment into federal service, Sherry Birkin’s government custody, and the systematic monitoring of other survivors all point to an official recognition of their biological value.

But what if the government wasn’t just studying survivors – what if they were breeding them? Encouraging survivor families to have children, monitoring their health, waiting for the right moment to harvest the next generation’s enhanced immunity. Grace’s FBI career might not have been her choice at all, but rather a convenient way to keep a valuable asset under official supervision.

The timing of Grace’s abduction, occurring during an official FBI investigation, suggests either government complicity or a rival organization with the power to operate against federal agents. Either scenario points to bioweapons research operating at the highest levels of power.

The Connections’ Endgame

Director Koshi Nakanishi’s involvement in both RE7 and RE9 strongly suggests The Connections criminal syndicate plays a role in Grace’s story. This organization, led by figures like Brandon Bailey who harbored deep grudges against Umbrella, has always represented a more insidious threat than corporate bioweapons development.

Consider their possible endgame: if The Connections orchestrated Umbrella’s downfall through the Raccoon City incident, they might have been planning to harvest survivor immunity from the very beginning. Create the problem, eliminate the competition, then control the solution. It’s a decades-long strategy that would make them the dominant force in bioweapons defense while positioning competitors as the villains.

The Daylight vaccine survivors aren’t just witnesses to The Connections’ success – they’re the final piece of their biological weapons monopoly. With Grace’s blood, they could develop countermeasures that protect their own operatives while leaving enemies vulnerable to bioweapons attacks.

The Weaponized Cure

Perhaps most disturbing is the possibility that Grace’s antibodies could themselves become weapons. Advanced bioweapons research could use her immunity as a delivery system for new pathogens – creating “trojan horse” treatments that appear to provide protection while actually introducing novel biological agents.

Imagine a scenario where The Connections offers Grace’s enhanced antibodies as a miracle cure to governments worldwide, only to discover too late that the treatment carries a secondary payload. They could simultaneously protect their allies and eliminate their enemies through a single biological agent masquerading as humanitarian aid.

This strategy would explain the careful cultivation of second-generation survivors. The Connections wouldn’t just need the antibodies – they’d need them from subjects with clean genetic lines and robust immune systems. Grace represents the perfect candidate: young, healthy, and carrying three decades of evolutionary adaptation.

The Outbreak That Never Ended

RE9’s premise suggests the Raccoon City incident never truly ended – it just went underground. The mysterious deaths Grace was investigating, her mother’s murder, and the ongoing abductions all point to active bioweapons research continuing thirty years after the city’s destruction.

Grace’s blood connects these modern incidents to the original outbreak through an unbroken biological chain. Her antibodies are living proof that someone has been maintaining continuity between past and present bioweapons programs. The cure that should have ended the nightmare has instead become the foundation for new horrors.

The Ultimate Biological Weapon

In the wrong hands, Grace’s enhanced T-virus immunity could spawn the next generation of bioweapons – pathogens designed specifically to overcome humanity’s hard-won defenses. Her blood doesn’t just represent protection; it represents the blueprint for bypassing that protection entirely.

The organization hunting the Ashcroft family isn’t trying to prevent another outbreak – they’re trying to perfect one. They want to create bioweapons that can kill even those with natural immunity, ensuring no one can survive what’s coming next.

Grace awakening on that medical table isn’t the beginning of her story – it’s the culmination of a thirty-year biological warfare program that began with her mother’s survival. The Daylight vaccine that once represented hope for humanity’s future might now herald its darkest hour.

The cure, it turns out, was never meant to save everyone. It was meant to identify who’s worth saving – and who isn’t.

Thirty years after the Raccoon City incident, the official story remains largely unchanged: a bioweapon leak led to a zombie outbreak, necessitating the nuclear sterilization of an entire American city. But Resident Evil 9 Requiem’s marketing has repeatedly emphasized one tantalizing phrase that could rewrite everything we thought we knew about that fateful September night in 1998 – Raccoon City’s “hidden truth.”

The game’s official synopsis explicitly states that protagonist Grace Ashcroft will uncover “a secret truth in regards to the Raccoon City outbreak.” This isn’t just flavor text – it’s a promise that three decades of accepted history might be built on lies, cover-ups, and conspiracy. But what could this hidden truth possibly be, and why is it surfacing now?

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you purchase through these links at no extra cost to you. This helps support my gaming content.

The Journalist’s Daughter

Grace Ashcroft isn’t just any FBI analyst – she’s the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft, one of the few journalists who survived the Raccoon City incident and dedicated her career to exposing the truth about bioweapons and corporate malfeasance. Alyssa’s investigative work didn’t end with her survival; it continued for decades, culminating in her mysterious murder eight years before RE9’s events.

The timing is crucial here. Alyssa was killed while investigating something in Roads Hill, a community neighboring Raccoon City. The evidence suggests she had arranged a late-night meeting – arriving at the Renwood Hotel around 1:40 AM – with an informant who possessed dangerous knowledge about the outbreak’s true nature.

“Investigating all these strange deaths, huh? Have you seen the same sh*t I’ve seen?” asks an unidentified voice in RE9’s reveal trailer, likely belonging to this mysterious informant. This suggests Alyssa wasn’t just chasing old leads – she had discovered an active conspiracy still claiming lives decades later.

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The Government’s Long Shadow

The most obvious suspect in any Raccoon City cover-up is the U.S. government itself. We know from previous games that survivors were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements under threat of severe consequences. Leon Kennedy’s recruitment into government service, Chris Redfield’s testimony before Congress, and Jill Valentine’s BSAA work all suggest a coordinated effort to control the narrative around bioweapons incidents.

But what if the government’s involvement went deeper than mere damage control? What if they weren’t just covering up Umbrella’s mistakes – what if they were complicit from the beginning?

Consider the evidence: The government’s response to Raccoon City was suspiciously swift and decisive. Nuclear sterilization isn’t a decision made overnight; it requires pre-authorized protocols, specialized equipment, and clear chains of command. Did the government know about Umbrella’s experiments beforehand? Were they monitoring the situation, waiting for an excuse to test their own bioweapons countermeasures?

The Connections Connection

Another prime suspect is The Connections, the criminal syndicate behind the events of Resident Evil 7. Director Koshi Nakanishi, who helmed both RE7 and RE9, has indicated that connections exist between the two games beyond mere thematic similarities.

The Connections had every reason to want Umbrella destroyed. Led by figures like Brandon Bailey – a former Umbrella researcher whose mentor James Marcus was murdered by Umbrella executives – the organization harbored deep grudges against the pharmaceutical giant. What if the Raccoon City outbreak wasn’t an accident but a carefully orchestrated takedown?

This theory gains credence when we consider the Daylight vaccine subplot. The cure developed during the outbreak by Dr. Peter Jenkins could have been The Connections’ endgame all along – create the problem, provide the solution, and eliminate their biggest competitor in the process. The survivors who received the Daylight vaccine, including potentially Alyssa Ashcroft, might carry antibodies that prove this conspiracy.

The Daylight Vaccine Cover-Up

Speaking of Daylight, this miracle cure has always been suspiciously underexplored in Resident Evil lore. A vaccine that could cure T-virus infection should have revolutionized bioweapons defense, yet it seemingly vanished from history after Raccoon City’s destruction.

But what if it didn’t disappear? What if powerful interests have been quietly studying Daylight survivors for decades, harvesting their antibodies for research or weaponization? This could explain why Grace was specifically targeted – her mother’s survival and vaccination made her a second-generation carrier of potentially invaluable genetic material.

The mysterious organization pursuing Grace might not be trying to silence her investigation at all. They might be harvesting her blood for its unique properties, using her mother’s murder as convenient cover for abduction and experimentation.

Rhodes Hill: The Missing Piece

The revelation that much of RE9 takes place in Rhodes Hill, not Raccoon City proper, is significant. This neighboring community has appeared in previous games as a hospital location, suggesting it served as a medical facility for the broader Arklay Mountains region.

What if Rhodes Hill was more than just a hospital? What if it was a secret government or corporate research facility, conducting parallel experiments to Umbrella’s work? The care center where Grace awakens could be the remnant of decades-old bioweapons research, still operational and still claiming victims.

Alyssa’s investigation might have uncovered evidence that the outbreak wasn’t contained to Raccoon City – that Rhodes Hill served as a testing ground for countermeasures, treatments, or even rival bioweapons. Her murder suggests she got too close to exposing a conspiracy that reaches far beyond Umbrella’s corporate boardrooms.

The Survivors’ Secret

Every Raccoon City survivor has kept remarkably quiet about their experiences, officially at least. Leon works for the government, Chris leads international bioweapons operations, Jill serves in a quasi-military organization, and even civilian survivors like Sherry Birkin have been absorbed into official channels.

What if their silence isn’t just due to NDAs or trauma? What if they all know something about the outbreak’s true nature – something so devastating that revealing it would collapse public trust in government institutions entirely?

The hidden truth might be that Raccoon City wasn’t Umbrella’s failure at all, but someone else’s success. The outbreak could have been a false flag operation, a test of bioweapons countermeasures, or even a deliberate culling of an “expendable” population to test new weapons systems.

Grace’s Dangerous Inheritance

Grace Ashcroft represents something unprecedented in the Resident Evil universe: a second-generation survivor with the investigative skills to uncover what her mother died trying to expose. Her FBI training gives her access to resources and databases that civilian journalists lack, while her personal connection to the tragedy provides motivation that professional obligation cannot match.

But her investigation is clearly striking at powerful interests. The systematic pursuit of both mother and daughter suggests an organization with significant resources and long-term planning capabilities. They’ve been watching the Ashcroft family for years, possibly decades, waiting for the right moment to strike.

The fact that Grace awakens in a medical facility, with evidence of blood extraction and experimentation, suggests the hidden truth involves ongoing bioweapons research. Someone has been using Raccoon City survivors as test subjects, and Grace’s unique genetic heritage made her an irresistible target.

What the Truth Might Be

Based on the available evidence, several scenarios emerge for Raccoon City’s hidden truth:

The False Flag Theory: The outbreak was deliberately triggered by government agents or rival corporations to eliminate Umbrella and seize their research. The nuclear strike wasn’t damage control – it was evidence destruction.

The Testing Ground Theory: Raccoon City served as an unwitting test environment for bioweapons countermeasures. The government knew about the outbreak in advance and used it to test evacuation protocols, containment procedures, and public response systems.

The Harvest Theory: Powerful interests have been systematically tracking and exploiting outbreak survivors for their unique biological properties. The “hidden truth” is that the real experiment never ended – it just moved underground.

The Rival Corporation Theory: The Connections or another organization orchestrated Umbrella’s downfall, using the Raccoon City incident as cover for their own bioweapons program launch.

The Reckoning Approaches

Whatever Raccoon City’s hidden truth turns out to be, its revelation promises to reshape everything we thought we knew about the Resident Evil universe. Grace Ashcroft’s investigation isn’t just personal – it’s potentially apocalyptic for the shadowy forces that have spent thirty years covering their tracks.

The game’s title, “Requiem,” suggests a funeral mass for the dead – but it might also represent a funeral for the lies that have sustained the official narrative for three decades. Grace isn’t just fighting for survival; she’s fighting for the truth her mother died trying to reveal.

And if the conspiracy behind Raccoon City is still active, still claiming victims, still conducting experiments – then Grace’s investigation might be the only thing standing between the world and another outbreak. This time, though, we’ll know exactly who’s responsible.