A gruesome monster munching through a luckless body was just one of the horrors I shuddered at in a brief snippet of the forthcoming Resident Evil 9. Be afraid – and excited
A surprise announcement at the end of the 6 June Summer Game Fest presentation revealed the ninth entry in the iconic Capcom survival horror series: Resident Evil Requiem, coming early next year.
Diehard fans of the series (which has spawned films, television shows and more) immediately began picking apart the trailer, which highlights protagonist Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft, featured in 2003’s Resident Evil Outbreak. Requiem appears to be set in Racoon City, the fictional location in the franchise that was famously nuked to try and stop the spread of the zombifying T-Virus.
Game director Kōshi Nakanishi introduced the game at a demo in LA last week, saying that Requiem’s core theme is “addictive fear” and that Grace Ashcroft is a much more timid, fearful protagonist than the military-trained heroes of previous games.
I heard reactions to the demo before I saw it (screams and shouts, mostly), and when it was my turn to enter a dark room with a few dozen other people, boy, did it freak me out. I think anyone would be fearful if they woke up hanging upside down from a gurney, with a needle in their arm regularly drawing blood into a massive glass container hanging nearby. That’s how this snippet of Resident Evil Requiem gameplay begins, and it’s hard not to wince in empathic pain as Grace tries to free herself from her restraints. She manages, however, and the game shifts from a cutscene into first-person play, offering a few options to examine items in the room, which looks like it’s in an abandoned hotel or hospital.
