Resident Evil Requiem

Few games this year have arrived with the weight Resident Evil Requiem carried into its 26 February 2026 launch. The ninth mainline entry in Capcom's flagship horror series, it returns players to Raccoon City to close out a storyline stretching back to the original 1998 outbreak, and it did so at a scale even by Resident Evil standards: a 344,000 concurrent-player peak on Steam, a 92 Metacritic score, and 8 million copies sold by Capcom's own quarterly report in late July. Overwhelmingly Positive across more than 104,000 Steam reviews, it's unambiguously one of the biggest releases of the year. What makes this review necessary to write in full, rather than simply echoing that reception, is how consistently — and in how much specific, detailed agreement — a substantial share of the very same review sample describes the game as two distinctly different experiences stitched together, one considerably stronger than the other.

Grace's campaign is the series at its best

The praise for the game's opening hours, spent almost entirely as FBI technical analyst Grace Ashcroft investigating a decaying care facility, is about as close to unanimous as reviews of a 100,000-review game get. "Resident Evil Requiem was one of those rare games where I genuinely enjoyed almost every moment. From the atmosphere to the story and choices at the end, this game kept me hooked the entire time," one review states, and that specific praise for atmosphere and tension recurs constantly. "The Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center is designed way too well (basically means I was lost, scared, and stressed at the same time)," another notes approvingly, describing exactly the kind of disorientation the series has built its reputation on since its earliest entries. A reviewer who ultimately lands on a mixed overall verdict still singles out this section specifically: "The care center was such an incredible part of the game, I can see myself replaying it." First-person perspective for Grace's sections draws real, specific credit too, described by multiple reviewers as making the horror "worse in a good way" by removing the distancing effect of a third-person camera.

Beyond pure atmosphere, the game's gore and combat systems draw sustained technical praise from across the sample. "One of the most detailed gore systems in a game right now," one review states, describing a system that persistently tracks and visualises wounds. Optimisation and performance draw similarly consistent credit — "fantastic optimization" is a specific phrase used by more than one reviewer, including several otherwise critical of other aspects of the game, a notable technical achievement for a AAA horror title at this scale.

Leon's chapters divide the same audience that loved Grace's

What separates this game's reception from a simple "great horror game" story is how specifically and how often reviewers describe a structural break once the campaign shifts weight toward Leon S. Kennedy's more action-driven chapters. "The first half feels daring and tense. The second half collapses into hollow nostalgia and recycled Leon angst," reads one detailed, representative review. Another, more clinical: "It almost felt like they were two separate games that got combined to appease audiences that liked more action. Tons of potential to visit some nostalgic areas from the past but they were rushed through." A third describes the tonal whiplash in blunter terms: "the second half of the game is one of the most schizophrenic experiences in a video game. I seriously have no idea what happened to this game in the second half."

This isn't a fringe complaint from a small pocket of the negative sample — it recurs across reviews that otherwise land on a positive overall recommendation. "Not a bad game by any means, but for what it is and as a long time fan of the series: I cannot wholeheartedly recommend buying Requiem at full price, as I have found it to be one of the least replayable and inconsistent Resident Evil games to date," one such review states, still crediting the opening hours specifically. Several reviewers frame the specific mechanism of the collapse similarly: pacing that forces frequent, short switches between Grace and Leon early on, then abandons that structure for an extended, less-loved Leon stretch later, described by one reviewer as feeling "like a sludgier version of RE4 Remake Leon with even worse melee options."

A short campaign and a suspicion of DLC-shaped gaps

A related, more concrete complaint concerns length and completeness. "I finished it in 8 hours 16 minutes... this is nowhere near what some said to be 10-12 or 14-16 hours," one detailed review states, a specific runtime claim echoed by others describing the game as feeling unfinished. "It's pretty obvious a DLC will follow, which is annoying," another writes, arguing the story leaves enough threads dangling that a paid continuation feels inevitable rather than optional. This review can't independently confirm any individual reviewer's exact playtime, since completion speed varies significantly by playstyle, but the volume and specificity of similar complaints — and the total absence of a Mercenaries mode or other bonus content at launch, unusual for a mainline Resident Evil release — lends the underlying concern real weight. Notably, industry insider reporting published in late July 2026 states a story expansion for Resident Evil Requiem isn't expected until the end of 2027, which this review treats as unconfirmed but relevant context: even if accurate, it doesn't prove the base game was deliberately left incomplete to sell that expansion, but it does mean players hoping for a swift narrative continuation to the threads the second half leaves open shouldn't expect one soon.

DRM and connectivity friction, verified independently

Separate from the story debate, two more concrete points of friction are worth reporting plainly. The game shipped with Denuvo DRM, which drew backlash at launch compounded by community confusion over whether it included true kernel-level anti-cheat components; independent technical coverage clarifies that Denuvo's Anti-Tamper product, while a real and sometimes performance-costly form of DRM, is distinct from kernel-level anti-cheat systems like Riot Vanguard. That distinction doesn't erase the underlying concern: Capcom's two prior mainline Resident Evil releases also shipped with Denuvo, and it has been independently documented in the past — including in Resident Evil Village — causing measurable stuttering that was only uncovered because pirated, DRM-free copies ran noticeably better than legitimate purchases. Separately, a June 2026 update introduced a requirement to connect to the internet at least once every 24 hours in order to continue playing offline, a genuine, verifiable point of friction for a fully single-player game. "Why do I need an internet connection to launch a single player game?" one reviewer asks directly, a fair question this review has no better answer to than the players raising it.

Where this leaves a buyer

At NZ$119.95, Resident Evil Requiem delivers a genuinely excellent, confidently constructed opening campaign that stands among the series' best survival horror in years — Grace Ashcroft's hours at the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center alone justify serious consideration for any fan of the genre. The honest, necessary caveat, raised specifically and in detail by a meaningful share of the same overwhelmingly positive review sample, concerns everything that follows: a tonal and structural shift toward Leon's action-driven chapters that a large number of reviewers describe as rushed, shorter than expected, and built around recycled series beats rather than a confident conclusion to its own story. Layer on genuine, verifiable friction from Denuvo DRM and a since-added always-online requirement, and the picture is less simple than an Overwhelmingly Positive badge alone suggests. Players going in expecting the series' strongest opening act, and prepared for a back half that a significant share of even enthusiastic fans found comparatively disappointing, are well placed to enjoy this for what it does brilliantly rather than be blindsided by what it doesn't.