a bold, bloody double feature
There’s something special about horror video games. resident Evil He always understood. You can’t close your eyes or turn away like in a movie because you’ll either fail and have to try again or the game won’t progress at all. You must be determined to open the door and find out what is behind it. Or as in the early period Fatal Experiment RequiemEven if you know you’re after a monster, you must move out of the light and into the dark corridors to find a way out.
There are moments in this game that will make your chest tighten and your hands sweat, as a masterfully executed jump scare or surprising enemy behavior shatters your ability to rationalize that this is just a hockey simulation game. But it’s also a love letter to a long-running series that hits all the notes fans would expect; silly puzzles that require you to turn levers or find safe combinations scribbled in the scientist’s notes, as well as the return of an iconic character who is irrepressibly silly and lovable despite being a zombie-killing action star.
As a series, resident Evil He will be 30 next year and Lament It represents the conflict between two schools of design that Capcom introduced more than a decade ago to revitalize the series after its original work had become boring and stale. At their best, games have always been playable big-budget B movies, and this is a dual feature split between two main characters and two styles of horror.
Newcomer Grace Ashcroft is a deeply eccentric FBI agent haunted by the murder of her mother under strange circumstances, and now she’s been kidnapped by a terrifying doctor who thinks she has special genetic traits. Part of Grace’s game continues its lineage Lethal Experiment Biohazard (2017) and Deadly Evil Village (2021); The levels are tense, lights-on horror mazes, there are very few weapons, and the emphasis is on escape.
Fan favorite Leon S. Kennedy, on the other hand, is an elderly secret agent afflicted with some sort of mysterious infection, reprising his role in the 2019 remake. Resident Evil 2 and the 2023 remake Resident Evil 4. Its levels are frenetic action sequences filled with waves of enemies and ever-changing dangerous situations to overcome. The fear here comes not from individual zombies, but from the potential for being cornered or overwhelmed.
The dozen-hour adventure has two main parts, and each feels like a miniature sequel. In the first, you see through Grace’s eyes, her shuddering breathing and whispered pleas ratcheting up the tension as you crawl through a gothic intensive care center, learning details about the monsters that prowl the halls, how you can kill them and why they might come back, preparing supplies and planning carefully.
In addition to Capcom’s usual grotesque visual splendor, the sound design really shines here, as creaking floorboards and thumping footsteps give you as much information (and fear) as the limited visibility from your lighter or torch. It’s a huge facility, with disturbingly elegant rooms, cold medical wards, secret laboratories, and a dingy, wet industrial basement. This, combined with the multitude of angry giant enemies, makes it feel like a great extension of Baker’s home. Biohazard.
Meanwhile, you play as Leon in a few action-packed interludes, but the real part comes later when the story moves to the ruins of Raccoon City, the site of the original ’90s games and from which Leon barely escaped 30 years ago before it was bombed to contain the epidemic. Here the camera moves up to a less claustrophobic over-the-shoulder view so you can more easily examine action set pieces, including a bizarre scene inside a partially collapsed office tower. Leon’s puns and bravado bring the atmosphere back RE4and the game speeds up accordingly.
While Grace makes do with whatever weapons she can carry (she also keeps things for later, records her gameplay on old typewriters, and takes blood samples to develop countermeasures against zombies), Leon always carries a full arsenal. He has an ax that can block the swings of the chainsaw and kick the head. Both play styles are a lot of fun, but neither really feels on par with the best of their predecessors as they share the gaming bill here.
As for Grace, the upgrades and rewards you get from exploring feel less valuable since you’re not keeping them throughout. I left a bunch of resources in a certain spot in the maintenance center, planning to return after emptying my loot into the supply, but I triggered the next scene and never came back. I loved revisiting past locations as Leon and hearing his action hero quips, and there are plenty of callbacks here for series fans. But in reality there are only four or five major set piece moments, whereas RE4 it’s full of them.
The return of the Raccoon City storyline also brings with it some of the series’ worst habits; a complex, unsolvable plot filled with nonsense words and anime drama. This doesn’t overwhelm either main episode too much, but it does leave the connective tissue feeling overstretched as the game progresses towards a conclusion in which Grace must reveal her past, get payback for Leon, and navigate three decades of sprawling codling.
And yet, this kind of thing resident Evilhas a playful DNA, so I can’t deny that some malarkeys put a big smile on my face. These are games that are big on concepts and detail (I love it when you try to reload your gun, but already have a new clip, the character makes a big play to control it anyway), but not so big on narrative subtlety (Leon’s massive gun is called Requiem, and the game’s subtitle is only slightly deeper than that).
Unlike a car accident Resident Evil 6, This happened last time Capcom tried to bring all the threads together. Lament Have a solid grasp of what works for the series. Intense, unpredictable fear is balanced by moments of tranquility in a quiet, safe room where items are assembled to solve puzzles or create healing injections and maps are studied to plan routes. It’s all here and it works today as it always has.
The zombies here are scarier than in older games because they’ve been infected with a modified virus that allows them to retain elements of human memories and behavior (also making them more diverse), but they also evoke classic mash-ups. These are all dangerous, and overcoming them is a matter of managing your resources and suppressing the urge to panic.
While there’s a gulf between channel-surfing for keys as Grace and customizing weapons or dueling with chainsaws like Leon, the welcome homage to the series ties it together as a whole. Even the narrative, if odd in the third quarter, ends on a satisfying note.
Disclosure: Capcom provided a digital copy of the game for review.
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Tim Biggs is a writer covering consumer technology, gadgets, and video games.Connect with: X or email.
