RE9 and the Future of the Franchise

After finishing Requiem, I honestly think it’s one of the weakest entries in the franchise.

My biggest issue is the story. Capcom seemed to regain a clear direction with RE7, but Requiem feels like they’ve completely lost the plot again. The game introduces several plot holes, contradicts previous entries, and leaves me wondering what the overarching narrative is even supposed to be anymore. The game says Leon is dying from a delayed t virus infection and that several Raccoon City survivors have already died from it. But characters like Jill, Chris, Barry, and Rebecca were exposed to the virus months before the events of Raccoon City. If that’s how the virus works, shouldn’t they be dead too? Grace’s entire character arc basically boils down to remembering a password because she hears Spencer say the word “hope.”
They basically rewrote Oswell Spencer’s entire character solely to make this dogwater story work.

The pacing is all over the place, especially in the first half with the constant switching between Leon and Grace. The Raccoon City section feels less like meaningful storytelling and more like a cheap nostalgia trip. Leon’s entire Raccoon City segment often feels like nothing more than fan service and a never ending throwback to better games in the series, without contributing anything meaningful to the plot. And they literally copied the buy station from Warzone, and it’s a massive downgrade compared to what we had in RE4 or Village.

Outside of Leon and Grace, there are barely any memorable characters. Temu Wesker gets built up as this dangerous, mysterious villain throughout the game, only to get about five minutes of actual screen time before being killed off at the end.

Gameplay wise, the stalker enemy is heavily scripted, which kills the tension once you realize how predictable it is. The whole parry mechanic feels cheap. The parry window is extremely long, and there’s virtually no limit to how much you can cheese it. Instead of rewarding precise timing and skill, it often turns encounters into a trivial exercise of spamming parries with very little risk involved. The first 45–60 minutes are basically a walking simulator and become an absolute chore on a second playthrough. The same goes for the orphanage section, which completely kills the pacing and offers little replay value once you know what’s coming. There’s little to no backtracking or meaningful exploration. There are barely any real puzzles. Most of them boil down to finding Item A and bringing it to Location B.

Enemy variety is weak, the economy is arguably the worst in the series, progression feels underwhelming, and the weapon upgrade system lacks excitement.

The boss fights are some of the worst Resident Evil has ever had. A giant plant monster, reused assets from RE2 and RE3, and we’re still shooting glowing orange weak spots in 2026? Come on.

The lack of a proper New Game+ at launch was also a baffling decision for a Resident Evil title. LMDF are really lackluster.

Overall, the game feels rushed, unfinished, and creatively bankrupt. Everything that was criticized in RE6 is suddenly being praised in Requiem. The fact that this game is being talked about as a GOTY contender and one of the best entries in the series says a lot about modern gaming standards. An 89 on Metacritic is genuinely baffling to me.

I firmly believe that once the honeymoon period is over, this game is going to age like milk. Capcom seriously needs to consider ending the series with RE10 or doing a complete reboot. Right now, it feels like they’re running on nostalgia, fanservice, and increasingly inconsistent writing rather than a clear creative vision.