Resident Evil Requiem released on February 27, 2026 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2. It is the ninth mainline Resident Evil game. You play as Grace Ashcroft, an FBI analyst pulled back to the hotel where her mother died, and you can switch between first and third person at any time.
Resident Evil Requiem release date and platforms
Capcom revealed Resident Evil Requiem at Summer Game Fest on June 6, 2025, and announced the February 27, 2026 release date at the same time. That date held. Capcom did not delay the game, which is rarer for a big horror release than it should be.
Timing matters to Capcom here. The original Resident Evil launched on PlayStation on March 22, 1996, so Requiem arrived a few weeks before the series turned 30. Capcom positioned it as the anniversary centrepiece, and the story leans on that history.
| Platform | Release date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| PS5 | February 27, 2026 | Digital and physical |
| Xbox Series X|S | February 27, 2026 | Same-day launch |
| PC (Steam) | February 27, 2026 | Same-day launch |
| Nintendo Switch 2 | February 27, 2026 | Announced in a September 2025 Nintendo Direct |
The Switch 2 version was a late addition to the announcement, but Capcom kept it on the same date as everything else. On the same day, Capcom also brought Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village to Switch 2. If you play on PlayStation, none of that changes much for you. It does mean you are less likely to run into spoilers from players who got the game earlier on another platform.
Is Resident Evil Requiem on PS4?
No. On PlayStation, Requiem is a PS5 game only. Capcom kept the last two big releases, Resident Evil Village and the Resident Evil 4 remake, on both PS4 and PS5. This time it dropped the older console. If you are still on a PS4, you will need a PS5, PS5 Slim, PS5 Digital Edition or PS5 Pro.
Heads up
PS5 discs and downloads are region-free for games. PSN accounts are not. Check that your PS Store region matches your account before you buy a code from overseas.
Story: Grace Ashcroft and the Wrenwood Hotel
The setup is simple and personal. Grace Ashcroft is an FBI intelligence analyst. She is not a field agent and has no special forces training. Her job is data, not gunfights. She is sent to investigate a string of mysterious deaths, and the trail leads to the Wrenwood Hotel.
The Wrenwood is the abandoned hotel where Grace’s mother, Alyssa Ashcroft, died eight years earlier. So the case opens an old wound before Grace sets foot inside the building. Capcom’s first trailer made that the emotional hook: a daughter walking into the place that took her mother, and finding that whatever happened there never stopped.
The second major thread is Raccoon City. The city was destroyed in 1998 to contain the T-virus outbreak, the event at the centre of Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3 and Outbreak. Requiem takes players back to the ruins decades later. For long-time fans that is a big deal. The series has spent years in European villages, Louisiana bayous and Spanish castles. Requiem returns to the place where Umbrella’s biggest failure happened.
Capcom has used the tagline “requiem for the dead, nightmare for the living” in its marketing. The title fits the themes on show: grief, unfinished business, and a disaster that still affects the people who lived through it and the children they raised.
I am keeping this section spoiler-light on purpose. If you have not finished the game, the best way to experience Requiem is to know the premise and nothing more. Story beats past the opening hours are easy to find online now that the game is out, so mute keywords on social media if you are still working through it.
Meet the cast
Grace Ashcroft
Grace is the lead and the main reason Requiem feels different from recent entries. Capcom wrote her as someone who is scared. In early footage she shakes, hesitates and backs away from threats instead of lining up headshots. That is a deliberate return to the Resident Evil 7 approach, where Ethan Winters was an ordinary man in over his head.
It works because the player feels that fear too. A character with Leon’s skills makes a stalker enemy look like a boss fight. A character like Grace makes the same enemy feel like a reason to hide in a closet and hold your breath.
Alyssa Ashcroft
Alyssa never appears in Requiem as a living character, but her presence runs through the whole thing. She was one of the playable survivors in Resident Evil Outbreak, the 2003 PS2 game. She was an investigative journalist who survived the Raccoon City outbreak. Outbreak is one of the deepest cuts in the series. It never got a modern remaster, so most players meet Alyssa for the first time through Requiem.
You do not need to have played Outbreak to follow the story. Requiem explains what it needs to. Knowing that Alyssa was a sharp, stubborn reporter who walked out of Raccoon City alive does make Grace’s story land harder, though.
Leon S. Kennedy
Capcom confirmed in the run-up to launch that Leon S. Kennedy is a second playable character. That ended years of fan speculation. Leon is older here, more weathered, and his sections lean toward the confident, combat-heavy style of the Resident Evil 4 remake. Grace hides. Leon fights.
That two-protagonist structure is the smartest decision in the game’s design. You get the tension of Resident Evil 7 and the action of Resident Evil 4 in one package, and each style feels sharper next to the other.
Choose your perspective: first person or third person
Requiem is the first mainline game that lets you choose the camera for the full campaign. Capcom confirmed the toggle at Gamescom 2025. You can switch between first person and over-the-shoulder third person at any time, not just once at the start.
Each mode suits a different kind of player:
- First person is the closer, more claustrophobic experience. It is how Resident Evil 7 and Village were built. You see less, so threats arrive suddenly and corners feel dangerous. Pick it if you want maximum fear.
- Third person shows Grace or Leon on screen and gives you wider awareness. It is closer to the Resident Evil 2, 3 and 4 remakes. Pick it if you get motion sick in first person or you play better when you can see your character’s position.
My recommendation: play Grace’s sections in first person and try Leon’s in third. Grace’s chapters are built around hiding, listening and creeping, which first person exaggerates in a good way. Leon’s chapters involve more crowd control and aiming, where the over-the-shoulder view gives you a better read on enemy spacing.
Player tip
If first person makes you queasy, switch to third person for a stretch before you give up on it. You can swap back at any time, so you can ease into first person gradually.
How Requiem plays
Capcom built the game around different moods for each protagonist, and the pre-launch gameplay reveals focused on Grace.
Survival horror for Grace
The Gamescom 2025 demo showed Grace waking up in a grim medical facility and trying to escape while a huge stalker creature hunts her. Stalkers are a series tradition. Mr. X in Resident Evil 2, Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 and Jack Baker in Resident Evil 7 all fill the same role. Requiem’s version is slow, tall and unsettling, and Grace cannot simply shoot it down.
That means the core loop for Grace is avoidance:
- Listen for footsteps and environmental audio cues.
- Break line of sight and use hiding spots.
- Manage a very limited supply of healing items and ammunition.
- Use light and darkness to your advantage, because the environment matters as much as your inventory.
Grace collects resources in the classic way, by scouring rooms, opening drawers and deciding what is worth the limited inventory space. If you came in from the action-heavy Resident Evil 4 remake, expect a tighter, more anxious pace.
Action for Leon
Leon’s sections are where Requiem opens up. He handles weapons with practised ease, and his chapters let you take the fight to enemies instead of running from them. Capcom paced the campaign so the two styles alternate. After a tense stretch with Grace, Leon’s chapters act as a release valve. The game then pulls you back into the dark before you get comfortable.
RE Engine
Requiem runs on the RE Engine, the same tech behind every Resident Evil game since Resident Evil 7. The director is Koshi Nakanishi, who also directed Resident Evil 7. You can see his influence in the first-person horror sections. Faces, wet surfaces and lighting are where the engine shows off most, and the Wrenwood’s rotting interiors give it plenty to work with.
Resident Evil Requiem PS5 details
This is the part most store pages skip. Here is what matters if you play on PlayStation.
Base PS5, Slim and Pro
The game runs on every PS5 model: launch, Slim, Digital Edition and Pro. The base PS5 and PS5 Slim have identical internal performance, so the Slim gives you no visual advantage. It is just smaller and has a little more storage.
If you own a PS5 Pro, look for the PS5 Pro Enhanced label on the game’s PS Store page and the in-game graphics menu. That label means Capcom has added Pro-specific settings, usually higher resolution, better ray tracing or a steadier frame rate. Capcom’s recent RE Engine games have offered a choice between a resolution-focused mode and a performance-focused mode on PS5. Expect to choose between sharper image quality and smoother motion. For a game this dark, I lean toward the higher-resolution option unless the frame rate dips are obvious to you.
If you are thinking about upgrading for this one game, consider it carefully. Requiem plays well on a standard PS5, and a Pro mostly adds polish rather than a different experience. If you are holding out for next-gen hardware anyway, our “playstation 6” rumour roundup covers what has been reported so far.
DualSense
Capcom has a strong record with the DualSense. Resident Evil Village and the Resident Evil 4 remake both use adaptive triggers for weapon resistance and haptics for footsteps and impacts. Horror benefits from that more than any other genre. Feeling a heartbeat or a distant thud in your palms adds real tension. If your controller has stick drift or weak triggers, sort that out before a horror game that demands precise movement. Our “ps5 controller” guide covers DualSense care and settings.
Set up 3D audio and HDR before you play
Sound is half the experience in Requiem. Grace’s sections depend on hearing where a stalker is before you see it. The PS5’s Tempest 3D Audio does a great job of placing sounds around you through headphones, but you need to switch it on.
Quick steps: tune your PS5 for horror
- Go to Settings > Sound > Audio Output and turn on Enable 3D Audio for Headphones.
- In the same menu, select Adjust 3D Audio Profile and pick the profile that sounds most accurate.
- Go to Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output > Adjust HDR and follow the three calibration screens.
- Launch Requiem and set in-game brightness so the reference image is just barely visible.
The HDR step matters more than people think. A badly calibrated HDR screen either crushes shadows into pure black, so you miss items and enemies, or lifts them into a grey haze that kills the atmosphere. Two minutes of calibration fixes both problems.
Player tip
Use wired headphones or a PlayStation headset for Grace’s chapters. TV speakers flatten directional audio, and directional audio is how you track the stalker through walls.
Storage
Check the file size on the PS Store page before you buy, because RE Engine games are not small, and day-one patches add to the total. A launch PS5 has only about 667GB of usable space, so clearing an old game or two first saves you a frustrating wait. If you use an M.2 expansion SSD, Requiem runs perfectly from it.
Why you should play Resident Evil Requiem
Requiem is for players who loved Resident Evil 7’s fear but missed the classic Resident Evil feel of the remakes. It is the first game in the series that serves both groups in one campaign without diluting either.
It is also for long-time fans who have waited a long time for the series to return to Raccoon City and its legacy cast. Bringing back Alyssa Ashcroft’s story through her daughter is the kind of deep-cut storytelling that rewards people who have followed the series since the PS1.
Who should skip it, or wait for a sale? If you only enjoy Resident Evil when it is a confident action game, Grace’s slow, defenceless chapters may frustrate you. They make up a large share of the campaign, and you cannot skip them to reach Leon. And if horror makes you anxious enough to put the controller down, the third-person camera helps, but it does not make Requiem a relaxing game.
What to play first: Resident Evil games on PS5 and PS4
You do not need homework to enjoy Requiem. If you want context, here is the PlayStation catalogue as it currently stands and how relevant each game is to Requiem.
| Game | PS5 / PS4 | Original release | Relevance to Requiem |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resident Evil 2 (remake) | PS5 and PS4 | 2019 | High: Raccoon City, Leon’s origin |
| Resident Evil 3 (remake) | PS5 and PS4 | 2020 | High: Raccoon City’s destruction |
| Resident Evil 4 (remake) | PS5 and PS4 | 2023 | Medium: older, battle-hardened Leon |
| Resident Evil 7 biohazard | PS5 and PS4 | 2017 | Medium: same director, first-person horror |
| Resident Evil Village | PS5 and PS4 | 2021 | Low to medium: recent series lore |
| Resident Evil (HD Remaster) | PS4 | 2015 port of 2002 remake | Medium: the Spencer Mansion origin story |
| Resident Evil 0 (HD Remaster) | PS4 | 2016 port | Low |
| Resident Evil 5 and 6 | PS4 | 2016 ports | Low: Leon appears in 6 |
| Resident Evil Revelations 1 and 2 | PS4 | 2017 ports | Low |
PS4 versions play on PS5 through backward compatibility. Resident Evil 2, 3 and 7 all received free PS5 upgrades in June 2022, so if you own the PS4 disc or download, you can claim the native PS5 version on a disc-drive console or a digital account.
My short watchlist before Requiem:
- Resident Evil 2 remake. This is the essential one. It introduces Leon, shows Raccoon City falling apart, and remains one of the best games on PS5.
- Resident Evil 3 remake. It is short, about six hours, and it shows how and why Raccoon City was wiped off the map.
- Resident Evil 7. This is optional for the story but useful for getting used to Nakanishi’s style of horror before Grace’s chapters.
Resident Evil Outbreak, the game Alyssa Ashcroft comes from, is the awkward one. It was a PS2 title with online co-op, and it has not been re-released on modern PlayStation hardware. A plot summary is the practical option.
Older Resident Evil games rotate in and out of the PS Plus Extra catalogue. If you want to catch up cheaply, check what is currently in the Game Catalog before buying anything. Our “ps plus november 2026” predictions piece is worth a look if you are waiting for a monthly lineup with horror in it.
PS VR2 owners
Resident Evil Village and the Resident Evil 4 remake both have PS VR2 modes, and Resident Evil 7 is a PS VR classic. If you want to prepare for Requiem’s first-person horror, Village in VR is the most intense warm-up you can do.
Ratings and reviews
On age ratings, there is no surprise. Every mainline Resident Evil has carried an M rating in North America and an 18 rating under PEGI in Europe, and Requiem’s gore, body horror and violence put it in the same bracket. Check the rating icon on the PS Store page for your region. If you have a younger player in the house, set up PS5 parental controls under Settings > Family and Parental Controls, because Requiem is not a game for children.
On critical reviews, I am not going to quote an aggregate score here. Averages shift as more outlets publish and patches change performance, and a number frozen in a guide quickly goes stale. Check the score on Metacritic or OpenCritic when you read this, and pay attention to reviews that specifically mention the PS5 version, because performance can differ between platforms.
The PS Store’s user star rating is useful as well, but read it alongside written reviews. Star ratings can swing because of things that have nothing to do with the game itself, such as pricing disputes or server issues on launch day.
Is Requiem the newest Resident Evil game?
Yes. Requiem is the newest mainline Resident Evil game and the latest release in the series on PS5. It follows Resident Evil Village (2021) in the numbered series and the Resident Evil 4 remake (2023) in the remake line.
Capcom has a habit of following a big mainline release with DLC. Village got the Shadows of Rose expansion, and the Resident Evil 4 remake got Separate Ways. That makes story DLC for Requiem likely, but treat any specific DLC claim as rumour until Capcom announces it. Fan speculation about future remakes, especially Code Veronica, has circulated for years, mostly from community insiders and anonymous accounts with mixed track records. None of it is confirmed.
FAQ
When did Resident Evil Requiem come out?
Resident Evil Requiem released on February 27, 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2, all on the same day.
Is Resident Evil Requiem on PS4?
No. On PlayStation it is PS5 only. You can play it on any PS5 model, including the Slim, Digital Edition and Pro.
Who is the main character in Resident Evil Requiem?
Grace Ashcroft, an FBI intelligence analyst and the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft from Resident Evil Outbreak. Leon S. Kennedy is the second playable character.
Can you play Resident Evil Requiem in third person?
Yes. You can switch between first person and third person at any time during the campaign, so you never have to commit to one view.
Do I need to play other Resident Evil games first?
No, but the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes add a lot of context because Requiem returns to Raccoon City. Resident Evil 7 is a good primer for the horror style.
Is Resident Evil Requiem scary?
Grace’s chapters are some of the most tense in the series because she avoids fights instead of winning them. Leon’s chapters are more action-focused and much less stressful.
Does Resident Evil Requiem support PS5 Pro?
Check for the PS5 Pro Enhanced label on the PS Store page. That label confirms Pro-specific graphics options. The game runs well on a standard PS5 either way.
