Resident Evil Requiem review - a cathartic cross-breed of creeps and carnage
Resident Evil: Requiem is filled with winking reminders of previous games, so I was surprised the touchstone I kept coming back to was the one Capcom surely want me to forget: Resident Evil 6. The latter set out with bold aspirations. It took all the various reinventions the series had adopted throughout the years and spliced them into one giant hunk of Resident Evil meat, hoping it would mutate into a grisly hybrid that could channel all the styles of previous experiments. Sadly, the Resi 6 Golem also dined out on ideas from Call Of Duty and Michael Bay movies, creating more of a shallow frat bro than an ultimate life form. All these years later, Requiem feels like Capcom picking up the scalpel to take another crack at that ambitious goal.
It's pulled in various test subjects, but the core elements are the skin-crawling dread of Resident Evil 7 and the karate-kicking action of Resident Evil 4 Remake. On the whole, Requiem's Golem is a stronger hybrid than Resi 6. The initial six or so hours of its lifespan are a triumph, trapping me under the weight of its oppressive horror before letting me slip free to get sweet revenge in a flurry of hyper-violence. The game starts to disintegrate into messy chunks shortly after, but those opening few hours are absolutely worth letting this prototype out of the lab.