10 Resident Evil Requiem Mechanics That Make Combat Feel More Desperate Than Ever

2 hours ago 2

Published Mar 4, 2026, 2:14 PM EST

Daniel has been playing games for entirely too many years, with his Steam library currently numbering nearly 750 games and counting. When he's not working or watching anime, he's either playing or thinking about games, constantly on the lookout for fascinating new gameplay styles and stories to experience. Daniel has previously written lists for TheGamer, as well as guides for GamerJournalist, and he currently covers tech topics on SlashGear.

As an action-horror game, Resident Evil Requiem isn’t quite as overtly scary as some of its less-shooty contemporaries. There are some jumpscares and good atmosphere, sure, but putting a gun in your hands does tend to dampen those kinds of scares. What the game lacks in lurking, creeping fear, however, it makes up for with a slightly different vibe: one of desperation.

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In Resident Evil Requiem, you have the ability to craft all kinds of things to fit your needs — so long as you find the recipes.

You are capable of defending yourself as both Grace and Leon, that’s not in question. What is in question is exactly how long you’ll be able to defend yourself, how efficiently. You can pop one zombie easily enough, but what are you supposed to do when there’s a whole gaggle of them closing in from every angle, and you only have enough bullets in the chamber to knock down a couple? It’s that feeling of desperation where Resident Evil Requiem really shines, and many of its mechanics, major and minor, reflect that particular pursuit.

Gameplay and scenario spoilers ahead!

10 Scarce Ammo

We Ain’t Made of Bullets Here

Resident Evil Requiem Requiem ammo crafting

A big component of the overall Resident Evil formula is the general scarcity of your most important resource, ammo. While you can find enough bullets to fill a couple of clips for Grace’s pistol, there’s definitely not enough to fire wildly and blindly. You need to aim for vital points like heads and knees to knock zombies over, then either finish them off or run away. Even just trying to kill one zombie can take more bullets than you’d expect, even if you land nothing but dead-on headshots.

Bullets should generally be conserved whenever possible, both for Grace’s regular pistol and especially for the Requiem, as the latter’s ammo is extremely hard to come by. You can craft more bullets using scrap and the Blood Collector, but those resources are just as scarce as the bullets themselves.

Ammo conservation is slightly less of a problem for Leon, since he gradually gets multiple different weapons with their own ammo types. Though, this creates a different problem where you may have plenty of ammo, but it’s not the ammo for the gun you actually need like the rifle or shotgun, forcing you to fumble your way through combat with a poor weapon.

9 Situational Items and Crafting

Make an Educated Decision

RE Requiem All Safes Monitor Control Room Safe

Both Grace and Leon can use various obtainable resources to craft useful items like ammo, healing items, and stat upgrades. Most of these items are crafted from scrap, herbs, and either infected blood or gunpowder. If you’re thorough in your searches, you can generally find what you need for general purposes.

However, there are some specialized items that may consume resources that you may have wanted to use elsewhere. For example, if Grace finds an empty injector, she can use infected blood to make steroids or a stabilizer, improving her health and gun damage, respectively. Obviously, though, you can only make one or the other. Also, late in the game, you can craft empty bottles into acid bottles, perfect for dispatching Lickers. Using an empty bottle in this manner, though, means not having one handy as a distraction tool.

Leon’s crafting woes are more ammo-centric; since every gun has its own ammo type, you’ll need to use small and large gunpowder bottles alongside scrap to make what you need. Making one kind of ammo means not making another, and if you burn all your resources on reloading your pistol, for example, you won’t be able to reload your shotgun.

8 Grace: Limited Melee

An MMA Fighter, Grace is Not

Compared to Leon’s beefy arms, Grace is a bit on the spindly side, not nearly as proficient at squishing a zombie’s head with nothing but her boot. This means that, contrary to norms established in other recent Resident Evil games, Grace doesn’t have much in the way of melee combat options.

Grace can’t even perform melee attacks unless she’s armed with a knife, and even then, her attacks seem to damage the knife itself more than whatever you’re flailing it at. You may be able to finish off a downed zombie with a few quick swipes to the face, but whether that’s a sound investment of your knife’s durability is another matter.

Grace does have two situational melee moves she can perform on a staggered or kneeling zombie, a shove and a kick, respectively. This is definitely a handy way to knock a zombie over if you want to run past it or finish it off, but the moves themselves don’t do any actual damage, as opposed to Leon’s roundhouse kick. They’re escape maneuvers, not actual attacks, and if you perform one expecting a zombie not to get back up, you’re going to be disappointed.

7 Grace: Breaking and Dropping Knives

Whoops, Left My Shiv in Your Neck

Speaking of knives, rather than in melee combat, Grace’s various knives are best used to fend off a zombie that attempts to grapple you from the front. Doing this will knock the zombie back and minimize the damage you take, so it’s generally the smart call over just mashing to escape.

As I mentioned, though, knives are themselves a consumable resource. Every knife has a durability meter that Grace can’t refill, and it ticks down every time it’s used to stop or attack a zombie. When it empties, the knife breaks, and it’s gone for good, which means you don’t have any easy bite-escape maneuvers anymore.

As an extra insult to injury, when using a knife to fend off a grappling zombie, the knife will get stuck in the zombie’s face, forcing you to drop it. Even if the knife still has durability left, you’ll have to kill the zombie you stabbed to get it back before you can use it again.

6 Leon: Hatchet Combat

I’m a Blade Man, Man

Leon’s segments are generally more action-focused than Grace’s, which means a larger concentration of zombies coming at you simultaneously. To compensate for this, Leon has a larger array of guns at his disposal, though in addition to that, he also has his standby melee weapon, an indestructible hatchet. Learning to use this hatchet is a vital component of Leon’s core combat loop.

The hatchet can be used to perform basic and strong melee attacks, though these don’t do that much damage, and it’s hard to stagger a zombie with one. Rather than just swinging it around, the hatchet is best used as a defensive and finishing measure; proper timing with the hatchet lets you parry incoming enemy attacks, and if a zombie is knocked down, Leon can drive the hatchet into their head to finish them off.

Resident Evil Requiem Shatters Every Franchise Record on Steam Because of Hot Leon

The catch here is that, while the hatchet won’t break like Grace’s knives, it will wear out. Leon needs to periodically pull out his whetstone and sharpen it, or else you won’t be able to use it to finish or fend off zombies. It’s easy to get into a groove of finishing every zombie you knock down, but if you don’t mind your durability, you won’t have time to sharpen when you really need it.

5 Stealth Takedowns

The Best Way to Win a Fight is Not to Be There

Resident Evil Requiem Grace stealth takedown

Sometimes, especially when playing as Grace, the most tense part of Requiem’s combat is trying your hardest to stay out of combat entirely. The last thing you want is to draw aggro on multiple zombies simultaneously with no clear avenue of escape. To that end, stealth takedowns are an important factor to consider.

Grace can quietly dispatch any zombie by sneaking up behind them and sticking them with a hemolytic injector, causing them to explode in a messy splash of blood that’s somehow still quiet. Hemolytic injectors are single-use, though, and only work from behind or if the zombie is already on the ground. If they turn around while you’re sneaking up, you’ll lose your opportunity and have to sweat it out.

Similarly, Leon can perform stealth takedowns using his hatchet, sneaking up and dispatching zombies from the rear in the same way. You can do this as long as your hatchet has durability, but remember, you’re not invulnerable to attacks from other zombies while performing a takedown.

4 Armed Zombies

Who Gave These Zombies SMGs?

The current genus of T-Virus-induced zombification in Requiem leaves its victims with some echoes of their previous minds and personalities. Besides making them both creepy and more sympathetic, it also gives them the ability to wield a surprisingly large array of weapons.

In Grace’s sections, you may encounter patient zombies carrying around IV stands and doctors with bone saws, swinging them wildly when disturbed and dealing damage in a wider arc than they normally would. Armed zombies are more of a problem in Leon’s sections, as they may come at you with axes, cudgels, and even chainsaws. On the bright side, Leon can chuck dropped weapons back at zombies, as well as pick up and wield dropped chainsaws.

In the ruins of Raccoon City in particular, Leon encounters zombified BSAA agents armed with SMGs. When they see Leon, they’ll open fire in a wide, lazy arc, forcing you to take cover until they run out of ammo. Some zombies are even operating mortars on the ruined rooftops, launching massive explosives at Leon’s current position. I have no idea how a zombie can even aim a mortar, let alone use it. They must’ve been pretty skilled when they were alive.

3 Blister Heads

V-ACT V2

As Grace, putting down a zombie in a particular hallway can be mildly annoying, but ultimately workable. If you just leave the corpse there without using a hemolytic injector, however, you may eventually find your path blocked by something substantially worse: a Blister Head.

In a similar phenomenon to the V-ACT process that created Crimson Heads in the original Resident Evil, Blister Heads are the result of a killed T-Virus zombie undergoing secondary mutation, regenerating its injuries and coming back stronger, faster, and more vicious. Blister Heads are far more resilient against Grace’s pistol, assuming you can even hit them, as they tend to duck and weave when attacking. The best way to dispatch them is a Requiem shot, but obviously, that’s not something you can do consistently.

Leon encounters Blister Heads as well, though at least in his case, dealing with them is as easy as smashing their heads with his hatchet. You still have to knock them down first, which can be easier said than done given the aforementioned ducking and weaving.

2 Grace: Stalker Enemies

They’re Always There, Around the Corner

As has become tradition since Resident Evil 2, Requiem has its fair share of larger, more dangerous stalker enemies, moreso in Grace’s sections than Leon’s. As Grace is less of a powerful combatant than Leon, trying to take these enemies head on is far more likely to get you killed than anything, which means you’ll have to run and hide.

Grace encounters a few different types of stalkers throughout the game. The first, and most distinctive, is The Girl, the lanky, wide-jawed monster with an aversion to bright places, though she also encounters the broad-shouldered kitchen chef and the even more broad-shouldered Chunk in the east wing of the care center. Chunk and the chef can technically be killed, but it takes several shots from Requiem or hemolytic injector doses.

Late in the game, while exploring ARK, Grace also has the misfortune of encountering a large pack of Lickers. As Lickers can only identify you through sound, it’s effectively the game’s last major instance of forcing you to hide rather than fight directly, staying out of their path while avoiding noisy hazards like broken glass on the ground.

1 Leon: T-Virus Sickness

He’s On his Last Legs

In the climax of the game, when both Leon and Grace have entered ARK beneath the ruins of Raccoon City, Leon’s Raccoon City Syndrome has officially reached terminal stages. He’s got black blotches all over him, and it’s getting to the point that he can’t just power through the pain and symptoms anymore.

While exploring ARK, Leon may occasionally be wracked with T-Virus symptoms, his vision turning blue and distorted and his movements becoming sluggish. These symptoms have a nasty habit of manifesting whenever there are zombies or Lickers around, which happens to be the worst possible time.

You can still move, shoot, and perform melee attacks while Leon is having an attack, but it’s harder to aim straight and you can’t move as quickly. When a Licker is about to lunge at you and the only thing that can stop it is a strong shot square to the brain, the last thing you want is to have your vision and movement impaired.