Best Resident Evil games to play before Resident Evil Requiem

It's clear that Resident Evil Requiem, the next entry in Capcom's long-running series of horror games, will heavily build on its 30-year history. Leon S. Kennedy is coming in hotter than ever to kick zombie ass (all while hitting his Porsche-driving midlife crisis). Grace Ashcroft bridges the gap between Requiem and a 2003 Resident Evil game that, despite its loyal fan base, is rarely remembered by the mainstream. And after years away, we'll once again revisit Raccoon City, the place where it all began.

If you haven't been playing Resident Evil games over the last 30 years, catching up with the series now would be a Herculean task — especially considering Requiem is just a few weeks away. If you want to at least begin the next big game with a solid grasp of key elements and characters appearing in Requiem, these are the three Resident Evil games you must play.

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Resident Evil 2

Where to play: Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X, and Windows PC

Even before receiving the remake treatment, Resident Evil 2 was an important entry in the series. This game tells two different stories, depending on the route you choose to play. In one, you play as Leon S. Kennedy, who is about to start his career as a rookie in the Raccoon City Police Department. The second route focuses on Claire Redfield, a teenage girl who happens to be going to Raccoon City to visit her brother, Chris.

While the routes converge at some points, they are complementary, making it necessary to play both to fully understand the events in the game. (In the PSOne era, this meant that Resident Evil 2 shipped on two CDs. We all know that, back then, all the cool games spanned more than one disk.) This game is essential to anyone interested in playing Requiem for one key reason: It introduces Leon, who has a major role in the new game. It's fascinating to see Leon's origin in the series and the event that shaped him into the grizzled hero he is today. However, Leon is not the only reason why you want to play Resident Evil 2 before Requiem.

Although it's the second game in the series, Resident Evil 2 is the first one set in the streets of Raccoon City, where you'll visit important landmarks that you'll likely revisit in Requiem, such as the R.P.D. station. That's not all that may reappear in Requiem. In Claire's route, she saves a young girl named Sherry Birkin, who's all by herself in the city, which has been overrun by zombies. Since this is a Resident Evil game, Sherry is also connected to Umbrella. After analyzing the last Requiem trailer, YouTuber The Sphere Hunter posits that the dispatcher talking to Leon may actually be Sherry. If true, another piece of the second game will be a big part of Resident Evil Requiem's story.

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Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

Where to play: Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X, and Windows PC

At the center of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is Jill Valentine, one of the protagonists from the first game in the series. After escaping window-breaking zombie dogs and a giant hellish plant, Jill is back in Raccoon City. The place is pure chaos because of an outbreak of the T-Virus, which transformed most of the city into zombies. If surviving mindless walking undeads wasn't enough, Jill has a new, bazooka-wielding challenge to face: Nemesis.

Created by Umbrella — what a surprise! — Nemesis is the result of mixing a humanoid biological weapon with a parasite and its only goal is to hunt S.T.A.R.S members, the task force Jill is part of.

There are a lot of fights and puzzles in Resident Evil 3, but most of the time Jill is on the run, trying to find her way through the maze-like layout of Raccoon City while escaping from Nemesis's unstoppable pursuit. By forcing Jill to be in constant movement, Resident Evil 3 works as a perfect tour guide that will show you some important spots in the city. Jill visits classic locations like the R.P.D. station — the same from Resident Evil 2 — and some never seen before, like Raccoon General Hospital, all while she passes through streets marked by destruction. In addition, after completing this game, you'll understand why Raccoon City has been reduced to a massive crater in Resident Evil Requiem.

Raccoon City becomes as much a character as Jill and Nemesis, and the more you play the third game, the more familiar its alleys and buildings become. Resident Evil 3 gives you the chance to intimately explore this city that became a landmark destination in gaming and pop culture — one that now returns in Resident Evil Requiem.

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Resident Evil Outbreak

Where to play: PlayStation 2 (or watch a Let's Play on YouTube!)

Released in 2003 in Japan and only hitting the West in 2004, Resident Evil Outbreak was kind of a big deal. For the first time, Capcom delivered a cooperative multiplayer Resident Evil experience with online features, exploring mechanics and systems that were new at the time. I remember being genuinely impressed by what I read about the game in old gaming magazines. I mean, playing online with friends? Wow! That was the future!

Outbreak was the first Resident Evil made for the PlayStation 2, and it featured a completely different premise from the previous entries in the series. The game offers eight playable characters for you to choose from to complete its campaign. The idea was for players to form a team and play online to play through missions. Unlike earlier games, characters in Outbreak aren't made of traditional hero material like Leon or Jill. Instead, the focus is on showing ordinary people — a waitress, a cop, or a journalist, for example — reacting to the hell unfolding in the form of zombies that overtook Raccoon City. Divided into small scenarios, the game tells episodic stories that take place around the same time as Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3.

The connection between Resident Evil Outbreak and Requiem goes beyond Raccoon City and you can only fully experience it by playing Resident Evil Outbreak: File #2, an expanded version released by Capcom one year after the original game. It's basically the same game with more context.

One of the eight characters in Outbreak is Alyssa Ashcroft, a journalist who — besides being the best lockpicker in the game — had been in contact with Umbrella's projects long before the T-Virus outbreak occurred, something we only learn in File #2. Five years before Raccoon City's downfall, Alyssa witnessed a strange creature — it was a zombie, by the way! — violently murder her friend Kurt. If that weren't traumatic enough, her memories of these events were suppressed by Greg Mueller, an Umbrella researcher.

While you will need to play Outbreak to learn exactly what happens to Alyssa and the other seven characters, the only important fact you need to know is that she survived. In fact, she lived long enough that she appears to be still working as a journalist in Resident Evil Requiem. She's also a mother, and her daughter is... Grace Ashcroft! Yes, the other protagonist in Requiem. Because of this direct connection, we may see Grace uncovering more of her mother's secrets, along with whatever else is happening in Resident Evil Requiem.