Resident Evil Requiem director says the game is bloodier because Leon’s so tough

Kōshi Nakanishi says the latest game 'ties together the new and the old'

As part of a Resident Evil Requiem preview event in New York last week, Polygon spoke with Requiem director Kōshi Nakanishi about Leon’s return, the amped-up gore of this installment, and what makes Grace stand out among the pantheon of Resident Evil heroes.

The previous two games in the series, 2017’s Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and 2021’s Resident Evil Village, both centered around Ethan Winters. Leon hasn’t had a starring turn since 2012’s Resident Evil 6 — although he did take center stage in 2023’s widely acclaimed remake of the fourth game. Nakanishi tells Polygon that putting Leon back in the driver’s seat is a way for the series to return to its central storyline in Requiem.

“With those titles [RE 7 and RE Village], Capcom was able to explore a new branch of the story and universe. When the development team sat down to create Requiem, they wanted to return to the main route of the storyline. The series explores a lot of different threads of the story,” he explains. “Requiem ties some of those different threads together, and it ties together the new and old. So that's part of what Leon represents as well.”

Leon’s been taking down infected creatures for nearly 30 years now — the franchise’s infamous Raccoon City Incident happened all the way back in 1998. That means he’s not going to flinch at the sight of a headshot splattering zombie brains all over the walls, so players can expect a lot more ooey-gooey carnage during Leon’s parts of the game.

“One of the huge focuses of Requiem, obviously, is Leon in his current state. He’s more experienced, more seasoned than ever before. So that kind of expression, the blood and guts, was to kind emphasize his ability — whether he’s using the hatchet or other attacks — and how natural fighting has become to him,” Nakanishi says.

All that wonderful gore was on full display in the climactic conclusion to Polygon’s three-hour demo of Requiem, which tasked Leon with taking down an overgrown mutant baby called the Chunk within the cramped confines of an unfinished attic. In a series with no shortage of memorable boss battles, coming up with a unique creative approach to this sequence was a meaty challenge for Nakanishi and his team.

“Basically from the start of the design [for Chunk] we had one concept and that was just… big. Very large. Very huge,” he explains. “However, looking at past enemies or past Resident Evil titles, there are many very large enemies. So the question was, how do we make this feel fresh and different? And so the answer that the development team landed on was they would place him in a very narrow passageway. So as he's moving around the hallways, he's actually scrunched up and he's trying to squeeze through the very small areas. You can see his flesh trying to squeeze through.”

Requiem’s foregrounding of Leon’s combat mastery isn’t just about powerful kicks and flashy finishers, though. Even the game’s soundtrack aims to evoke Leon’s stoic brutality. “One of the main themes or atmospheres that the development team went for is an industrial sound,” Nakanishi explains. “That was to portray the way that Leon, even though he's hacking through zombies and mowing them down, he's relatively calm. That’s thanks to all of his experience at this point.”

While Requiem is just another day at the office for a zombie-hunting pro like Leon, FBI agent Grace doesn’t have decades of trauma to numb her to the horror of what she’s seeing in Raccoon City. She’s totally out of her element, and that’s key to ramping up the tension in her survival-focused sections of the game.

“The thing that really makes Grace stand out from past characters in Resident Evil games is that she's the most fearful of the main characters,” Nakanishi says. “She's basically seeing these enemies and biohazards for the first time. So, in a way, that will also mirror newcomers to the series who are just joining us. And it’s similar to the way Grace, as she goes through these experiences, she gets stronger and learns more about how to take these things down. So it's two purposes: It’s about welcoming newcomers, and to offer a different perspective versus other more experienced characters.”

Since the Raccoon City Incident kicked things off in 1998, the Resident Evil series has expanded to encompass a far larger, globe-spanning conspiracy. While those broader elements of the story won’t be absent here, this ninth installment will be more intimate in scope and scale. “Ultimately, the story that's focused on in Requiem is a personal one for Grace and Leon,” Nakanishi explains.

For Nakanishi, the triumphant feeling that comes from overcoming one’s fears is an essential element of horror games in general — and a big part of what he’s hoping to achieve with Requiem. “If you look at our culture today, we are kind of lucky that we live in a more peaceful time period. When you look back, you might have lived a much scarier existence than where we are today,” he says. “Think of haunted house attractions — most people go in to get scared. But most of them are smiling when they come out. There's some part of being human that you want to overcome that fear, and that eventually brings peace and joy, in a way.”