Resident Evil: Requiem Developers say they can't tell if the game is really horrible

Resident Evil has been one of the typical flagship horror games in the video game industry for years, ranging from disturbing, atmospheric troubles to downright jump shots over the years. But as its development team continues to find new ways to scare people, some of these leaders admit that they are not always 100% sure what is actually horrible.

This comes from our interview with director Koshi Nakanishi and producer Masato Kumazama at Tokyo Game Show 2025. Differences from action-oriented Leon S. Kennedy. This leads to a discussion of why the series withdraws the heavy action elements of the Requiem, as Nakanishi explains:

I think you can categorize the titles of Resident Evil by scale like Resident Evil 2 or Resident Evil 4. Resident Evil 7 is sure to be on both sides, as it restores its roots of survival horror and is praised for it. The inhabitants’ evil villages are built on this basis and add more action and gunfights and bring it to a specific scale of Re4 side. But if we keep moving in that direction, there is almost inflationary effect, you have to keep adding more and more actions to go beyond the previous title, and eventually you end up in the development of Resident Evil 5 and 6, and while they are still great, they are still great games, and the general consensus is that they push Resident Evil in the direction of action in a direction that is no longer terrifying. I didn’t want to do this with the ninth title of Resident Evil, where I just tried to move beyond the action in the village and ended up doing something I didn’t want to do. Our intentions firmly turn the scale toward Resident Evil 2 style is our intention, which is almost an upgrade to the Resident 2 style.

But this led to a follow-up question, and I asked Nakanich about the other side of the coin, trying to outdo my own fears with each new title. Nakanishi noted that their goal is not necessarily to innovate horror, but working on these games has had a certain numb effect for a long time, and they do need to see the audience’s reaction to know if what they are doing is really terrible.

“We did a lot until someone else played it, we couldn't know anymore,” said Nikkei. “In fact, there was some concern inside, and then when we showed the handheld in the SGF (Resident Evil: Requiem) and the first time we drove at Gamescom, was it actually scary? Because we didn't even know. It's our bread, better, what we do every day.”

I ended up asking Nakanishi if there was anything they cut from the game because it was too scary. He doesn't remember anything specific that actually removed from the game after adding the game, but he does remember an anecdote that could make Ethan Winters fans laugh:

“We didn't really implement it, so it didn't cut it off, but – we didn't know what was scary. So we said, we were going to do it, we would do it, we kept adding things, and once, we were like, if (Grace) was shocked in her legs, or her legs were cut off, or because that thing attacked her, and my god was so scary, but we would chat on our legs.”

So at least we know Grace probably won't have the same problem Ethan does with his hands. perhaps.

We have a preview of Resident Evil: Requiem of Last Month, you can Read our impressions of what we have seen here so far. You can also check out my rest of the discussions with Nakanishi and Kumazawa, including How to enter the Nintendo Switch 2 in Reqiuem and What happened to Leon Kennedy. We have Talked to two people before On many other themes, such as the return of Raccoon City and the game's new monster design.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior journalist at IGN. You can find her post on bluesky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Is there a story tip? Send it to [email protected].