Resident Evil: Requiem Devs Unsure If Game Is Actually Scary

For years, Resident Evil has stood as one of the video game industry's definitive horror franchises, delivering everything from eerie, atmospheric tension to outright jump scares. Yet as the development team continues to explore new ways to frighten players, some of its key members admit they aren't always completely sure which elements of Resident Evil remain truly frightening.

This insight comes from our interview with director Koshi Nakanishi and producer Masato Kumazama at Tokyo Game Show 2025. We began by discussing Resident Evil: Requiem's new protagonist, Grace, and how she differs from the more action-focused Leon S. Kennedy. That led to a conversation about why the series is scaling back heavy action elements in Requiem, as Nakanishi explained:

You can broadly categorize Resident Evil titles along a spectrum—some are more like Resident Evil 2, while others lean toward Resident Evil 4. Resident Evil 7 was definitely closer to the RE2 side, as it returned to survival horror roots and received critical acclaim for it. Resident Evil Village built on that foundation and incorporated more action and gunplay, shifting it closer to the RE4 end of the spectrum. However, if we continued in that direction, we'd face an "inflation effect"—where each new entry would need even more action to surpass the last. That eventually leads down the path Resident Evil 5 and 6 took. While those are still great games, the general view is that they pushed the series so far into action territory that the horror was lost. I didn't want to repeat that with Resident Evil's ninth installment—trying to top Village’s action and ending up with something I never intended to create. Our goal was to firmly swing the pendulum back toward the Resident Evil 2 style—and in a way, this is almost an evolution of that classic approach.

This led to a follow-up question about the other side of the coin: attempting to surpass their own scares with each new release. Nakanishi noted that their aim isn't necessarily to reinvent horror, but admitted that working on these games for so long can create a kind of numbness. Because of that, the team often relies on audience reactions to confirm whether what they've created is actually scary.

"We've made so many of these games that we can't really tell anymore until someone else plays it," Nakanishi said. "Before we showed the hands-off demo at SGF and the first hands-on session at Gamescom, there was some internal concern: Is this actually scary? Because honestly, we don't even know anymore. This is our bread and butter—what we work on every day."

I went on to ask Nakanishi if anything had been cut from the game for being too frightening. While he couldn't recall any specific content that was removed after being implemented, he did share one early idea that might amuse fans of Ethan Winters:

"We didn't actually implement this, so it wasn't cut, but—we genuinely don't always know what's scary. We toss around ideas: 'Let's try this, let's try that,' and keep adding things. At one point, we considered having Grace suffer a deep gash in her leg—or even have her leg severed—after an enemy attacks her. We thought, 'Oh my god, that's so scary!' But then we talked ourselves down from it."

So at least we know Grace probably won’t face the same hand-related struggles Ethan did. Probably.

We published our preview of Resident Evil: Requiem last month—you can read our impressions of what we’ve seen so far here. You can also explore the rest of my conversation with Nakanishi and Kumazawa, covering topics like how Requiem came to Nintendo Switch 2 and what’s next for Leon Kennedy. We've previously spoken with both developers on several other subjects, including the return of Raccoon City and the game's new monster designs.