Leon brings plenty of excitement to Resident Evil Requiem, but will he also spoil the scares?

One of the worst-kept secrets in video games was finally revealed during The Game Awards.

After numerous reports and rumours suggesting it was coming – not to mention the PlayStation Store seemingly becoming sentient and leaking the news itself, so sick it was of waiting – Capcom finally revealed that Leon S. Kennedy will be a playable character in Resident Evil Requiem.

In one sense, it was a moment for the fans to celebrate. Ever since he turned up for his first day of work at the Raccoon City Police Department in Resident Evil 2, Leon has been a big fan favourite among the Resident Evil community.

The fact that he starred in two of the best games in the series in Resident Evil 2 and 4 – let’s just ignore 6, people usually do – certainly hasn’t done his popularity any harm, and his Hollywood looks certainly appeal to those of the male-fancying persuasion.

Indeed, his new stubbly appearance has had social media abuzz with many players swooning over the new “sexy uncle” version of Leon, in much the same way people were practically begging Lady Dimitrescu to step on their heads a couple of years ago. The Resident Evil fanbase doesn’t do subtlety, it seems.

As welcome as Leon’s return will be, however, it also raises the question of what the game could have been, had Capcom chosen not to invoke fan service and instead gone with an entirely original cast of playable characters.

When Requiem was first announced, Grace Ashcroft quickly established herself as an intriguing protagonist. An introverted FBI analyst who isn’t as skilled at fighting as the vast majority of Resident Evil heroes who have come before her, Grace promises to bring a vulnerability to the series that will make it more about hiding than harming her enemies.

A similar change of focus was implemented in the underappreciated, combat-free Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and it was all the better for it. Still unquestionably Silent Hill, but a real change of pace for a series that was crying out for it at the time.

Grace is also intriguing because of her ties to previous, less mainstream Resident Evil games. Her mother, Alyssa Ashcroft, was a playable character in the two co-op Resident Evil Outbreak games released on PS2 – she was an investigative reporter for the Raccoon Press, but an Umbrella researcher suppressed her memory to cover up an incident. There’s a lot of potential lore to be revealed here on how Grace’s mission connects to what Alyssa went through.

By bringing back Leon too, however, roughly half of the game is set to be dedicated to him, and while that’s nothing to be sniffed at, it could be argued that Leon’s had plenty of time in the spotlight, and bringing him back for the fourth of nine games could display a unwillingness to commit fully to an entirely new character – something fans of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil Village will be familiar with, given Chris Redfield’s appearance in those.

“A similar change of focus was implemented in the underappreciated, combat-free Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and it was all the better for it”

More notably, the addition of Leon will almost certainly ensure plenty of combat, something Grace’s presence is designed to negate the need for. The result may be a game that’s stealthy in some areas and shooty in others – a potentially enjoyable mix of styles, but also a potential jack of all trades and master of none.

Of course, all of these are mere concerns rather than desperate worries, not to mention subjective ones – if you’re a big Leon fan and prefer action to stealth, then you’ll likely be crossing your fingers that everything does actually come to pass as described in this preview.

Regardless of how Leon-heavy Resident Evil Requiem turns out to be, it would take a fool to bet on the game being anything other than a critical and commercial success.

Capcom’s sticky patch of Resident Evil 5 and 6 feels like a distant memory these days, with the series on an enviable streak of quality that will doubtless have some developers reading this article and thinking “well, I wish we had the ‘problem’ of whether to bring back our massively popular character”.

As a result, regardless of whether Requiem becomes a familiar gun-toting Leon ‘em up, a tonally different story of Grace under pressure or – seemingly most likely – some sort of middle ground, the signs are overwhelmingly positive that its “itchy / tasty” ratio will lean heavily towards the latter, and that fans will end up with another great entry in the series.