Capcom reveals Resident Evil Requiem started as an online game, ‘but we realised fans didn’t want it’
Developers show footage of RE9’s origins
Capcom has revealed that it tested open world and online concepts for Resident Evil Requiem, before settling on a traditional single-player game.
Speaking in an extended developer diary video available to members of Capcom’s website, Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi shared a brief look at the early online version of Resident Evil 9 and said it was ultimately abandoned because he realised it wasn’t what fans wanted.
“You might have heard some of the rumours, things like an online Resident Evil or an open world Resident Evil, which we spent some time experimenting with,” he said.
“But in the end, although we had some interesting concepts, we realised that it wasn’t what fans wanted to see or play. So we went back to the drawing board and created what led to Resident Evil Requiem.”
The first word of RE9’s online origins came from prolific series insider Dusk Golem, who wrote on social media last month that the game started development in 2017, starring series protagonists Leon & Jill.
According to Golem, the original version of RE9 “was trying to be the opposite” of first-person entry RE7, but the project got “a pretty heavy reboot” in 2021 around the time Village came out.
On Thursday, Capcom premiered the first Resident Evil Requiem gameplay, showcasing the game’s first and third-person views.
Resident Evil Requiem was announced earlier this month at The Game Awards, and is releasing on February 27 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
The game will mark a “bold shift for the franchise,” according to Capcom, and stars Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Resident Evil Outbreak’s Alyssa, an FBI analyst investigating a series of mysterious deaths in Raccoon City, 30 years after it was bombed in the events of Resident Evil 3.
“Requiem, initially at least, looks like a familiar successor to the first-person games RE7 and Village, with Ashcroft trapped in some sort of gothic hospital,” VGC wrote in a recent Resident Evil Requiem preview.
“As the player progresses further through the dimly lit corridors, with flickering lights casting unsettling shadows across the environment, it’s clear that in this section at least, Requiem really does feel like the traditional survival horror we were promised.”
