Resident Evil Requiemisn’t releasing until 2026, but a leaker suggests that it’s already set two major franchise records during development. As the highly anticipated follow-up to 2021’sResident Evil 8,Requiemis set to return to the classic series location of Raccoon City. While the trailer revealed a new protagonist named Grace Ashcroft, daughter ofResident Evil Outbreakcharacter Alyssa Ashcroft, many of the game’s surprises are seemingly still being kept under wraps.
According toResident EvilleakerAestheticGamer aka Dusk Golemon X,Resident Evil Requiemis allegedly theREgame with the longest development and the biggest budget “BY FAR.“This isn’t the first time Dusk Golem has mentioned the scale of its production, but claiming that the runner-ups aren’t even close paints a particularly ambitious picture.
In follow-up posts,Dusk Golem also suggests that Capcom has shown very little of the game overall, with more “surprising features & gameplay innovations” to come later in the marketing cycle.
Resident Evil Requiem Might Set Budget & Dev Time Records
A New Height Of Capcom’s Ambition
While Dusk Golem is sometimes vague about specifics, they’re generally noted as a reliable leaker in theResident Evilcommunity, and the claims surroundingRE9’s development make sense. The scope of game production cycles has generally ballooned over time. FollowingResident Evil 6’s messy ambition,RE7took a back-to-basics approach, butRE8already ramped things upin scale once again.
Dusk Golem cites these claims as part of a larger point regardingRE9’s overall ambition, also noting that the game will serve as something of a conclusion to the story ofResident Evil 1and2.
In another post, they contend thatit may be the final “numbered"Resident Evilgame(although the game’s main title doesn’t include the9). Past this point, Capcom may be moving on from many of the more long-running franchise threads.
RE9’s Ambition Could Be A Double-Edged Sword
Dizzying Scale Comes With Major Risks
It’s certainly exciting to seeResident Evilgoing so strongdecades after its inception, butit could also makeRE9a challenging game to pull off.RE7’s success had a lot to do with its reduction in scale, andRequiem’s attempts to juggle old threads, new ideas, and potentiallyseveral playable charactersseem like a difficult balancing act.
Even if the results are imperfect, that could still lead to a memorable experience, and the series would never have produced classics likeResident Evil 4if it had been content to stick to the formula of proven successes. Hopefully, ifResident Evil Requiem’s dev cycle has been as over-the-top as Dusk Golem suggests, the game that comes out of it will be worth all the time and money.
