Leakers have been umming and ahhing overResident Evil Requiemlong before it had a subtitle, but the one thing they have always been confident in waswhowe’d be playing as in the ninth instalment—Leon Kennedy. So, it was a bit of a surprise whenCapcom pulled back the curtainto reveal Alyssa Ashcroft’s daughter, Grace, an incredible deep-cut that pays homage to an obscure spin-off relatively few people played.
Still, the leakers stuck to their infinite ammo guns, now claiming that Leon was the second protagonist, and that Capcom was just keeping him close to its chest for a surprise reveal. Amidst this tug-of-war with insiders, at yesterday’s showcase, director Koshi Nakanishi admitted that he “always thought about” making Leon the protagonist, but thatcrafting a pure horror experience around him would be too “difficult”.
There it is. He isn’t in the game, and the leakers were wrong. Case closed, right?
I don’t buy it. For one, the reveal trailer made a not-so-subtle effort to emphasise the Raccoon City police station, returning to Resident Evil 2’s labyrinthine headquarters, now obliterated by the city-wide bomb;we even heard snippets from what sounded like Leon, plus previous playable characters Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield (or Carlos Oliveira). It sure sounds like Leon is in the game, and walking through the ruins as anyone else would be sacrilege.
But let’s say that Capcom isn’t pulling a bait-and-switch and take that excuse at face value—Leon is too “difficult” to make work in horror. It’s nonsense, as Capcom itself just proved with the Resident Evil 4 remake.
Resident Evil 4 Remake Is Terrifying, Even If Leon Kennedy Is A Grizzled Series Veteran With An Arsenal That Would Make Wesker Blush
Nakanishi wanted a protagonist who mirrors the player’s experience, with Grace reflecting our terror and dismay at the horrors lurking around every corner. In stark juxtaposition, Leon is a tried-and-true veteran who is less afraid of the monsters under his bed and more fed up with them, like an exhausted parent. Nakanishi argued that “no one wants to see Leon scared at every little thing”, something that would be completely out of character for the 51-year-old federal agent, so they went with a different approach.
Cue Grace, who hasn’t spent years wading through zombie guts while parrying chainsaws, meaning that she will be as surprised as we are when an enemy crosses our path. I understand where Capcom is coming from—it’s a big part of why Resident Evil 7 Biohazard felt so fresh, with Ethan Winters being far less accustomed to the monsters we were up against. But I was plenty scared fighting Ganados without Leon squirming every five seconds.
The opening of RE4 remake alone, where we skulk into the isolated Spanish village and see a shambling crowd raising their pitchforks and burning a police officer as an effigy, is one of the most unnerving moments in the series. It’s a warning pyre to anyone else who would dare come close, but on we march to be swarmed by those same townsfolk as they try to string Leon up alongside his fallen comrade.
Later, we venture into the castle and find the Araña, parasites who look like overgrown facehuggers, latching onto their host and spearing them with their gangly arachnid limbs. They aren’t a major threat, but they encompass a primordial fear that keeps us constantly on edge, even though Leon has more guns than sense.
Being hunted by Regenerators as Leon, crawling along the dark and damp rotten floorboards as we hide from the Garrador, and the spine-chilling body horror of Father Mendez as insect limbs sprout from his inhuman frame, are among some of Resident Evil’s best scares.
He might be cracking jokes about bingo and squaring off against every villain like they’re nothing more than high school bullies, but beneath the bravado of our protagonist, Resident Evil 4 Remake is a masterfully crafted horror that hits all the right beats. The idea that you can’t craft an eerie atmosphere with him at the helm is ridiculous: we’ve just experienced exactly that.
I don’t buy the excuses, and I don’t believe for a second that Requiem is a one-protagonist game. Capcom is desperately trying to pull the wool over our eyes so that Leon’s reveal, the worst-kept secret in the series, remains the big moment it’s clearly meant to be.
Maybe he won’t be as important as Grace to the story, but I can at least see us playing through a few segments of Requiem—like the RPD—as him. I imagine they’ll be just as scary as Grace’s portions, because horror works even if your protagonist is a completely unfazed himbo ready to throw hands with every El Gigante they see. I can’t wait for Requiem to prove that all over again.
