Rumors have pointed toResident Evil 9being an end to the series' arc so far. Trusted leaker Dusk Golemhas saidthat “RE9 is going to be a ‘Conclusion’ game, but also a game of ‘New Beginnings.’ [with] major status quo changes within the universe; it’s being treated as the ‘End’ of the story that started with RE1 (or REO timeline-wise), opening the series up for different kinds of horror stories.”
That knowledge made the game’s appearance atSummer Game Festa little jarring, at least at first. Titled Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth mainline entry’s debut trailer didn’t feature a single familiar face, and instead introduced us to a new protagonist. So much for conclusions, I guess? Well, not quite, but more on that in a minute.
Capcom Took Its Time
For most of the livestream, it looked like Resident Evil 9 would be a no-show. Like MacGruber periodically popping up throughout an episode of Saturday Night Live,Resident Evilmade increasingly consequential appearances before the final reveal.
First, Lady Dimitrescu herself, voice actor Maggie Robertson, showed up to announce that a bunch of Resident Evil games were on sale. The spot had weirdly high production value for such an insignificant announcement, so this seemed like a strange choice. A while later, Robertson returned, this time with series executive producer Jun Takeuchi, who said that the game would be ready in “just a blink of an eye more.” It seemed like that would be it, but the show closed out with an actual trailer.
The trailer itself took a similarly circuitous route to what we all wanted to see. It doesn’t feature any of the characters we’ve known and loved over the series' three decades. Leon, Chris, Claire, and Jill were nowhere to be found, and neither were recurring characters like Ada Wong or Albert Wesker. For most of its three-and-a-half minute runtime, we are with an unfamiliar character in a nondescript FBI office.
Ethan, the star ofResident Evil 7andVillage, isn’t showing up for obvious reasons, but I doubt anyone is too sad about that.
A New Character With A Familiar Name
Our entry point for this story is a new character with a familiar last name — assuming you played Resident Evil Outbreak back on the PS2, a big assumption considering it’s 22 years old and received mixed reviews. Grace Ashcroft is the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft, an investigative reporter who escaped the nuclear destruction of Raccoon City. Grace is an interesting point person for this mission given that she’s never been featured in a Resident Evil game before. So far, only new beginnings, no conclusions.
I kinda expected that we might play as the child of a previous RE protagonist in this game, but the one I had in mind was Rose, Ethan’s daughter. Village ended with her, and she went on to star in the DLC.
The trailer is a return, though it takes until the final moments to show the extent to which it’s revisiting the past. In those last shots, we see the bombed out ruins of Raccoon City and the still-standing wreckage of the police station. Outbreak showed the destruction of Raccoon City in the government’s attempt to contain the virus. The game is making Outbreak important, it seems, as a way to return to the place where Leon’s story began, one last time.
The fact that we’ll be doing it as a brand new character is an interesting wrinkle. Will Grace play a Ms. Marvel-esque role in an Endgame-style reunion of RE titans? Or will the rumors turn out to have missed the mark, with a greater emphasis on the new beginning, and less focus on putting Leon’s story to bed? We’ll have to wait and see, and our first look raised as many questions as it answered.
