Resident Evil Requiem arrives at a point where Capcom could very easily have played things safe. After a run of successful remakes and two first person entries that pulled the series back toward pure horror, the ninth mainline title might have been content to repeat an established formula. Instead, Requiem reaches higher. It tries to compress almost three decades of design experiments, story arcs, and fan expectations into a single game, and then ship that entire, uncut experience natively on Nintendo Switch 2 at the same time as it hits PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. The result is a project that constantly looks back at everything Resident Evil has been while pushing forward into what it might still become.
At the center of this attempt are two protagonists who could not be more different. Grace Ashcroft is an FBI analyst with no real field experience, pulled into a nightmare that is bound up with her own childhood trauma and the long shadow of the Raccoon City incident. Leon S. Kennedy is the exact opposite: a familiar, battle worn agent who has spent decades doing the kind of dirty work that keeps biohazard outbreaks from consuming the world. Grace is sent to investigate a string of mysterious deaths among survivors of Raccoon City, beginning at the Wrenwood Hotel, the place where her mother was brutally murdered eight years earlier. Leon is chasing the same pattern of killings from another angle, trying to understand why the few people who escaped that original hell are now dying one by one, all while dealing with a serious illness that adds urgency to his mission. The paths of these two characters converge at Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, a long term facility whose sterile corridors, decaying rooms, and unsettling inhabitants form the heart of the game’s first half. From there, the story spirals back toward the ruins of Raccoon City itself, tying together locations, ideas, and unresolved threads from several eras of the franchise.
What sets Requiem apart is not just that it revisits fan favorite places. It structures itself around the contrast between Grace and Leon, and it builds that contrast directly into how you play. Grace’s sections are about fear, scarcity, and careful observation. Leon’s chapters are about assertive motion, crowd control, and managing overwhelming odds. Instead of diluting these tones into some bland middle ground, the game lets each style breathe and trusts the player to move between them. On Nintendo Switch 2, that full structure is preserved. You get the same campaign, the same systems, and the same narrative beats found on the more powerful machines. The only real question is how well the underlying technology has been tuned to fit Nintendo’s hardware, and just how much of the atmosphere and intensity carry over in both docked and handheld modes.
Mechanics and Gameplay
Mechanically, Resident Evil Requiem is very much two experiences woven together. When you control Grace, the game leans fully into survival horror. The camera defaults to first person, your field of view is narrow, and the world becomes a lattice of tight corridors and blind corners. Grace moves cautiously, with small stumbles and audible, uneven breathing when tension spikes. Her starting inventory is so limited that early on you constantly debate what to carry and what to leave behind. A single extra healing item or key tool can mean sacrificing space you might need for ammo or a crucial crafting component. Rhodes Hill itself is built as a modern echo of the classic mansion or police station: multiple floors, locked wings, intricate shortcut networks, and puzzles whose solutions are scattered as documents, symbols, and environmental hints.
The infected blood system defines Grace’s gameplay. Early in her journey she receives a blood collector, a device that lets her siphon blood from puddles, containers, and the corpses of fallen enemies. This blood becomes the raw material for crafting. Mixed with herbs and scrap, it turns into med injectors that restore health, steroids that increase her maximum life, specialized ammo, and, most importantly, hemolytic injectors. These powerful syringes cause enemies to violently rupture from within, tearing flesh and bone apart in a grisly explosion. That spectacle has a precise gameplay purpose: any body destroyed in this way cannot reanimate later as a more dangerous form.
That more dangerous form is the Blister Head, a mutated variant that can evolve from downed zombies or emerge when a mysterious mist sweeps through certain areas. Blister Heads are faster, more aggressive, and more resistant than the shambling infected you meet at the start. Every corpse you leave intact is a gamble that it will not rise again as one of these horrors at the worst possible time. So you face constant tradeoffs. Do you spend scarce blood and scrap now to ensure that a particular foe will never return, or save those resources for healing and ammunition and trust that your future self will be able to handle whatever comes? These decisions give weight to every encounter, because killing an enemy is not simply about surviving the moment, but also about shaping danger further down the line.
All the while, Grace is hunted by an unkillable stalker in Rhodes Hill: a towering, distorted woman whose presence dominates the spaces she enters. She crawls through vents, squeezes into rooms you thought were safe, and can suddenly reach under tables or through openings to grab you if you rely too much on static hiding spots. Her approach is signaled by distorted sounds and heavy steps, but those cues are tense enough that you can never quite relax. When she appears, the careful pace of creeping and planning transforms into a scramble to escape, slamming doors behind you and diving into whatever cover you can find. Requiem is careful not to overuse her, but her unpredictable patrol routes and ability to appear in previously “cleared” spaces keep Grace’s chapters from ever feeling routine.
Combat for Grace is always an option but rarely the obvious one. She can shoot, and with good aim and smart use of crafted tools she can even tear down towering monsters that seem impossibly strong at first encounter. However, every bullet spent is a resource you might desperately need later, and firing a weapon is a noisy act that can draw extra trouble. Many of the most satisfying moments during her sections involve avoiding fights altogether. Certain zombies cling to weird fragments of their former lives and have quirks you can learn. One infected may obsessively turn off every light it finds, reacting sharply to sudden brightness. Another might be nearly blind but highly sensitive to noise. Recognizing these behaviors and manipulating them becomes part of the game. You lure a light sensitive zombie away from a corridor by flicking a switch at the opposite end of a room. You time your footsteps to avoid disturbing a sound sensitive one. These small triumphs feel earned and reinforce the idea that Grace survives by being clever, not just by being armed.
When the game shifts control to Leon, almost everything about how you relate to the world changes. The camera pulls back into a tight, third person over the shoulder view. Your movement speeds up, your turning is more precise, and the game starts throwing groups of enemies at you rather than isolated threats. Leon’s attaché case inventory quickly fills with an arsenal: multiple handguns, hefty shotguns, scoped rifles, submachine guns, explosives, and rare weapons. Managing that grid based case is a small game in itself. Fitting in a new firearm might mean rotating items, stacking ammo more efficiently, or deciding which healing supplies to keep on hand versus which to leave in storage. That familiar Resident Evil inventory friction is present and satisfying, even using the Switch 2’s controllers.
Leon’s combat is built on the strong shooting foundations of the Resident Evil 2 and 4 remakes, but with refinements that make encounters feel even more deliberately shaped. Aiming is snappy, with a tangible sense of recoil and impact on each shot. Shooting at legs to topple enemies, arms to make them drop weapons, or heads to maximize stun opportunities are all valid tactics. His permanent hatchet sits at the center of his kit. It acts as a melee weapon for close range strikes and as a defensive tool that lets you parry certain attacks and escape some grabs. Each parry or heavy strike chips away at its durability, but, crucially, you can always restore it by sharpening the blade in real time. This introduces another layer of choice. Do you risk going in close for a powerful hatchet finisher to save bullets, knowing that a mistimed parry could cost you a healing item, or do you stay back and rely on your guns? In higher difficulties and challenge runs, mastering that timing becomes key to success.
Leon’s progression is tied to a kill based currency system. Every enemy he destroys feeds a counter in a wrist device, and at specialized BSAA terminals scattered across his chapters he can convert those points into upgrades and supplies. These terminals let you purchase new weapons, enhance existing ones, buy limited ammo and armor, and even respec your loadout by selling and buying back guns. The more efficiently you cut through hordes, the more lethal you become, creating a satisfying feedback loop that encourages bold play. Many of Leon’s battles take place in semi open arenas with multiple routes, verticality, and environmental hazards. Being able to choose where to stand your ground and where to fall back, while racking up enough points to unlock a powerful new upgrade at the next terminal, keeps these encounters engaging across the entire campaign.
Perspective options reinforce the mechanical split between the protagonists. The default recommendation is first person for Grace and third person for Leon, and that combination is what most players will likely prefer. First person amplifies the claustrophobia of Rhodes Hill and makes every encounter feel more immediate. Third person gives you the spatial awareness needed to track large groups around Leon. Crucially, you can override those defaults on a per character basis. If you want to try Leon in first person for a more intense shooting experience, or switch Grace to third person to slightly widen your view, you can. On Switch 2, where motion sensitivity and play comfort vary from player to player, this is a welcome flexibility, particularly in handheld sessions. Regardless of which perspective you choose, the underlying mechanics are robust and responsive enough that both halves feel polished and deliberate.
Graphics
From a technical perspective, Resident Evil Requiem is one of the most demanding games to appear natively on a Nintendo platform, and the fact that the entire campaign runs without resorting to cloud streaming is a statement in itself. While the Switch 2 version cannot match the raw resolution and visual complexity of its PlayStation 5 or high end PC counterparts, it preserves the look and feel of the game to a surprising degree, especially considering the hybrid nature of the hardware.
In docked mode, Requiem uses dynamic resolution and reconstruction techniques to present a relatively sharp image on a television. In the confined spaces of Rhodes Hill, the level of detail is high enough that surfaces hold up well even under scrutiny. The tiled floors of hospital corridors show scuffs, stains, and cracks. Peeling paint, exposed pipes, and scattered medical instruments all contribute to a convincing sense of place. Lighting is a star here. Some wards are bathed in a cold, almost greenish clinical light, while others are plunged into darkness with only Grace’s flashlight to carve out islands of visibility. That beam interacts believably with the world, casting shadows that move as you sweep the light around and glinting off reflective surfaces in a way that sells the illusion of a real, three dimensional space.
When the story shifts to the exposed streets and ruined structures of Raccoon City, the visual demands increase. There is more geometry, more long sightlines, and more simultaneous effects. The Switch 2 version scales back some of the most taxing features found on other platforms. Reflections on wet surfaces are simpler, volumetric fog is less dense, and distant details are rendered at lower fidelity. Yet the overall impression remains strong. Rain falls against neon signs and crumbling facades. Burning cars and wreckage throw warm light into the night, contrasting with cold street lamps and ambient gloom. Key landmarks from older games reappear in scarred, broken form, and their recognition hits just as hard in this version as in any other.
Character models on Switch 2 are understandably less detailed than on more powerful hardware, but they still carry a lot of nuance. Grace’s facial animations in particular are a highlight. Subtle shifts in her eyes, mouth, and brow communicate fear, frustration, and determination. As she trudges through filth and blood, her clothing gathers stains and reacts appropriately to moisture, giving a sense that she has physically endured everything you have put her through. Leon’s hair and beard stubble suffer more from resolution limits and anti aliasing, with some noticeable shimmering on a large TV, but his expressions, body language, and combat animations still look excellent in motion. Enemies are distinct and effectively grotesque, with torn clothing, exposed bone, and festering wounds all rendered clearly enough to be unsettling without becoming muddy blurs. The mutated Blister Heads, in particular, retain their unnerving, half transformed appearance even on the smaller handheld screen.
Effects such as fire, explosions, and particle debris are scaled intelligently. They may lack some of the density, secondary sparks, and smoke layers seen on other systems, but they still deliver solid visual impact. When you blow a grenade in the middle of a crowd, bodies and limbs fly convincingly, and the accompanying splash of blood and gore stains nearby surfaces long enough to make you feel the cost of the encounter. In intense sequences where entire rooms or city blocks are engulfed in flames, the engine does show its limits on Switch 2, with some simplification in fire geometry and occasional frame dips, but the atmosphere remains intact.
Handheld mode, with its lowered resolution, smooths out some of the visual roughness that is more apparent on a large TV. On the Switch 2’s built in screen, the slightly softer image still looks cohesive, and the strong art direction continues to shine. Dark scenes benefit from being closer to your eyes, and the combination of the smaller display and high contrast lends Grace’s chapters an almost suffocating intimacy when played in bed or in a dark room. You lose a bit of clarity in distant objects, but you gain a feeling of being right there in the horror with her.
Considering the constraints, the Switch 2 rendition of Resident Evil Requiem is one of the better looking, more atmospheric high end ports currently available on the platform. It makes concessions where necessary, but it also retains enough of the original’s visual sophistication to feel like the same game, not a stripped down cousin.
Sound
Sound design is critical to both horror and action, and Resident Evil Requiem leverages it thoroughly. On Switch 2, the full depth of the audio work is preserved, whether you are listening through a home setup or headphones plugged into the console in handheld mode.
In Grace’s chapters, sound is often your primary source of information. When the music recedes, you are left with the hum and creak of Rhodes Hill. Pipes knock in the walls. Water drips onto tile somewhere just out of sight. Distant metallic impacts hint that something large has moved, or that a piece of the building is failing. Your footsteps and breathing sit just beneath these noises, making you keenly aware of your own presence in the space. When an enemy shuffles nearby, the wet slap of dragging feet or the ragged moan of a half conscious throat announces it before you see it. The stalker’s arrival is preceded by distinctive audio cues: heavy, uneven steps, scraping limbs, and low, distorted vocalizations that make your skin crawl. The directional mix on Switch 2 is good enough to let you distinguish whether these sounds are coming from above, behind, or to your side, which is vital when deciding whether to move or hide.
The musical score is understated during exploration and tension building, favoring ambient textures over hummable melodies. This restraint pays off when you step into a save room and the familiar comfort of a gentler theme fades in. Those safe room tracks are effective emotional anchors, telling you without words that you have reached a pocket of safety in a hostile place. They echo the heritage of earlier games without simply copying old songs.
When you switch to Leon and the game ramps up combat, the audio profile changes appropriately. Music grows louder and more driving, with heavier percussion and stronger motifs that match the increased pace. Gunfire has the necessary punch. Pistols crack, shotguns boom, and rifles snap with clear differentiation. The splatter of bullets connecting with flesh and bone, the pop of a headshot, and the wet crunch of a hatchet finishing move all feel satisfyingly nasty. Explosions are accompanied by deep, bassy thuds that you can feel through the controller in docked mode, and even the portable’s speakers deliver a decent sense of power.
Voice acting holds everything together. Nick Apostolides’ performance as Leon balances sardonic wit with obvious fatigue. You get the sense of a man who has seen these nightmares far too many times, but who still pushes forward because that is what he does. Angela Sant Albano as Grace is arguably the standout, giving her lines a vulnerability and sincerity that make her easy to empathize with. When she panics, when she snaps at someone, or when she steels herself to go through another door, you believe it. Supporting characters, including the main antagonist Victor Gideon and side figures like Emily in Rhodes Hill, are delivered with enough personality to be memorable, even if their screen time is limited.
On Switch 2, everything is mixed cleanly. Dialogue remains intelligible even during chaotic sequences, and important audio cues are rarely lost under the score. Playing with headphones elevates the experience considerably, especially for Grace’s scenes, where the subtle layering of ambient sounds and directional effects adds a lot to the tension. Vibration is used in tandem with sound to sell physical impacts, such as the thump of a train rolling overhead or the patter of rain around Grace as she walks down a busy street in the opening.
Fun
Fun in a horror game often comes from a strange mixture of fear, relief, mastery, and sometimes even dark humor. Resident Evil Requiem manages this mix with impressive consistency, and that remains true on Switch 2.
Grace’s side of the campaign offers a form of enjoyment rooted in tension and problem solving under pressure. Carefully picking your way through Rhodes Hill, learning the behavior patterns of different enemies, and gradually transforming a seemingly impenetrable maze into a navigable space is deeply satisfying. The sense of dread that comes from hearing the stalker in the distance or from realizing that a corpse you ignored earlier has now reanimated as a more aggressive mutation is balanced by the satisfaction of outsmarting those threats. Successfully luring a dangerous infected away with light tricks or noise, sneaking behind it, and then decisively eliminating it with a hemolytic injector feels like you have beaten the system on your terms. Deaths can be frustrating, especially if they come just before a save, but they rarely feel cheap. In most cases you know exactly what you misjudged and can adjust your tactics.
Leon’s chapters provide catharsis and exhilaration. After long periods of creeping around with Grace, suddenly being handed a full arsenal and a crowd of enemies to obliterate is invigorating. The refined shooting, the crunch of hatchet parries, and the way enemies react to being staggered and finished off all contribute to a feeling of control and power. Large set pieces, like high speed chases and dramatic boss fights, are scripted and spectacular without completely taking gameplay out of your hands. They flirt with the kind of over the top spectacle seen in Resident Evil 6, but for the most part they pull back before turning into pure parody. On Switch 2, these sections remain great fun, and the fact that they run natively on a portable without streaming adds an extra thrill.
Pacing is one of Requiem’s biggest strengths. The game is smart about alternating between its two main flavors so that neither outstays its welcome. Just when you are thinking that you need a break from constant dread, the story hands you back to Leon for a stretch of explosive action. And just when you start to feel too comfortable blasting your way through crowds, it drops you back into Grace’s shoes and reminds you what it feels like to be hunted with limited means. This rhythm of tension and release keeps the campaign engaging all the way through.
Replayability enhances that enjoyment further. Completing the game unlocks extra difficulty modes, in game challenges, and reward systems that encourage you to revisit scenarios with different goals. You might aim for a clear time, restrict your use of healing items, or optimize your economy to unlock powerful weapon bonuses. The ability to toggle perspectives per character means even familiar encounters can feel fresh when approached from a different visual angle. On Switch 2, the flexibility of portable play makes dipping into these replays more convenient. You can tackle a chapter or a set of challenges in shorter sessions, turning what might be a single long console run into several satisfying handheld bursts.
Not every player will enjoy every piece equally. Those with low tolerance for chase sequences may find some of Grace’s stalker interactions too intense. Others who prefer horror to stay grounded may find certain late game action scenes with Leon a bit much. The story’s deep ties to older entries may reduce the emotional impact for people new to Resident Evil. Even with those caveats, however, Requiem stands out as one of the most consistently entertaining entries in the series, and the Switch 2 version captures that consistency well.
Performance and Optimization
Performance and optimization are crucial factors for a game of this scope running on a hybrid system, and Resident Evil Requiem’s Switch 2 port is clearly the result of focused work rather than a quick and dirty downscale. It is not flawless, and tech savvy players will notice its limits, but within the context of the hardware it is impressive.
In docked mode, the game targets 60 frames per second, but in practice it often operates in a fluid range that shifts between the low forties and the high fifties depending on the scene. In quieter interior areas, particularly early segments in Rhodes Hill with limited enemy counts and fewer heavy effects, the framerate approaches its target, yielding smooth camera movement and precise aiming. As the on screen chaos ramps up, with multiple dynamic light sources, fire, and large groups of enemies, the framerate drops. These dips are generally gradual rather than abrupt, and frame pacing is handled carefully enough that you do not feel constant lurching or judder. Nonetheless, on a big TV you will see and feel the difference between calmer and more intense sections. There are a handful of specific hotspots where streaming a lot of data or rendering particularly complex scenes causes clear stutters for a second or two, such as transitions involving a zipline or entering certain heavily damaged city areas. Thankfully, these are brief and do not typify the overall experience.
Handheld mode tells a more forgiving story. With the internal resolution reduced and some effects scaled back further, the engine is able to maintain a smoother framerate more consistently. On the Switch 2’s built in screen, the result is a game that feels very responsive in the hands. Aiming, movement, and camera control are all snappy enough that Precision play is comfortable, which is essential for both Grace’s tense escapes and Leon’s crowd control. Visual compromises are more noticeable if you deliberately hunt for them, but the smaller display hides a lot of sins, and the increased stability in motion is a worthwhile trade off. For many players, especially those used to prioritizing feel over pixel counting, handheld play will likely be the preferred way to experience Requiem after the initial “wow” of seeing it on a TV.
In terms of stability, the port holds up well. Load times are short and unobtrusive, often masked behind door opening animations or short transitions between areas. Hard crashes are rare. Over extended sessions, only minor glitches appear, such as a weapon strap occasionally snapping to an odd angle, or a fleeting input oddity in the pause menu that resolves after a quick restart. Autosave points are placed generously enough that even in the unlikely event of a problem, you rarely lose significant progress. Asset streaming is handled smoothly, without the kind of aggressive texture popping or hard hitches that can plague less optimized conversions.
The game’s footprint on storage is also worth noting. Fitting all of Requiem’s content and art into roughly 27 GB on Switch 2 implies effective use of compression and a careful approach to asset reuse. Combined with dynamic resolution scaling and selective pruning of the most expensive visual techniques, this allows the port to preserve atmosphere and gameplay breadth without ballooning into an unwieldy download or sacrificing entire sections of the game.
Taken together, these aspects paint a picture of a port that is not merely passable, but thoughtfully tailored to its platform. While those with access to more powerful hardware will enjoy sharper visuals and a more stable 60 fps experience, Switch 2 owners receive a version that feels fully playable, faithful in tone, and technically robust enough to handle both the horror and action sides of Requiem’s identity.
Conclusion
Resident Evil Requiem on Nintendo Switch 2 is a rare thing: a full scale, current generation survival horror experience that arrives on a Nintendo platform in native form, without being carved up or relegated to the cloud. It brings with it a bold dual structure, pairing Grace Ashcroft’s fragile, meticulously crafted horror with Leon S. Kennedy’s high impact action in a single campaign that rarely loses its footing. Grace’s sections in Rhodes Hill tap directly into what made the earliest games and Resident Evil 7 so compelling, with careful exploration, demanding resource management, and a stalker enemy that genuinely raises your heart rate. Leon’s chapters build on the strengths of the Resident Evil 2 and 4 remakes, offering responsive gunplay, satisfying melee options, and a progression loop that makes tackling larger and larger encounters deeply rewarding.
Narratively, Requiem dives deep into the series’ history. It draws threads from the original trilogy, side stories like Outbreak, the remakes, and the more recent first person entries, and it tries to weave them into something that both honors and reframes what came before. For long time fans, there is a lot to appreciate and dissect: returning locations, recontextualized events, and new revelations about the forces that shaped this universe. For newcomers, the sheer weight of lore may sometimes feel overwhelming, but thanks to the strong character work with Grace and Leon, the core emotional beats remain clear. You might not grasp every reference, but you will understand why these characters fight and what it costs them.
From a Nintendo fan’s perspective, the question is simple: does the Switch 2 version feel like an afterthought or like a legitimate way to play? The answer is firmly in the latter category. Visual concessions and performance variability are undeniable, especially in docked play, but they do not undermine the essential experience. In handheld mode in particular, Requiem feels at home, combining the intimacy of playing horror up close with enough technical muscle to keep everything running smoothly. The full campaign is here, the mechanics are intact, and the atmosphere that defines Resident Evil is present in force.
Requiem is not perfect. Its story leans hard into complicated lore, some of Leon’s late game set pieces flirt with going too far, and the absence of a Mercenaries style side mode at launch is a missed opportunity given how strong the core combat is. Even so, the positives far outweigh the negatives. This is one of the most confident, complete entries in the series in years, and the Switch 2 port is both a technical showcase and a genuinely compelling way to experience it.
If you are a Resident Evil fan who primarily plays on Nintendo hardware, Resident Evil Requiem on Switch 2 is highly recommended. If you are a horror enthusiast looking for a meaty, replayable experience that mixes dread and adrenaline in equal measures, it is absolutely worth your time. And if you are simply curious to see what a modern, big budget survival horror game can look like on a hybrid system without streaming, this is one of the clearest examples to date.
Positive points
- Strong dual campaign structure that delivers tense, resource driven survival horror with Grace and tight, satisfying third person action with Leon
- Excellent level design in Rhodes Hill and Raccoon City, encouraging exploration, route planning, and gradual mastery
- Infected blood and crafting systems that add meaningful, constant risk versus reward decisions to Grace’s sections
- Refined combat for Leon, with a permanent hatchet, responsive gunplay, and a rewarding kill based upgrade economy
- Atmospheric, often impressive visuals on Switch 2 in both docked and handheld modes, considering the hardware’s limitations
- High quality sound design and voice acting that significantly enhance both horror and spectacle
- Consistent pacing with few weak spots and strong replay value through challenges, difficulty options, and perspective toggles
- Complete, native port on Switch 2 with no cuts to campaign content or core mechanics
Negative points
- Story leans heavily on long running lore, which can be confusing for newcomers and divisive for some veterans
- Certain late game action sequences push close to excess compared to the more grounded horror, and may not appeal to everyone
- Variable framerate in docked mode, with noticeable dips in some busy encounters and specific set pieces
- Visible visual compromises in hair, fine textures, and anti aliasing on large TVs
- No dedicated Mercenaries style side mode at launch, despite how well the core mechanics would support it
Evaluation:
Graphics: 8.5
Fun: 9.5
Gameplay: 9.5
Sound: 9.0
Performance and Optimization: 8.5
FINAL SCORE: 9.0 / 10.0
