Grace Ashcroft is scared of her own shadow. I've been playing Resident Evil games for 25 years, and it's clear that Resident Evil Requiem has the most vulnerable protagonist in the series' history. In my hands-on playtest of this upcoming horror game, it wasn't the monstrous creature stalking me through a series of claustrophobic corridors, each bathed in a sort of desperate eternal darkness, that provided the biggest jump scare. No, it was the way Grace violently shuddered after opening up a cupboard. It used to be zombie dogs crashing through windows in the east wing of the Spencer Mansion that got my heart racing, now it's a bedpan tumbling to the floor.
What's so fascinating about Resident Evil 9 is that this jump scare is entirely avoidable – not because of an action you may or may not choose to perform, but due to the perspective of the camera. Requiem lets you freely switch between first and third-person playstyles, a decision which lets Capcom capture both the sheer terror of Resident Evil Biohazard and Resident Evil Village as well as the slick tension presented through its remakes of Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4. To achieve this, the studio has had to make some key changes in what you see and experience.
