Tokyo Game Show 2025 - Resident Evil Requiem

"Are you OK with scary games?" asked the booth attendant. I puffed out my chest and nodded my head.

One of the bravest gamers out there; Top Ten at least.

The Capcom staff didn't want to spoil anything, but they also wanted to make sure that those of us who were waiting for the PS5 Resident Evil Requiem demo knew exactly what we were getting into. To be fair, I think we all knew. Our familiarity with the series was a given - it was a press/industry day, after all - and we'd spent the last ten minutes lining up alongside a thirty-foot-long digital display playing footage of Grace, Requiem's protagonist, strapped to a gurney and screaming bloody murder.

My ears were still ringing from the screams, and I understood that this would be a significant change of pace from my previous demo, Once Upon a Katamari, where the staff did not ask me if I was OK with scary games.

I wouldn't say the demo was scary - I'm one of the bravest gamers out there - but it was certainly unpleasant (complimentary) and it had me on edge for the full 20 minutes.

The demo opened with an option that caught me by surprise: first or third-person? I'd assumed, given the recent direction of the series, that Requiem would be first-person only, and it hadn't even crossed my mind that I could play it any other way. I opted for first-person, but had I given it a little more thought, I might not have. My expectations of Requiem were all rooted in that perspective, and perhaps the third-person option may have been more enlightening. 

That being said, the confined setting of the demo lent itself to first-person. I was moving Grace from small room to small room via a series of narrow halls. A narrower field of vision, with little to no knowledge of what's behind you, unless you're willing to take your eyes off what's in front, struck me as the correct way to play.

The demo opened with Grace coming to, tied upside-down to a vertically-positioned gurney, with a drip attached to her arm. That's not how anyone wants to wake up! Distressed, bloodied and bruised, she quickly gathered herself and plotted her escape. Smashing a nearby glass container, she used a shard of glass to cut a hand free, rocked the gurney until it collapsed, and then pulled out the needle, which was far longer than it needed to be, from her arm. This all occurred during a cutscene, and set the tone for a pretty rough fifteen minutes for Grace and I.

Everything about the opening room was a little off. The decor, the spacing of objects, but mostly the lighting, which was harsh and white. There was nothing calming about this room, despite it being one of the few well-lit areas in the entire demo. Everything is designed to put you on edge, and it's very effective.

I led Grace into a dimly lit corridor, and what followed was plenty of fumbling in the darkness. The first door I tried went into a kitchen area, but it was far too dark to make out much of anything besides a work surface and a sink, and there were some scurrying noises in the background that put me off exploring further. Heading back to the hallway, I moved between areas of light as quickly as possible. There were white lights, red lights, no-lights, and unsettling shadows cast against walls, walls which felt like they were constantly encroaching on my space. At the end of the hall, I found the elevator but, surprise surprise, it wouldn't power up. I needed a fuse.

After a bit of cautious backtracking, I located one, but I needed a screwdriver to pry it from its casing, which I did not have. Now in possession of a lighter and some other less useful junk (bullets for a gun I didn't have; a glass bottle for throwing) I headed back to the room with the sink. Emboldened by my ability to generate a small amount of light, and possibly set someone on fire if they stood still long enough, I pushed further into the room

Insufficient lighting would soon be the least of my worries. 

At the back of the room, I found a new door, which I opened. Behind it was a corpse, which tumbled onto me. Having recovered from the initial shock, Grace checked for a pulse, even though the man looked like he'd been dead for a week. "He's dead" she confidently exclaimed - this was the only laugh I had all demo. What followed was far less funny.

An impossibly large hand emerged from the darkness and grabbed the confirmed-dead corpse. An arm soon followed, and within a few seconds I was staring at a troll-like nightmare bitch (my phrasing, not Capcom's) which effortlessly picked up the dead guy and chomped on his head. There was a pause, after which its attention turned to me, cowering in the darkness. I got a lovely close up of its big yellow teeth, soon to be chomping down on me, before I scurried out the door. The beast gave chase.

I instinctively headed for the room from the opening of the demo, which was a straight shot down the hall. I wanted to run, but the best Grace could manage was a plod, like her legs were giving way. Every step felt strained, movement with no fluidity, and I didn't like my chances of reaching the safety of the starting room, and wasn't even confident that it would offer protection from my pursuer.

Making it inside, I swung around just in time to see the creature ducking under the lintel, making a tentative step through the door. I've fucked it, I thought, but fortunately not. The white light burnt its skin, it hissed, and suddenly became more nimble, scurrying up to the hall ceiling and out of sight.

Everything about the creature was disorienting. At times it appeared massive, slow and labouring, yet at others it seemed more athletic and perhaps smaller in size. I couldn't grasp what I was dealing with and what my best options were, should I meet it again. Could I outrun it? Was it too big to be hiding in the shadows just over there? If it stood still long enough, could I set it on fire with my lighter?

I spent the rest of the demo continuing my search for a screwdriver, which I never found. I crept through the hallway, checking every door, while listening to Grace's panicked breathing. I also had a second run-in with the big lass with the yellow gnashers, which went poorly. She was good enough to just bite my shoulder the first time she got her hands on me, but on the second go she consumed my head. Dead.

Resident Evil Requiem will launch February 27th, 2026. Only those of you who are OK with scary games need apply.