Last month, Resident Evil Requiem finally arrived, and it was everything fans hoped for. With its near-perfect balance of survival horror and action, and a narrative split between veteran Leon S. Kennedy and newcomer Grace Ashcroft, the game has already established itself as a strong Game of the Year contender. But newly leaked concept footage reveals that things could have gone very, very differently.
The Leak: A Glimpse of What Almost Was
The footage, shared by Twitter account REBiohazardNews, shows what appears to be very early concept development of Resident Evil Requiem as a co-op multiplayer game. The gunplay is fast, frantic, and action-oriented—everything the series should not be. It resembles a generic third-person shooter rather than the tense, atmospheric survival horror we ultimately received.
As the clip shows, the tone is completely wrong. The horror is absent, replaced by the kind of chaotic, cover-based shooting that plagued the franchise’s darkest era. Watching it, one thing is immediately clear: we dodged a bullet.
A Troubled History with Multiplayer
Capcom’s consideration of a co-op direction isn’t surprising when viewed through the lens of history. The publisher has repeatedly attempted to force multiplayer into Resident Evil, with almost universally poor results.
- The Resident Evil: Outbreak games on PS2 were cult classics ahead of their time, but commercially they flopped.
- Resident Evil: Resistance, the asymmetrical multiplayer bundled with the RE3 Remake, was widely ignored.
- RE:Verse, the third-person shooter packaged with Resident Evil Village, was dead on arrival.
Even the mainline entries that leaned into co-op—Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6—sacrificed horror for action, diluting the franchise’s identity. The few successes, like the Revelations raid modes, were supplementary, not core.
The Right Call at the Right Time
Since Resident Evil 7: Biohazard revived the series in 2017, Capcom has wisely focused on single-player survival horror. Each subsequent release has refined this formula, earning critical and commercial success. To suddenly pivot Requiem to a co-op action game would have betrayed everything the franchise has rebuilt.
In an era where live-service multiplayer games like Concord and Highguard are crashing and burning spectacularly, Capcom’s decision to stick to its guns feels prescient. The risk was enormous; the potential reward, minimal.
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What We Got Instead
Instead of a forgettable co-op shooter, we got a 10/10 survival horror experience. We got Leon’s definitive arc and Grace’s terrifying introduction. We got the tension, the atmosphere, and the carefully crafted scares that define Resident Evil at its best.
Thankfully, this concept footage remains just that—a concept. Resident Evil Requiem is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2. And it’s a masterpiece.