Capcom Experimented With Open-World and Online Resident Evil: Requiem Ideas, Before Going 'Back to the Drawing Board'

Capcom has confirmed it experimented with plans to marque Resident Evil: Requiem an open-world game, and for it diagnostic online elements, earlier it yet changed course.

In a revealing developer diary video, Requiem manager Koshi Nakanishi introduced a little look astatine this now-cancelled, earlier mentation of the game, wherever aggregate protagonists tin beryllium seen successful action-heavy gunplay.

Ultimately, however, Capcom ditched these ideas to absorption backmost connected the Resident Evil franchise's fearfulness roots, its developers said. When it arrives adjacent year, Requiem volition beryllium a single-player game, and offline only.

"We've managed to battalion a batch into this game. We were adjacent exploring galore antithetic systems aboriginal successful development," shaper Masachika Kawata noted.

"You mightiness person heard immoderate of the rumors," Nakanishi continued. "Things similar an online Resident Evil, oregon an open-world Resident Evil, which we spent immoderate clip experimenting with.

"But successful the end, though we had immoderate absorbing concepts, we realized that it wasn't what fans wanted to spot oregon play. So we went backmost to the drafting board, and created what led to Resident Evil: Requiem."

You tin spot a fewer little shots of the cancelled online mentation of Requiem below:

The cancelled Resident Evil 9 task pic.twitter.com/Vu7z2tlppQ

Discussing Requiem's setting, creation manager Tomonori Takano noted that Capcom had made the deliberate prime to spot the game's enactment successful municipality environments, successful bid to differentiate it from different caller games.

Resident Evil 7, Resident Evil Village and the caller Resident Evil 4 Remake are each acceptable extracurricular large colonisation centers, whereas Requiem volition spot the instrumentality of Raccoon City.

"Previous titles were often acceptable successful agrarian areas with tons of nature," Takano noted. "This clip it is much focused connected the municipality environment. And determination are galore scenarios that are acceptable arsenic a modern drama, including Raccoon City."

While we present cognize the mounting and single-player absorption of Requiem for certain, Capcom remains much coy implicit whether floppy-haired fan-favorite Leon S. Kennedy is besides playable successful the game, alongside its currently-announced protagonist, FBI cause Grace Ashcroft.

Yesterday's Capcom Spotlight 2025 broadcast included comments from Nakanishi that stated Leon would beryllium a "bad lucifer for horror" — though the manager stopped abbreviated of confirming the quality would not beryllium contiguous astatine all. Fans fishy Capcom is inactive to showcase Requiem's much action-heavy moments — for which Leon would beryllium amended suited.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social