Well, this sure is a surprise, isn’t it? Resident Evil 9, AKA Resident Evil Requiem, has, at long last, been announced. Thankfully, it was done without any credible leaks or horrible hacks to spoil what turned out to be an amazing (if perhaps anxiety-inducing) reveal. I’ve spent the last few days watching the trailer over and over, both to drink in what an exciting time it is, but also to comb through it in order to find every hidden detail and juicy reference contained within.
This editorial has a video version, but if you’d prefer to stick around here on good ‘ol Rely, the written version is below.
Our first real tease, outside of the reveal of Grace’s last name (Ashcroft) by ‘Special Agent In Charge’ Nathan Dempsy, is the report Grace is writing at her desk. With photos of a corpse laid out in the woods, and investigators in what appear to be hazmat suits, the report details a “Fourth Victim of Unidentified Disease.”
Her summary says the following before she’s interrupted by Dempsy: “A deceased individual was discovered at an abandoned government office. Preliminary analysis suggests the deceased may be linked to.” This report is strikingly similar to the opening of the original Resident Evil (1996 and 2002), which features Chris Redfield explaining the details of the ‘Cannibal Killings’ that had been plaguing Raccoon City and the surrounding area in 1998.
There are scant details given to us about the case Grace is assigned to. We mostly get the location of the crime scene: the Remwood Hotel. This location is new to us, but not new to her, as we’re hit with a slew of viscous-looking flashbacks. Dempsy notes that this is where her mother, revealed to be Alyssa Ashcroft, was murdered. If you’re new to the series, you’re forgiven for having no idea who that is, as the games she stars in (Resident Evil: Outbreak and Outbreak File #2) remain quarantined on the PlayStation 2.
Alyssa is (was?) a brave and steadfast reporter, writing for News Comet (the same outlet January Van Sant wrote for in Resident Evil: Resistance). Alyssa was one of the few survivors of the Raccoon City incident, and to date, is the only playable character from the Outbreak games confirmed to have survived (as the number of survivors that make it out of the city is player-determined).
It’s interesting that Alyssa has been brought back, albeit off-camera, given that she actually had a very small shout-out in the series somewhat recently. While exploring the Baker mansion in Resident Evil 7, you can find an article penned by her in the main hall regarding the disappearances in Dulvey, Louisiana.
It’s an easy Easter egg to miss, especially if you’re not familiar with her, but it’s very possible that this was intended not as an Easter egg, but as an early set-up to put her name in the minds of players for the eventual tie to Resident Evil: Requiem and to Grace. It’d be quite wild to imagine RE setting up something so far in advance, but then again, Blue Umbrella was foreshadowed all the way back in Resident Evil 4, so anything’s possible.
We’re then led into a montage of the dilapidated remains of the inside of the Renwood Hotel. We see Alyssa (still sporting a red jacket) and a mysterious man in a hood who appears to have something… dribbling from his mouth. These images are framed by what appears to be Grace recalling them, suggesting she may have been there, but it could just be the result of fancy editing for the trailer.
Among these shots is what appears to be the POV of a character on an operating table, looking up at scientists or surgeons. I could be reaching here, but I wanted to take note of it anyway. Could this be a hint that Alyssa wasn’t murdered, but instead experimented on?
We’ve already had an instance of a character being killed off-screen, only to resurface under someone else’s control, so this sort of callback (especially in a game hailed as the series’ big 30th anniversary event) isn’t out of the question.
Next, we catch up with Grace some time later, strapped upside down to an operating table, confused and frightened. I didn’t catch it at first, but the recent Summer Games Fest preview revealed that she’s hooked up to an IV, which is draining her blood into a jar. You can actually catch a glimpse of it for a few frames as the camera tilts to reveal her full predicament.
We’re then treated to a short montage of environments, presumably from RE9‘s story, showcasing some truly stunning visuals, topping even the best of Capcom’s recent output. It’s very possible that RE9 is in fact a secret launch of Capcom’s new game engine, REX, which was first announced in 2023, but has yet to be mentioned again since.
In case you’re unaware, “REX” is short for RE neXt Engine, which is an enhanced version of the original REach for the Moon Engine. The RE Engine has powered nearly every Capcom title since its debut with the reboot in 2017. Even ports and remasters, which have led Capcom to feel that the RE Engine is beginning to limit the scope of what they’re able to create, have utilized it.
It’s undoubtedly a gorgeous engine, as recently demonstrated by titles like Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Monster Hunter: Wilds, but it’s understandable that a game originally designed for an entire console generation ago might need a fresh coat of paint. If RE9 truly is running on REX Engine, that could be why this will be the series’ first current-gen exclusive, with only Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC listed in the reveal trailer. Every Resident Evil released this console generation (Village, RE:Verse, and REmake 4) also had companions on last-gen consoles. They ran fine, but RE4 in particular was clearly cutting a lot of corners to run on older hardware.
Back to the reveal: we get another look at seemingly our main baddy for RE9. Unnamed, he mutters about how Grace may be “the one [he’s] been searching for. A special one. The chosen one.” What this could mean is anyone’s guess right now, so I’ll focus instead on the guy in the chair himself.
Resident Evil is no stranger to totally resetting the threat between each game, with entirely new villains replacing old ones off-camera (such as The Connections in RE7, who were immediately dropped in favor of Mother Miranda in Village). Therefore, it’s probably the right call to assume the same is happening here. That said, I think there’s also a chance that we could be getting the best of both worlds — it’s not impossible to introduce a new villain without them also being one of the oldest threats in the series.
Waaaaay back in 2009, we got Resident Evil 5, which is still one of the best-selling games in the series. In that installment, we learned of the true origins of one of the franchise’s lead antagonists: Albert Wesker, particularly his secret history as something of a science experiment conducted by Umbrella founder Oswell E. Spencer.
Albert, along with 12 other children, was part of a terrifying eugenicist plan to force human evolution, which would in turn wipe out anyone deemed unworthy — which left 11 of the other ‘Wesker children’ dead and Albert as the only one to bond with the virus and “evolve.” One crucial aspect of this experiment was its chief researcher, a scientist named Wesker, after whom all of the Wesker children were named.
This Wesker has only ever been mentioned once in the series – in an unlockable document in RE5 – and never again. There’s so little information on them, in fact, that this scientist (we don’t even know their gender) doesn’t even have their own page on the RE Wikia, which has pages for damn near everyone. I could be basing this on nothing, but there are two crucial tells in the Requiem trailer that I think are pointing to this man’s ties to Wesker, if not being the researcher himself.
The first is his coat, mimicking the shimmering checkerboard pattern of Albert Wesker’s outfit in RE5. Again, maybe a reach, but creating a visual throughline between these two elements is a series staple. Characters throughout the Resident Evil games typically wear color-coded costumes to give them unique and instantly recognizable looks, no matter their redesigns.
Chris and Rebecca are coded green, Jill and Sherry are coded blue, and Albert and his son Jake are coded black. Coding Wesker’s ‘father’ (so to speak) in a similar garb to the outfit Wesker died in wouldn’t be unusual for the series. Of course, there are the theories – and, objectively, evidence – that Albert is still kicking around somehow, but let’s cast those out of our minds for the moment, especially since this character’s voice most definitely isn’t Albert’s (there’s one other clue, but we’ll get to that at the end).
Next, the big reveal and the one that made the audience go wild in the Summer Games Fest theater. After 27 years, we’re back — Raccoon City, or what’s left of it anyway. Despite having “just been here” thanks to the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes, in-lore it’s been nearly 30 years, the city remaining in lockdown behind layers of military security.
A no-man’s land where nothing grows and nobody goes in or out… save for a secret research station witnessed at the end of Outbreak. Our first reveal of the city’s corpse is of the blast zone itself, which is a stark contrast from previous versions of these ruins. Rather than leaving the city as nothing but a wasteland of impact craters and rubble, Raccoon is instead depicted as an objectively more realistic bombed city. The impact crater (and that is singular; the multi-missile strikes seen in Outbreak and The Umbrella Chronicles seemingly de-canonized to better fit with the ending of REmake 3) has only destroyed a corner of the city, rather than totally obliterating it.
This allows for huge chunks of the city to have more or less survived, such as the beloved Racoon City Police Department, which was previously shown getting completely blown apart in the original Resident Evil 3: Nemesis back in 1999. The R.P.D. isn’t unscathed, of course; the damage is immense — but it’s clearly still explorable.
This version of the R.P.D. is based on the most recent update seen in the REmake series, rather than the classic look older fans know from the original RE2/3, Outbreak File #2, the Chronicles games, etc. While it does feel a little awkward to me, it lets some stronger links to Leon, Claire, Jill, and Carlos’ time in the building bleed through. The building has, after all, remained totally untouched during the 27 years since the last human (that we know of) left the building: HUNK.
Visible in the main establishing shot of the Front Hall, we can immediately see the panel Leon cuts open next to the shutter gate, the typewriter we so diligently used for saving, and even the laptop that multiple characters used across those two games. The laptop is, however, the odd one out. In both 1st scenarios of REmake 2, we see Marvin has carried the computer over to his couch, behind the check-in desk. Now, it’s back and, as a matter of fact, it’s slightly to the right of where Leon, Claire, and Tyrell (the UBCS guy with the glasses) used it.
Perhaps someone we never met re-entered the building between the 29th and the 1st, bringing it to the desk and working on it. This would explain why it’s moved slightly on the desk (as opposed to just being reset to where it’d been to start with). However, it could just be a goof, or the developers skootched it over to give more room for something else, or any number of things. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve revisited a location only to discover weird incongruities, including REmake 2/3 themselves.
Along with the interior, we also see clear shots of the main gate, so well known (and perhaps one of the least altered in the REmake series) across so many different revists from games to films. This, too, shows how little things have changed, with vehicles that were parked outside of it in 1998 still visible beneath the debris. Again, untouched for 27 years.
I’m fascinated to know why exactly we’re revisiting this long-since-abandoned location. The series has resisted it for so long (the films went back, but… eh). Perhaps it has something to do with that lone research station I mentioned before, scientists pillaging leftover horrors from so long ago to create newer test-tube freaks? Perhaps a new NEST has been constructed beneath the city, or maybe something has survived, roaming these streets, unknown to anyone. Time will tell.
We get a couple of quick shots, a man coughing up blood on the floor while crying “stay away from her,” the same hooded man from before smothering someone in a suit with a plastic bag or sheet, a police officer seemingly being zombified on the spot, and a woman walking past what appears to be a makeshift triage. But you know what the real stand-out here is? A creature, long-haired and massive, descends from a hole in the ceiling of an ornate hallway, one gargantuan hand bracing against the floorboards, and a shackle clattering alongside it.
This new horror was the freakish focus of a behind-closed-doors demo that was just revealed, and is being described as a new stalker enemy, ala Mr. X or Lady Dimitrescu. Fans immediately latched on to the shackles and vaguely feminine look to the thing, and have considered that this could be one of RE‘s most beloved and pitied creatures: the tragic and mournful Lisa Trevor.
Daughter of world-famous architect George Trevor (who designed the Spencer Mansion, Zenobia sister ships, and more), Lisa was a mere child when she and her family were kidnapped in the 1970s, and horribly experimented on for decades. Her body, merging with a variety of viruses, mutated out of control, showcasing tell-tale signs of the horrors we discover across the original trilogy, from the G-Virus’ bloated eye to the Nemesis’ parasyte tentacles.
Because of this, Lisa became virtually impervious to all forms of damage (simply regenerating after a few seconds, no matter what you throw at her), and couldn’t be killed in her first appearance. She was last seen by Chris and Jill leaping off into the darkness after finally finding the remains of her long-lost mother. Lisa didn’t disappear forever, though, as she soon tracked down Albert Wesker as he attempted to flee the mansion when the self-destruct countdown entered its final few minutes and the other S.T.A.R.S. members battled it out with the Tyrant on the Mansion’s helipad.
While Wesker still wasn’t able to kill her, he managed to pin her beneath the chandelier in the main hall before escaping outside, commanding: “Be a good girl and stay dead this time.” Despite this, we still didn’t see her immolated by the mansion’s detonation, and even if we had, how can we be sure an explosion would truly be enough to end her suffering? Could she have survived, recaptured by Umbrella or the government or whoever and been experimented on further, mutating even more, until she turned into this thing?
While I do think a strong argument could be made for this new creature merely being a “spiritual successor” to Lisa, ala Resident Evil 6‘s Ustanak and Ubistvo (inspired by Nemesis and Dr. Salvador), another clue that it really could be her lies in a brief preview Capcom released before ending the embargo on the behind-closed-doors demo. The clip is very brief, but in it, we can see a crowd of lucky journalists and creators being treated to footage of the gameplay preview, which featured this massive monster. In it, you can hear the creature’s shrieks and roars, which do indeed sound like Lisa’s.
Sure, it could still just be intended as a call-back, but like… damn. It’s also worth throwing out there at this point that the game’s director, Kōshi Nakanishi, recently claimed in a special BioHazard Ambassador video that RE9 will be “deeply connected to the main storyline of the [Resident Evil] series”.
Finally, as the video wraps up, we get one last glimpse of the beast before the title drops: Resident Evil 9: Requiem. A great reveal, and a great logo, with the flickering Q and 9 managing to surprise those of us who had been frantically trying to figure out how Capcom would fit IX into a word for the title. Foolish us!
However, our last little tease comes right along with this reveal, as a familiar musical sting drops three chilling notes. Remember when I said there was one other clue as to Wesker’s possible involvement? While it might be innocuous, diehard Resident Evil fans might have linked this brief snippet to another piece of music from the series — Live Evil, from 2007’s The Umbrella Chronicles. This track, a remix of a small section of Wreckage of the Mad Experiment from Resident Evil 1.5 and 2, served as the theme for Albert’s first chapter – Beginnings – which showed his movements between Resident Evil 0 and RE1.
Between its connection to Wesker, the NEST Umbrella lab, and the dual title of Beginnings (the level) and Live Evil (the track), this feels like a strong and deliberate tease for a payoff to one of Umbrella’s final and most mysterious legacies. What could it mean? Why would Wesker be involved in all of this? Where has he been? Only time will tell, and for now, we can only wait and see.
Resident Evil: Requiem releases February 27, 2026, so stick around for more news, theories, and updates here at Rely on Horror. Also, consider subscribing to our YouTube channel for video breakdowns and more!
