Raccoon City doesn’t exist in a physical sense. The skyline is torched and its streets lay littered in ash and rubble. Its erasure – in one blinding, annihilating flash – was a decisive, yet ultimately futile, operation. Like a wound refusing to be sewn, the T-virus couldn’t be contained. Instead, Raccoon City’s sterilisation is remembered three decades later as year zero by its survivors. Their lives irrevocably steered down a different path.
This psychological fallout settled in every Resident Evil game that followed. For those figures who escaped, with whom you’ve fought countless undead, the city never met its downfall but simply relocated, resurfacing in folkloric nightmares, steaming swamplands, and hushed moments hunched in dimly-lit corridors, catching breath between lurching zombies and gunfire.
So, if we’re talking Resident Evil Requiem characters, we must start with Raccoon City itself. Yes, it may be wiped off the map, but its shockwave permeated everything after. The wreckage circling its colossal impact crater still burns, and for FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft – Requiem’s new-to-the-series protagonist – this is more than smouldering history, but trauma she’s inherited. Unlike Resident Evil’s legacy bearer Leon, the game’s second playable character, Grace tiptoes through the dark without the armour of experience forged by Leon, Claire, Jill, Chris, and the rest of the series’ surviving characters.
Grace learns to navigate a world built on other people’s nightmares, mostly from her mother Alyssa who returns in Requiem for her most prominent role since 2003’s multi-player spinoff Resident Evil Outbreak. Now, finally, in the series’ ninth mainline entry, you’ll discover the underlying motive behind Alyssa’s assassination. Masterminded by Requiem’s main antagonist Dr. Victor Gideon, the former researcher with ties to Umbrella Corporation, Alyssa’s investigation nearly uncovered his elicit experiments that were pursuing a new virus codenamed “Elpis”. Eight years later, following a string of mysterious deaths, a fresh inquiry falls on Grace’s desk, bringing her into Gideon’s clutches as he reignites his plan to free the new strain.
So, coming up is a closer look at Resident Evil Requiem’s confirmed characters, plus a few who feel almost destined to appear. These won’t just be biographical overviews, but we’ll discuss the emotional weight each of them brings to Resident Evil’s latest instalment.
Grace Ashcroft enters Resident Evil Requiem without the weathered experience that defines so many of the series’ figures. She’s young, yet she grapples with loss; her life shaped by unanswered questions. And, despite never asking for it, she carries her mother’s legacy. Her part of the story – her “requiem” – sees her walking the path haunted by others. For you as a player, her key trait isn’t skill or mastery; she’s vulnerable, and exposed. Altogether competent, but unlike a veteran S.T.A.R.S. operative, she’s bent by Resident Evil’s world, not the other way around. This role reversal is where Requiem restores the tension of the series’ early games, eschewing some of the ballistic bombast of Village.
In gameplay, at times, Grace is spooked by her own shadow. The developer’s intention is for her jitteriness to reflect you, perhaps sharing her terror more than any other Resident Evil character. Requiem’s trailers show that she’ll acquire firearms in the game, but despite being FBI she’s no expert in gun handling. So, bottom line: her tendency to show fear in the Gamescom demo could well be how she reacts to threats throughout the campaign.
Still, even if Grace grows into her role there is someone else you’ll command who is more capable from the outset. Yes, gaming’s worst-kept secret became official when Leon S. Kennedy was announced as Requiem’s second playable protagonist. Once representing youthful resilience, now Leon is a hardened veteran defined by Raccoon City’s obliteration. Where Grace’s trauma, as we alluded to earlier, is inherited, Leon earned his and has carried it ever since. It’s imbued into his being, informing his instinct, confidence, and resolve.
Leon appearing in Requiem isn’t just fan-servicing nostalgia – or simply to mix up gameplay with roundhouse kicks and chainsaws – but he brings the weight of Resident Evil’s past with him. This game is a celebration of the survival horror series’ thirty-year legacy, after all. Leon, in many ways, personifies the characteristics of everyone who made it out of the Raccoon City Incident alive: competence, bravery, and heroism, tinged with reluctance.
Yet, now, on his return to Raccoon City, Leon looks more weary than ever. There are theories circulating that he’s carrying some form of infection; a close look at his neckline potentially reveals some form of wound. This feature’s goal isn’t to speculate on Requiem’s story beats but, in a nutshell, a leading theory is Grace’s blood holds the key to mastering a race of high-functioning zombies. This is why Gideon has been tracking her and, presumably, why Leon is also on the scene, if he is indeed infected. Grace’s blood, potentially, also holds a cure.
Speaking of Gideon, the eldritch figure doesn’t feel like a traditional Resident Evil villain despite sharing his aspirations for dominance with past antagonists. His methods are clinical, biological, and almost transactional. He treats Grace’s trauma as currency and her body as raw material.
What makes him more unsettling is a lack of theatricality. He’s detached from the emotional fallout of Raccoon City’s sterilisation, viewing the initial T-virus outbreak instead, perhaps, as a proof of concept. And in the years since, he’s been refining the model. Tidying Alyssa’s loose ends in the meantime is just another demonstration of his coldness.
And as for Alyssa, it’s unclear how much screen time she’ll receive throughout the game. Her return is shown, presumably, in flashbacks at the Wrenwood Hotel, before Dr Victor ended her life (or, we assume the hooded figure is Gideon). Canonically, we know she was still actively investigating in 2017 owing to the sight of an article she authored in Resident Evil 7. She’s been attempting to uncover the systems that allow monsters to exist ever since her first appearance in RE Outbreak. Whatever her role in Requiem, she’s set to be a narrative force.
Another confirmed character is Nathan Dempsey, the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge and the man who chooses Grace to follow her mother’s steps to investigate a trail of death. There’s a theory that Nathan is nefarious. See, when Grace meets Gideon, he implies to her that he’s orchestrated her arrival – who else could he get help from other than Nathan?
Elsewhere, there’s the return of another character that has evolved beyond mere theory into an inarguable inevitability. Sherry Birkin, RE2’s child survivor last seen in Resident Evil 6 isn’t officially announced, but there are flashes of her likeness in Requiem’s pre-release trailers. It’s established that she works for the same agency as Leon, so it’s likely the woman we hear on comms chatter, supporting in a control room, is none other than Sherry herself. Fact is, it’d make sense that she’s overseeing and assisting Leon’s mission.
If Sherry’s returning, then the obvious question next is what about Claire Redfield? After all, she was instrumental in rescuing Sherry in Resident Evil 2, and together with Leon the trio formed a familial bond in subsequent games. Narratively, there doesn’t seem to be a strong case in bringing Claire back aside from nostalgia, a philosophy the developer seems reluctant to embrace. Instead, the studio is honouring the series’ legacy in meaningful ways, not cheapening the celebration by shoe-horning the return of every major character.
For this reason, it’s unlikely we’ll see the likes of Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield, although according to the the developer has stated we can expect more Raccoon City survivors to crop up in Requiem. So, with Alyssa being a strong focal point, this could point towards returnees from RE Outbreak. Yoko Suzuki makes sense here; after all, canonically she fled Raccoon City alongside Alyssa, and subsequently testified to bring the downfall of Umbrella.
There’s also speculation surfacing over Ada Wong too, the ambiguous spy who has always appeared wherever Leon has. Her character arc was left fairly open at the end of Resident Evil 6, so there’s that. The door is open for her to walk through, however nothing concrete has been announced. Echoing the developer: expect cameos, but don’t overhype yourself.
Also, out of curiosity, my mind always goes back to the official 30th anniversary that showcased Leon, Grace, Ada, along with three other characters: Jill, Claire and Chris Redfield. Is there any hint? Probably not, since that’s just too much firepower for one single game and I don’t think we will ever have a cast like Resident Evil 6 did.
All of Resident Evil Requiem’s confirmed characters and possible returnees, whoever they turn out to be, aren’t just appearing for fan service. They’re appealing to the series’ legend, yes, but it also feels like the story the developer is putting together is to remind us that the Raccoon City Incident was a human catastrophe. Fear didn’t rest in the city’s dust, but spread far and wide – and now, it’s coming home.
