Resident Evil Requiem has finally arrived, and if you've been living under a rock for the past few years or just haven't touched the franchise yet, you're probably curious about how much homework you'll have to do before diving into the latest installment. It's a fair question. With the series boasting over 30 games across three decades, the thought of having to catch up before diving in is a daunting one.
The good news is you don't have to play all of them. Capcom has confirmed the game to be a standalone experience with its own onboarding process for new players. However, if you want to get the most out of the story payoffs, character cameos, and the overall emotional depth behind what's actually going on in Raccoon City, a few specific games are going to take your experience with Resident Evil Requiem from good to unforgettable.
Here are the games you'll want to play, and the order you'll want to play them in:
1. Resident Evil 2 Remake (1998 / Remake 2019)
Resident Evil 2 Remake is perhaps the most important game you should play before Requiem. That’s because Requiem is set in Raccoon City once more, and Resident Evil 2 is where the story of Raccoon City begins.
This is where Leon S. Kennedy, the deuteragonist of Requiem, starts his first day as a rookie cop who stumbles into a zombie apocalypse that will define his entire career. It is where Raccoon City is first established as a setting in a way that gives full emotional weight to what it means to walk through its ruins in Requiem. The remake is specifically recommended because Requiem directly references content exclusive to it.
2. Resident Evil 3 Remake (1999 / Remake 2020)
Resident Evil 3 is set almost simultaneously with RE2 and stars Jill Valentine as she navigates the final hours in Raccoon City before the government decides to wipe it off the face of the earth. It's not essential if you want to understand Leon or Grace's storyline in Requiem, but it rounds off the Raccoon City experience as a setting. What it was like, what was lost, and why its destruction hits so hard when you visit the place in Requiem.
It's also a very short game. It only takes six to eight hours to complete, so you can easily play it immediately after RE2 without losing any momentum.
3. Resident Evil Outbreak (PS2, 2003)
Now things start to get a little tricky. Resident Evil Outbreak features a character by the name of Alyssa Ashcroft, a journalist who exposed the Umbrella Corporation's biological warfare projects and who directly relates to the new protagonist of Resident Evil Requiem, Grace Ashcroft, her daughter. Learning about Alyssa's background can add a great deal of depth to Grace's character in Requiem, and it's information well worth acquiring.
The trouble with acquiring this information, however, is that Outbreak is a PS2-era multiplayer game with no re-release for modern platforms. For those who want to learn about Alyssa's background, the recommendation is to simply watch a summary of the game's events on YouTube. Don't let the unavailability of the game stop you from getting the information.
4. Resident Evil 4 Remake (2005 / Remake 2023)
Resident Evil 4 is not necessarily required reading to understand the plot of Requiem, but it is very relevant to understanding Leon himself. It is the game that defines him as a confident, wisecracking government agent and one of gaming's most beloved protagonists. It also happens to be the game that introduced the over-the-shoulder third-person action design that directly influenced Leon's sections in Requiem, a fact confirmed by Capcom director Koshi Nakanishi himself.
The 2023 remake is the definitive way to play it, and it also happens to be one of the best games of that year.
5. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017)
Resident Evil 7 has very little to do with the actual plot of Requiem, but it is the best preparation you can get before diving into Grace's sections of the game. It is the scariest game in the entire series, a first-person horror game built entirely around fear, survival, and the sensation of being hunted in a confined space.
Playing RE7 before Requiem means you will already understand the flow of that style before you are thrust into it with Grace. When to push forward, when to cut your losses and run, when to conserve that last shotgun shell. All of that is a lot harder to learn under stress than knowing it already.
Where to Get Resident Evil Requiem
Once you've gone through the back catalog, picking up your copy of Resident Evil Requiem PC is the last step before heading back to Raccoon City. If you want to pick up any of the other games while you're at it, the platforms such as LootBar Game Key have a vast back catalog to peruse.
The franchise has never been in a better place, and Requiem is a great place to start. The road to getting there is half the fun.
