Resident Evil Requiem is not new this week, but it is still the most useful review read on the 2026 board if you care about critic consensus. The obvious headline is the number: OpenCritic lists Capcom's sequel at an 89 Top Critic Average, with 95 percent of critics recommending it across 221 tracked reviews. That is the sort of score most horror games never touch.
The more interesting part is the shape of the praise. Resident Evil Requiem is being reviewed less like a clean sequel and more like a stress test for the whole series. Critics are asking whether Capcom can put its oldest haunted-house instincts, its modern first-person dread, and its Leon-led action spectacle into one game without snapping the thing in half.
Most think it works. A few think it works with a visible seam down the middle. That seam is the reason the reviews are worth reading rather than just glancing at.
Resident Evil Requiem review scores at a glance
Resident Evil Requiem launched on February 27, 2026 for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2. Capcom developed and published it, and the reviewed versions point to a mainline entry built around two leads: new FBI agent Grace Ashcroft and returning series icon Leon S. Kennedy.
OpenCritic's headline numbers are strong: 89 Top Critic Average, 95 percent recommended, 221 reviews counted, and a median score of 90. The named reviews on OpenCritic's landing page run from TheGamer at 4/5 to Eurogamer's full 5/5, with IGN at 9/10, PC Gamer at 92/100, GamesRadar+ at 4.5/5, Game Informer at 9.75/10, Giant Bomb at 4.5/5, and Hardcore Gamer at 4.5/5.
That is not a polarized score spread in the usual sense. Nobody in the sampled reviews is calling Requiem a failure. The argument is narrower and more useful: is the game strongest when it is terrifying, or when it lets Leon turn the nightmare into an action movie?
What critics agree on: Grace is the scare machine
The clearest consensus is around Grace Ashcroft. Reviewers keep describing her sections as the part where Resident Evil Requiem feels genuinely dangerous.
IGN's Tristan Ogilvie says the opening hours contain "some of the most frightening encounters" he has experienced in the series, then frames Grace's hospital escape as a slow, underpowered crawl through Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center. In IGN's telling, the details are doing the work: scarce ammo, tight inventory space, stalker-like enemies, and a first-person perspective that makes every gunshot feel heavier than it would in Leon's hands.
Eurogamer's Matt Wales goes even harder, calling Requiem's sustained horror stretch "arguably the most terrifying the series has ever been." That review praises the way Capcom humanizes its monsters. Zombies do not just shuffle and groan. They flick light switches, mutter, sing, clean filthy bathrooms, and get trapped in broken habits from their former lives. It is a small touch, but it makes the house feel crueler. You are not just avoiding enemies. You are moving through a place where people are still stuck inside the infection.
PC Gamer's Elie Gould lands in the same place from a systems angle. The review argues that Grace works because she has to manage risk rather than dominate it: limited bullets, herbs, makeshift tools, and puzzle routes through a hospital that slowly becomes familiar in the worst possible way. PC Gamer's verdict is blunt and warm at the same time: Requiem wraps the best parts of previous Resident Evil games into one, with "very few moments" that left the reviewer wanting more.
That is the heart of the positive consensus. Grace's chapters make Resident Evil feel vulnerable again. They slow the player down. They make route knowledge matter. They also give Capcom room to build puzzles, panic, and grotesque little observations into the same corridor.
Where Leon changes the temperature
Leon is where the reviews get more complicated, and honestly, more fun.
IGN describes his sections as the sound of silence being shattered by "ferocious ultraviolence." Eurogamer calls him the ultimate action hero, a character built for roundhouse kicks, absurd weapons, and old-school Resident Evil excess. GamesRadar+ writes that Leon has never been more of an "aggressively cool, professional badass," with hatchet kills, finishers, and a broader sense of improvisation around the environment.
The praise is not just fan service. Critics seem to agree that Leon's combat has weight. PC Gamer says his sections make the player feel cool without turning loose or sloppy, and specifically praises the responsiveness of the controls. IGN likes the boss fights and the shift toward bigger, bloodier set pieces. GamesRadar+ points to his economy of weapons and upgrades as part of the fantasy: Grace scrapes by, Leon cashes in kills and keeps moving.
The question is whether he takes over too much. IGN's main reservation is balance. Ogilvie enjoyed the action, but wrote that the game frontloads its strongest scares before moving into a more bullet-riddled back half. Eurogamer makes almost the same point with sharper edges: the first half is so strong as horror that the mid-game swing toward action is "incredibly jarring" and takes mental recalibration.
That is the main criticism, and it matters. Resident Evil has always lived with this split personality. The early games were survival horror, Resident Evil 4 turned the series toward action, Resident Evil 7 dragged it back into first-person terror, and the remakes made the line blur again. Requiem does not solve that tension by picking one side. It makes the tension the structure.
For some critics, that is the triumph. For others, it is the flaw they forgive.
Why Eurogamer and IGN read the same split differently
Eurogamer's 5/5 and IGN's 9/10 are both glowing, but they are useful together because they respond differently to the same shape.
Eurogamer sees the tonal swing as part of the point. Wales calls Requiem a 30th anniversary celebration, a game that embraces Resident Evil's many identities rather than trying to sand them into one smooth thing. The review admits the latter half is less remarkable than the first as pure horror, but argues that the increasing nostalgia and legacy callbacks become their own pleasure.
IGN is a touch cooler on that exact handoff. Ogilvie likes both halves, especially Leon's boss fights and Grace's fear-heavy sections, but wishes the pacing mixed them more evenly. His whiskey-and-Coke analogy is memorable because it is basically the review's thesis: the ingredients are good, but they sometimes arrive in separate glasses.
That disagreement is small on the score sheet. A 9/10 and a 5/5 both tell you to play the game. But as buying advice, the difference is real. If you want Resident Evil Requiem as a museum of the series, Eurogamer's read is the one that will probably match your mood. If you want one sustained horror arc, IGN's caveat is the warning label.
The top pull quotes tell the story
PC Gamer's verdict says Requiem succeeds at "wrapping all the best elements of previous Resident Evil games into one." That is the cleanest version of the positive case.
Eurogamer calls it "a masterful bit of suffocating horror" and also a "fan-thrilling victory lap." That pairing is the whole game in miniature: oppressive when it wants to be, celebratory when it starts looking backward.
IGN says Requiem "successfully splices two separate strains of survival horror together" into one mutation, while still noting that the fear gives way to more action-heavy spectacle in the second half.
GamesRadar+ takes the emotional angle, calling it the franchise's most cinematic and surprisingly emotional moment to date. That review is especially high on the dual-protagonist design, the story's use of continuity, and the sense that Requiem is both homage and forward motion.
Even the lower sampled review, TheGamer's 4/5, sounds more restrained than negative. Its OpenCritic excerpt says Capcom has assembled new pieces on the series' board and left the reviewer wanting to see where the characters go next. That is not a rejection. It is a slightly more cautious version of the same enthusiasm.
What Resident Evil Requiem means for players tracking reviews
The useful read is this: Resident Evil Requiem appears to be excellent, but not invisible in its construction. You can see the gears. Grace carries the horror. Leon carries the release valve. Capcom wants both, and the critics mostly accept the bargain.
If you bounced off the action-heavy entries, Requiem may still test your patience once Leon starts dominating the screen. If you come for the full Resident Evil range, from locked-door dread to impossible action hero nonsense, the reviews suggest this is one of Capcom's strongest attempts to make that range feel deliberate.
That is why review aggregation matters more than the average. An 89 tells you the game is good. The review text tells you what kind of good. Requiem sounds scary, generous, loud, nostalgic, and occasionally uneven in the way big anniversary games often are. It wants to be the haunted house and the victory lap.
For Perthro users, this is exactly the sort of game worth journaling slowly rather than rating on reflex. Track it while you play. Note when the fear works, when the action takes over, and whether the handoff feels earned. A five-star score is useful later, but the little notes you write after a Grace chapter or a Leon set piece will probably tell you more.
Resident Evil Requiem does not need another hype cycle. The critics have already done that part. What it needs now is the quieter question every good review leaves behind: what did it actually feel like when you were alone with it?