30 minutes of Resident Evil Requiem gameplay is enough to make me feel good about the new direction the series is going in, with a familiar setting full of all-new types of scares.

Grace Ashcroft is having a bad day. When introduced at the start of my 30-minute Resident Evil Requiem demo, she’s suspended in the air of an old, creepy hospital, tied up, swinging, and left to fend for herself. Little does she know things are about to get a lot worse. It’s a heck of a way to be dropped into to the next entry in Capcom’s modern iteration of first-person Resident Evil games.

But then, if there’s one thing both Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil Village both excelled at, it’s finding circumstances to catch players off guard. This small slice of Resident Evil Requiem I got to play certainly does that. It might have been short, yet as a tease, it’s looking like the franchise’s creepy tone and intense atmosphere is fully intact for this long-awaited return trip to Raccoon City.

It'd be easy to describe the events that play out in my hands-on preview session as ‘business as usual’. Were there puzzles? Yes. Key items in need of finding? Of course. A constant sense of dread due to a supernatural danger lurking nearby? You bet.

Trying to survive the halls of this hospital as Grace very much plays out like the franchise’s bread and butter, then, but not knowing what it all means, how she got here, and when that next respite may come works unbelievably well to see it all add up to an unbelievably tense series of events. The kind of which Capcom has nigh-on perfected in recent years, as evidenced perhaps most recently by Resident Evil: Village’s House Beneviento.

For now, however, it’s all about escaping from this hospital. The first step after freeing myself involves battling the frequent power outages found in most of the building’s rooms, which conveniently make it tougher to gauge where each one ends and the next begins. Even still, exploring deep enough leads me to some sort of exit, conveniently locked due to a missing fuse in the adjacent electric box. Classic!

From here my demo mainly has me poring through documents to try and learn what potential experiments are occurring at this presumed place of torture, eventually leading me to a key to a door, then a lighter to brighten my exploration efforts, and finally a screwdriver needed to unlock a case to the missing fuse.

It was around this point during the demo where, after mistaking an infected corpse for a person in need, I was promptly introduced to one of Resident Evil Requiem’s persistent tormentors. Perhaps best described as a cross between the Mother from 2022’s Barbarian and an oversized skinless chicken (seriously), this monstrous nurse gets quite the introduction.

The first thing I see is her claw, gripping the head of the infected person I was looking at for a cheeky bite. Not satisfied, it’s not long before her gaze eventually turns to me, and the eerily creepy game of cat-and-mouse is on.

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Much like how Resident Evil 2’s Mr. X served as your constant pursuer throughout Raccoon City Police Station, the grotesque woman here is similarly persistent. The difference here, however, is her nature to check under tables and through windows. Her frightful appearance is enough to make me instantly cautious of angering her too much, but my need to light the way through all these endlessly dark halls constantly has me wary of pulling out Grace’s lighter too much.

With no map to refer back to either, my own chance of making it to the exit alive relies on my wits, and the possibility of distracting her by throwing the odd glass bottle in the hopes of creating a distraction. Except both times I try it doesn’t work.

The drama of the pursuit culminates when I’m forced to move around and position a cart I need to climb on. It’s a sure-fire way of Capcom getting me to make an increased amount of noise, with dishes and bottles collapsing everywhere and forcing me to hide once again. It's here where my only choice is to watch (and be thoroughly creeped out by) the deranged lady’s movements, before checking the coast is clear so I can move on.

With no combat to speak of, this brief section in Resident Evil Requiem was enough to get my pulse racing, most reminiscent of Resident Evil 7’s opening hours where Jack Baker was in quick pursuit and the true challenge was finding my way through the family’s labyrinthine Louisiana home.

Of course, Capcom has made no secret that one of Requiem’s big new additions is thew ability to switch between first- and third-person on the fly. I did this a couple times during this hospital escape demo, and I actually came away pretty surprised with just how effective trying to dodge the monstrous woman’s pursuit in third-person still was to set in some scares.

Obviously, a big benefit to playing this way is all the extra character animations you get to witness, as Grace stumbles, panics, and clambers her way through the darkened halls. Ultimately, though, during the demo’s brief cinematic moments (such as when the pursuer is first introduced) the cutscene still plays out in first-person, indicating to me that this might be the way Capcom intended Resident Evil Requiem to be played – and it’s definitely the perspective I much prefer. But still, it’s nice to have the option.

My demo culminates in one final chase to the finish all the way to that initial exit I discovered early on, where, let’s just say Grace doesn’t get the result she was hoping for. Brief it may have been, and I’m sure there’s plenty more types of scares Requiem has up its sleeve. But for now, as a pure tone piece, Grace Ashcroft’s unfruitful visit to Raccoon City’s hospital did well to convince me that this return to Resident Evil’s iconic location has plenty of spooky surprises in store.

Sure, the gameplay loop and survival mechanics don’t seem to have changed or opened up too much, yet my main question going in was: ‘Nine main entries in, can Resident Evil Requiem still be scary?’. The answer is a resounding yes, particularly if you’re brave enough to tackle said scares from the intended first-person view.