Resident Evil is mostly a third-person horror series, but Resi 7 boldly took the series into third person back in 2017. While Capcom also released third-person remakes of past games—such as the incredible Resident Evil 2 (Remake)—the FPS view continued with Resident Evil: Village. With Resident Evil Requiem, players will be able to choose which view they want.
In an interview with GamesRadar, returning director Koshi Nakanishi explained that the option to choose your viewpoint for the upcoming Resi 9 is a response to the seventh game. In 2017, the shift to first-person was so scary for some players that they simply couldn’t finish the game.
“I think some people couldn’t handle it [in first person], and either couldn’t finish it or didn’t even start it.
Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi
“Looking back at Resident Evil 7’s first person perspective, I implemented that as a way to make it more immersive and more scary than ever before, which I think most media and players agreed it was an incredibly scary game, but it was possibly too scary,” the director explained.
For Resident Evil: Village, the eighth mainline game in the series, Capcom eventually added a full third-person mode to the game. While Nakanishi didn’t direct that entry, the addition of that mode certainly seems like a test bed for what the team is trying with this new game.
“I think some people couldn’t handle it [in first person],” the director explained, “and either couldn’t finish it or didn’t even start it. And that’s something that I look back on thinking that, you know, I want to make sure that people can enjoy this game.”
“So if you started the game off in first-person perspective, and you’re finding it’s too much, then third-person is almost a way to step slightly back from that level of horror and make it slightly easier to deal with by having the character on screen as a kind of avatar of yourself,” he continued.
There’s also an option in Resident Evil Requiem for Capcom to introduce dynamic perspectives during your gameplay. This option will dynamically shift from third-to-first-person and vice versa to optimise immersion and horror during the horror game.
Resident Evil Requiem launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and PC on February 27, 2026.