The director of Resident Evil Requiem has said Western players are more likely to choose the game’s first-person option, after growing up on a diet of PC first-person shooters such as Doom.
Meanwhile, Japanese fans more accustomed to third-person console RPGs like Dragon Quest have tended to play Requiem’s demo in third-person, director Akifumi Nakanishi told Denfaminicogamer, in an interview translated by Automaton.
While Requiem doesn’t launch until next year, a demo version has been publicly available at both Gamescom in Germany and Tokyo Game Show over the past couple of months. After attending both shows and watching fans try the game for themselves, Nakanishi said he had spotted the difference in how most opted to play in each location, and suggested it was due to how audiences had played other games while growing up.
“I think those kinds of differences are significant,” Nakanishi said, describing the popularity of shooters in the west, as opposed to console RPGs in Japan. However, this was now changing, he continued, citing the popularity of both Minecraft and Apex Legends among younger Japanese gamers today.
After originating in third-person, the Resident Evil series switched to first-person gameplay for Resident Evil 7. But recent years have also seen the launch of various re-releases of previous third-person classics, such as 2023’s celebrated Resident Evil 4 Remake. Requiem will be the first title to hand players full control over which perspective their prefer.
After playing the Resident Evil Requiem demo myself at Gamescom, there’s definitely something to be said for its first-person perspective, which is presented as the demo’s default. In first-person, it’s harder to tell how close behind you the game’s unsettling new monster might be, something that ramps up the horror elements. That said, the view does give you a narrower field of vision for finding hidden objects and clues, which sometimes proved a little frustrating. In reality, it seems likely that most players will likely try a bit of both.
Public demos for Resident Evil Requiem are important, Nakanishi told IGN at Tokyo Game Show, as Capcom’s development team has now made so many games in the series they are unable to tell what is truly scary or not. And, back at Gamescom, I chatted with Nakanishi on a range of topics — the game’s supersized monster, Lisa Trevor, and Raccoon City! — while avoiding the elephant in the room: the continued absence of Leon S. Kennedy.
Resident Evil Requiem arrives for Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on February 27, 2026. How will you play?
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
