Any popular gaming franchise doesn’t shy away from tipping its hat to the games that have preceded it, and Resident Evil is no different. In fact, it goes above and beyond to pay homage to its illustrious past, often hiding subtle references to its lore and gameplay mechanics in its detailed worlds, just waiting for eagle-eyed players to spot these little nuggets of nostalgia.
Requiem continues the trend, and making our way through the Rhodes Hill Care Center and the ruins of Raccoon City had us stopping to grin at a reference quite often. There are many memorable ones squirrelled away in the game, and we decided to bring the best ones we found to you. Let’s dive right in!
1. Rewarding A Rather Rare Skill
The first time you pick a lock as Grace as she tries to find a path to safety in Rhodes Hill, you earn a trophy/achievement called “Like Mother, Like Daughter”. That’s a callback to Alyssa’s time in Outbreak, where picking locks was one of her unique abilities.
Perhaps she deemed it a skill useful enough to pass on to Grace sometime during her childhood? Whatever the case may be, it’s an ability that’s served both women well over the course of their adventures.
2. The Destroyed Kendo Gun Shop
You might know Robert and Joseph Kendo as the brothers responsible for crafting all the cool firearms for STARS operatives back in the day when Raccoon City was a thriving metropolis. Their store, located a stone’s throw away from the RCPD building, is now a ruin of its former self after the city’s destruction.
You get to visit it as Leon once you make your way to the city, and it’s an excellent callback to his time as a rookie. We wonder if the Requiem firearm was among the brothers’ final commissions, but it’s probably unlikely given their fates during the original outbreak.
3. An Unforgettable Obstacle
Remember the burning tanker that was in your way in RE2 and RE2 Remake as you tried to make it to the RCPD? That one was an annoyance, needing you to navigate the alleyways around it with a store named after a Street Fighter character acting as a landmark in the vicinity.
Well, it’s all there amid the ruins of the city, and you retrace the same path you took in the original game to get to the wrecked RCPD building in Requiem. Even the graffiti on the walls is the same, and it’s a fine touch and a great way to establish continuity between two distinct stages of Leon’s life.
4. Skeletons From Leon’s Past
We’renot done with the RCPD and its ruins yet. If you’re like us, you probably remember a horribly disfigured police officer that Leon came across on his ill-fated first day, whose grotesquely twisted face was as memorable as his lower jaw hanging loosely off his face.
Well, he’s exactly where you left him in Requiem, his skeleton missing its lower jaw in a callback to an iconic moment from RE2 Remake.
5. A Lukewarm Welcome
In yet another callback to Leon’s horrible first day as an RCPD officer, the ruins of the police building still have the welcome banner his colleagues prepared for him back in the day, complete with the discarded second ‘L’ from a misspelling of ‘welcome’. It was hilarious then, despite the horrors around us, but now serves as a sad reminder of a story that could have gone entirely differently if not for Umbrella’s machinations.
6. A Typewriter Well Past Its Prime
Although you can save your game at typewriters in Requiem, there’s one that doesn’t work and probably deserves retirement thanks to everything it has gone through. Leon takes note of a typewriter in the RCPD’s main hall that might have once meant more than just a save point, as its presence might have held Mr. X at bay.
However, it’s now a shadow of its former self, a melancholic presence that stands as an enduring symbol of a past that the rest of the world may have forgotten, but one that continues to influence the lives of those who survived it.
7. A Puzzling Reminder
If you haven’t played RE2 or its remake, you probably can be forgiven for walking right past a crumbling statue of a lion just up the stairs past the rotting typewriter. It’s where the Lion Medallion was once hidden away behind a puzzle that required a very specific combination, depending on whether it was your first or second run through the game.
Well, the puzzle’s still there with the right code put in, showcasing an attention to continuity that the developers have clearly been vigilant about as they recreated Raccoon City and the RCPD building.
8. The Destroyed Orphanage
In Resident Evil Requiem, you navigate an orphanage that should look very familiar to you if you guided Sherry Birkins in her attempt to escape Chief Irons in RE2 Remake.
The layout is the same, as are all the decorations and random items strewn about, such as the children’s toys all around the nursery’s floor and the path to the main hall that’s taken right out of the previous game. Other than that, it has been utterly destroyed, but one specific view is still stunning.
9. The Final Puzzle
You might be wondering what to do with a certain severed hand once it comes into your possession. Well, that’s the catalyst to a very obscure puzzle that needs you to input a specific code to get a reward that’s quite attractive, thanks to how much it can change your gameplay.
To finish Requiem’s Final Puzzle, you first need to force Marie’s Doll to spawn and carry it into NG+. In the Care Center basement, reach the Processing blood pool and do not drain it for at least 15 minutes. After that, drain it, drop in, and clear the grinder encounter without killing zombies with your weapons. The goal is for them to fall into the grinder alive. Continue into the smaller pool sequence, and use the post-fight “blood flowed out” message as your confirmation that the setup worked.
Escape the basement, go back to the 1F Bathroom, and flush a toilet eight times. Yes, seriously. Much later, when the Courtyard Research Facility self-destruct begins, head to Collection and Testing and pick up Marie’s Doll near the metal steps, stash it in an item box, and finish the run. On your next playthrough as Grace, pull the doll back out from an item box. After the basement escape, pick up the Severed Hand lying on the floor in front of the elevator, then analyze it at the Blood Lab to obtain “Let’s Play” and the RNA string GGC AAG AUA ACG UGU CAU.
Decode it using the clue formulas: G = 150,000,000 (Sun – Earth-to-Sun distance in km), U = 380,000 (Moon – Earth-to-Moon distance in km), and C = 4.2 ly (Star – nearest star distance in light years). For A, you’ll need to trigger Leon’s secret in Raccoon City: kick the Mr. Everywhere head through the basketball hoop, then interact with the body at Gun Shop Kendo to receive “Just ignore A.” That collapses the sequence down to GGC G U CG UGU CU. Finally, while carrying Emily, go to the Lead Researcher’s Office with Marie’s Doll in your inventory and input this on the working puzzle box: Sun Sun Star Sun Moon Star Sun Moon Sun Moon Star Moon to hear some creepy sounds and rewards.
10. Leon’s Movie Appearances
Die-hard Resident Evil fans are sure to remember that Leon had a trio of CG animated films that had him quite busy over the course of their stories. One of those films is Vendetta, where Leon found himself chased by mutant hounds while he sped away on a motorcycle, shooting at them to get them off his trail.
Once you make it to Raccoon City in Requiem, the chase sequence with Leon on a bike is an almost picture-perfect recreation of the film’s chase, and is sure to have you grinning if you happened to catch Vendetta, which you should if you’re a fan of Leon in the first place.
11. Two Brothers With An Appetite
The grotesque baby-like monsters that try to make a meal out of Leon and Grace, respectively, are actually two brothers called Thomas and Timothy, who reacted quite badly to their “treatment” at Rhodes Hill, developing a rather voracious appetite and a taste for human flesh as a result.
Their patient records are hidden away, and only the most diligent of players are going to uncover this particularly morbid secret in Requiem.
12. Tofu Returns!
This was quite a nostalgic one, but it’s so easy to miss. If you go past the corridor between the slack-jawed skeleton of that dead officer and the RCPD’s operations room, you’re going to see Tofu spying on you through cracks in the walls before he scurries away if you get too close.
For those of you who don’t know what we’re talking about, Tofu’s a playable gag character that was originally a placeholder during RE2’s development but was left in as a joke by the developers. Unlocking him was a challenge back then, but he did bring a bit of firepower to the table along with his many variants.
13. Look At These Photographs
Look around the RCPD’s ruins enough, and you’re going to find a photo that might seem familiar to you if you happened to play Resident Evil 1 and 2. There’s a group photo of the entire STARS team from the first two games, dated two years before their ill-fated mission to investigate mysterious deaths in the woods surrounding Raccoon City.
Leon even comments on it, a somber assertion of the needless loss of lives that Umbrella triggered via its greed and apathy.
14. Jill’s STARs Beret
Approach Jill Valentine’s desk at the RCPD, and you’re going to find her STARs beret covered in dust from the building’s destruction. You probably remember it from a time when it was in better shape, being a part of her uniform in the first game.
Jill’s probably happy she left such an identifier behind after her time in RE3, with Nemesis hunting down members of her team but it’s still a cool reference to a character who’s been a part of the franchise’s narrative over the years.
15. A Familiar Pit Stop
Leon quickly finds himself in need of fuel when he first enters Raccoon City, and a nearby petrol station has what he needs. Pay attention to its name, and you’re going to find it’s the very same one that Jill and Carlos were at when the latter blew up a tanker to attempt to kill Nemesis.
Leon uses that very tanker to make his way to the station and pick up that much-needed fuel. Talk about maintaining a consistent timeline!
Bonus: Metal Gear Solid 4 Callback?
If you compare Old Snake’s deteriorating health with Leon’s condition, you will see parallels between the two. Both have seen it all and done it all, and are on their last legs for one last mission. And there is also an interesting parallel between Elpis and Fox Alive, with both related to eradicating viruses in their respective settings.
And that’s all the references and secrets that had us gasping at how well the developer wove them into its world, and of course, grinning at the memories they invoked of so many of the franchise’s best moments. This was a fun hunt, and there are going to be so many more to find over time if Requiem is anything like its predecessors.
