While Resident Evil Requiem has been praised for many of the things it did, one of its most-discussed aspects has been its new-for-the-franchise take on zombies that still hold on to their final bits of humanity by repeating actions that used to be part of their jobs. In an interview with Eurogamer, director Koshi Nakanishi and producer Masato Kumazawa discussed how these aspects made the zombies feel creepier.
Talking about the role zombies tend to play in horror media, Nakanishi noted that the undead creatures represent “this terrifying idea that they were once human, but they’re not anymore. And seeing that reflected back on the person is what makes it scarier than just a monster that was never related to a human being. But we’ve seen so many zombies over the years that if we can’t make them do something a little out of the ordinary or unpredictable, then they start to become more difficult to make consistently scary.”
Keeping this desire to make its zombies more unique, the team behind Resident Evil Requiem decided to tap into the idea that the creatures might be “slightly more human,” which in turn further helps make the entire environment feel creepier.
“It’s creepier to see that they’re slightly more human in the sense that they’re repeating certain actions,” explained Nakanishi. “It almost looks like you could go up to them and talk to them and ask them what’s happening. But of course, they wouldn’t be able to reply. And that unsettlingness of them being almost human, but not quite, is something we wanted to use as the core of making them scary this time around.”
Kumazawa chimes in by also bringing up parts of Resident Evil Requiem that are suspiciously lacking in zombies. These moments tend to add to the tension that players might be feeling, since they can never be sure about where the zombies might pop out from.
“It can be scarier in scenes where there aren’t any zombies yet. Because the tension of not knowing where they’re going to come from, or if they’re going to appear at a particular moment, can be scarier than the specific moment you actually encounter a zombie. So that pacing of when to introduce a zombie into a scene or into a section of the game is really important; I think maintaining that tense fear throughout is what I’d say is scarier to me than just a jump scare or having constant threats.”
All of this was thought up by Capcom as part of the early design process for Resident Evil Requiem, which essentially revolved around re-examining the concept of fear. Noting that there are plenty of horror games in the world that do a good job of scaring players, Nakanishi said that the balance between fear and catharsis offered by Resident Evil Requiem is the franchise’s entire essence.
“There are obviously other horror games out there that try and induce a sense of fear in the player. So I think Resident Evil‘s essence is the balance between the feeling of intense pressure from handling horror situations and the catharsis you get from being able to survive them and also fight back against them.”
Resident Evil Requiem is available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2. For more, read our review.
