How Resident Evil Requiem’s Camera Angles Change the Game

Resident Evil Requiem is unlike most Resident Evil games in that it can be played in two different perspectives. There is an option to play it with a third-person camera, as well as one that locks it to a first-person perspective. Players can easily swap at any time and have different settings for both characters, too. These two camera angles can impact the experience in various ways, so here’s how each perspective plays out for the two characters.

How Resident Evil Requiem’s First-Person Camera Works for Grace and Leon

Grace is seemingly made for the first-person perspective. Since she’s less combat-ready when compared to her daredevil counterpart, her segments are less about fulfilling a power fantasy and more about building tension. Players are meant to tiptoe around instead of firing off chains of headshots and perfect parries.

The first-person viewpoint helps support this idea since it narrows the player’s view and more intimately places them in the environment; there’s no character model on the screen to separate the player from the protagonist. There’s no way to easily peek behind Grace during chases, too, which only adds to the thrills and puts even more emphasis on the audio design. This makes the game more like Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and ideal for making her sequences scarier. There’s a reason the game defaults to giving Grace the first-person perspective and demonstrates once again how Requiem could easily support a VR mode.

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Leon’s sections, on the other hand, feel quite different in first-person. It’s easy to see how much faster his movement is here when compared to Grace. This speed makes Leon feel like a more agile version of Ethan Winters from Resident Evil Village, a game that had more action when compared to its immediate predecessor.

There’s value in playing the game like this, but it’s not always ideal for Leon. The camera often pulls back out to third-person when performing some moves like executions and kicks, something that also occurs often in the VR version of the Resident Evil 4 remake. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it is noticeable.

The limited perspective can also make it a little harder to keep an eye on threats. This isn’t as much of a problem for Grace since she always faces fewer zombies and is often incentivized to run away from bigger hordes, but Leon almost always tackles more than a few undead at once in open arenas. It’s not quite as easy to quickly swivel the camera around in first-person and keep an eye on what needs to be shot or parried.

How Resident Evil Requiem’s Third-Person Camera Works for Grace and Leon

Grace’s camera doesn’t default to third-person, but it is still a decent way to experience her sequences. As mentioned in the above section, Grace’s segments are centered around eliciting scares, so while the third-person camera can create some distance between the player and Grace, this also means it plays a bit more like the Resident Evil 2 remake as opposed to RE7. This gives it a decent reference point even if it is less scary this way. The separation dulls a little of its edge, but at least players can see Grace stumble when she runs and shake more noticeably while aiming, both of which emphasize how scared she is.

However, as is the case with Leon’s first-person mode, there are some small issues that make it only the second-best way to play Grace’s sections. It’s not possible to switch shoulders while aiming, which obfuscates some vital information. Requiem has some incredibly narrow hallways and it’s often important to peer out and see how close enemies are before foraging ahead. It’s easy to do in first-person, but risky to do in third-person since players can’t easily peek around some corners due to the aforementioned lack of a shoulder switch option. Some of the cutscenes also will quickly switch to Grace’s view (similar to how executions in Leon’s first-person mode zoom out to third-person), once again showing how these parts were likely designed to be experienced in first-person. 

Leon does quite well in third-person, as his parts are, in many ways, heavily influenced by the Resident Evil 4 remake. As such, this viewpoint is more focused on the action over horror. Being able to see Leon doesn’t particularly make it less scary since his scenarios are not scary to begin with. A decent chunk of his scenes take place during the day or in well-lit rooms. The third-person camera makes it easier to keep track of enemies, thus making it geared toward supporting Leon’s gunplay-rich levels. It’s also possible to have the game automatically switch to first-person aiming for any gun with a red dot sight, which can blend the best of both worlds. 

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