Chatting The Return To Raccoon City And Designing Resident Evil Requiem With The Game’s Producer

Last week Capcom invited Australian press to check out a demo for the highly anticipated Resident Evil Requiem. I didn’t make the trek to Sydney to do so, as Kieron Verbrugge had already previewed the demo when he got on the sticks at Tokyo Game Show, but I did get the chance to chat with the game’s producer Masato Kumazawa and ask some questions about Requiem and Resident Evil that I’d been dying to get answers to.

WellPlayed: Resident Evil Requiem sees the series return to Raccoon City for the first time since Resident Evil 3.What made the team decide to return to the city where it all started almost 30 years ago? 

Masato Kumazawa: When you compare it to the last main entries, Resident Evil 7 and also Village, it went far away from Raccoon City and Umbrella.By portraying these outskirts, like the country or the village and so on,I believe that going back to Raccoon City and back to the main part of the story, it’s best for the fans. They will probably enjoy the story on what happened and uncover further.

WP: Recent Resident Evil titles have utilised a stalker enemy. With Requiem, how difficult has it been finding the right balance with this mechanic to make sure players don’t get frustrated, seeing as it’s something they’ve experienced in previous games? Have you ever considered having an option to disable the mechanic?

MK: I understand how there are a lot of opinions surrounding the stalker, but we are giving a survival horror experience. We did learn from the past on how to balance it. We’re trying not to make it a main part. It’s like a small part of the game.The most important thing is that because this game is new, we wanted to focus more on trying to scare the player in many different ways. Providing that players can be involved in many different kinds of situations, we’re just trying to cover a whole lot of scenarios to make sure the players can get scared and experience the horror.

WP: With Grace being the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft from Resident Evil Outbreak, can we expect more characters from Outbreak to show up in Requiem?

MK: I would say that yes, there are going to be some characters from the past series to come in, but don’t over-expect or hype it. We can’t promise you anything about that, but the only thing I can say is that there will be characters that have been involved in the Raccoon City incident involved in the game.

WP: Resident Evil is a series with many beloved characters. Do you think people will take to Grace quicker than Ethan Winters because of her existing connection to the Resident Evil universe?

MK: Yes, so I’m hoping that players will definitely get used to Grace more when you compare her to Ethan when they’re playing the game.Ethan did more of a job of being the player’s camera than anything, and we did this very consciously in the development of the game. Whereas in comparison with Grace, we focused more on having her character out there. We wanted to make sure that we show how she is scared – we show that by what kind of words she says, actions she does or how she acts when she’s surprised.

WP: Resident Evil Village had The Duke act as the game’s merchant. Will Requiem have a merchant character? If so, will they be a returning character or a new one?

MK: In this game, there’s no merchant character.

WP: One of my favourite parts of Resident Evil is the save room music. How much work goes into designing these rooms and their musical themes?

MK: Yes, like the past, we will have a safe room music that’s going to be there. I didn’t hear it exactly from the sound team, but what I can say is that we made sure that the song will sound fresh. It’ll make the players feel refreshed. Sorry, I didn’t hear it from the sound team, but I’d like to hear it from the sound team as well.

WP: With Requiem including characters from Outbreak, could we ever see Capcom revisit Outbreak or that style of game?

MK: Unfortunately, at the moment we don’t have any plans of making games like those. But maybe if there are lots of user needs or there’s a need from the gamers or they want more like Outbreak, then maybe yes. I personally would like Outbreak and maybe eventually down the road I would like to make one, but at the moment, no.

In saying that, you don’t need to play Resident Evil Outbreak to enjoy Resident Evil Requiem. In fact, the only knowledge that you’ll need is that the main character Grace Ashcroft is the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft, who featured in Outbreak. I just want to make that clear.

WP: Thank you for your time.

This interview was conducted with a translator. Some answers have been edited for readability.

Resident Evil Requiem launches on PS5, Xbox Series X, Switch 2 and PC on February 26, 2026