Resident Evil Requiem arrived upon a shambling and hungry mass of gamers. Fans have awaited the opportunity to use one of six magnum bullets — spread throughout an entire god-forsaken map — on a random low-threat zombie in a hallway out of pure anxiety since the beloved original took players to an eerie mansion tucked away in the Midwest for the series debut in 1996.

Critics and casuals alike are already singing the game’s praises. Many are calling it the Game of the Year for 2026.

Thirsty girls are glued to their Joy-Cons, staring at Leon S. Kennedy’s skintight three-quarter zip, while just as many boys wonder what Grace Ashcroft’s hair smells like.

Sexy edits of the likable protagonists are dominating social media, creating a kind of supermodel-apocalypse brainwashing effect.

Why are these two admittedly gorgeous sets of polygons living rent-free on the screens — and in the minds — of young to middle-aged adults the world over? What drives the fascination in a game one might describe as two separate titles stuck together with duct tape, expensive product placement and raw sex appeal?

From its advent, Resident Evil was never afraid to create a strong female character — with significantly more clothes and fewer useless moments than her peers in media at the time — in Jill Valentine.

Valentine’s role as one of the playable characters in the first game was the series’ first statement on gender in the horror medium, but far from its last.

Yet, after decades of social progress, strong, capable women are simply a less interesting claim to stake.

For 30 years, the series has been willing to make statements about men and women in the most frightening and treacherous scenarios the mind can conjure. Resident Evil Requiem carries that tradition forward in a big way, and the internet — and the world at large — have taken note.

Jill Valentine and Ada Wong were powerful statements in the 1990s. They were strong, capable women who, much like in real life, sometimes saved the men around them.

But much art has been produced across Resident Evil’s 30-year run. Women have been told time and again that they can do what men do.

This is true, of course. And at the time, it needed to be said.

Resident Evil Requiem pauses after three decades of progress in gender relations to share something fresher.

Rather than beating a dead horse by telling you both men and women can survive the nightmare, Requiem offers a more elegant cut of meat:

How men and women might actually survive the nightmare — better, together.

Women possess higher IQ scores on average. More women than ever before — and more women than men — are attending university.

Ashcroft is a genius. She takes every opportunity to remind the player that she is smarter than Leon. Her mind resembles her stacked desk at the FBI: piled high, with a keen eye for analysis, pattern recognition and a devilish attention to detail.

Capcom even provides an unusually dense lore report under the pretense that it is Ashcroft’s own, almost omniscient case file.

Meanwhile, Capcom finally feels safe letting Leon simply be a dude.

Kennedy is not always at his sharpest. Men tend toward a narrower focus and greater distractibility. Kennedy is also aging. Rather than forcing him into the mold of an unbelievable action hero, the game gives him a moment where he simply watches a nurse get eviscerated by a chainsaw-wielding zombie surgeon.

A living representation of the American healthcare system’s billing practices.

Kennedy does not put on his detective cap to solve mysteries. Much of his work in RE9 consists of grabbing the largest nearby gun — loaded with more ammunition than one sees in a lifetime — and using obscene experience to make it work.

Kennedy is almost pure physicality. His combat prowess and ability to navigate the field frankly embarrass Ashcroft’s textbook knowledge of the walking dead. But he is far less resourceful and solves far fewer complex problems.

A tiger and a dragon.

Kennedy is such a brute that he can grab that same greedy, dead surgeon’s chainsaw and act out his own trauma with it.

But he cannot make bullets out of scrap metal and zombie blood.

These two gameplay styles marry throughout Requiem’s runtime and leave one message unmistakably clear:

Not only do Kennedy and Ashcroft succeed in their own ways, they need each other to make it out.

Kennedy, of course, gets several moments to utilize his physical superiority and play the hero. In an apocalyptic environment, this is hardly surprising.

Capcom is radically clever, however, in making Ashcroft pivotal to Kennedy in ways that are less obvious, far more spoiler-intensive, and perhaps even more gripping.

A fascinating sensation emerges during especially long stretches of either Ashcroft or Kennedy gameplay segments. One quickly begins to miss what the other brings to the table.

Spend too long crouching under tables and throwing Molotov cocktails at shadow demons, and it is not hard to miss Kennedy’s ability to counter zombies with a combat axe.

Contrary to expectations, one may also miss Ashcroft’s gameplay while blasting a zombie at point-blank range.

Ashcroft’s sections feel like stepping into a John Carpenter film: stealthy, tense and analytical — a horror chess match. It is assuredly the sneakiest Resident Evil has ever felt.

The zombies in her segments are especially uncanny, retaining fragments of their human behavior. It almost translates her inexperience with killing into the very gameplay mechanics, making her encounters feel more humane than anything Kennedy experiences.

Yet the player does not need Ashcroft to perform a roundhouse kick, nor do they long for Kennedy to hide silently from the monsters. The rare alchemy Capcom achieves is allowing its characters to simply be — to develop into themselves.

Perhaps seeing women roundhouse kick monsters twice their size has grown tired. Male superheroes are tired, too.

The game has so far enjoyed a glowing reception. Fans and critics alike praise the choice to let players do more by sometimes forcing them to have less.

Maybe Capcom is painting a hopeful portrait that society truly needs right now.

Alone, the nightmare may be unsurvivable. No one is truly a superhero.

But together, there may be a slim chance of navigating the twisted night.

Differences might even raise those rotten, decaying odds.