In Defense of Resident Evil Requiem’s Controversial Leon Claim

Resident Evil Requiem is putting a new face at the forefront of the franchise for the first time since 2017’s Resident Evil 7. Players will control Grace Ashcroft, an FBI analyst sent to investigate some mysteries surrounding the Wrenwood Hotel, the site of her mother’s death. Resident Evil Requiem‘s developers recently shed some more light on Grace’s distinct personality during the Capcom Showcase, along with a few comments addressing the rumors that fan-favorite Leon S. Kennedy could be in the long-awaited sequel.

Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi said that the team “always thought about making Leon the protagonist,” but they ultimately decided not to use him, as “making a horror game around him is difficult.” These comments have caused a bit of a stir in the Resident Evil fan-base, but Nakanishi isn’t wrong.

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Following on from his statement that making a horror game around Leon is difficult, Koshi Nakanishi explained his reasoning, saying that Leon Kennedy “wouldn’t jump at something like a bucket falling.” Nakanishi added that “no one wants to see Leon scared by every little thing,” and that makes him a “bad match for horror.”

Some Resident Evil fans don’t agree with Koshi Nakanishi’s claims here. Leon Kennedy is the face of Resident Evil 2 and 4, and while the latter leans more into action than survival horror, both entries still have some truly terrifying moments. Some fans have also taken these statements to mean that Leon Kennedy will never be a playable protagonist again. But that’s not really what Nakanishi was saying.

Leon Kennedy Is Never Truly Scared

Objectively speaking, Koshi Nakanishi’s comments about Leon Kennedy are factually correct. The most Leon could be considered truly “scared” is right at the start of Resident Evil 2 Remake, when he first encounters the undead threat in Raccoon City. Even then, Leon isn’t really scared during these encounters, he’s more shocked and confused at the events happening to him. There’s very little in his voice, motion capture performance, or in-game animations to suggest he’s experiencing fear at all.

That’s especially true for Resident Evil 4, where Leon Kennedy is happy suplexing most of the monsters he comes into contact with. Even in Resident Evil 4‘s Regenerador sequence, arguably the scariest part of the game, nothing about Leon’s character model or performance shows that he’s as scared as the player is at that moment. There’s always been a slight disconnect between the player’s reaction to these horrifying events and Leon’s, and while some fans don’t mind that disconnect, others do.

Leon Kennedy Would Not Be a Good Fit for Resident Evil Requiem’s Approach to Horror

This time around, Capcom wants to eliminate that disconnect. Before talking about Leon, Koshi Nakanishi discussed Grace Ashcroft’s role in Resident Evil Requiem, and why she was chosen to be the game’s protagonist. The general idea is that Capcom wants to give players a protagonist that evolves alongside them during the course of the game. They begin as someone terrified of the unknown, and gradually become more capable as they experience more horrors, mirroring the player’s journey through Resident Evil Requiem.

In this sense, Leon Kennedy is a “bad match for horror.” Fans have already seen Leon essentially become a superhero capable of mowing down hordes of grotesque monsters, and like Nakanishi said, no fans want to see him suddenly become incapable. Leon simply doesn’t fit with Resident Evil Requiem‘s approach to horror.

Of course, it’s very possible that Koshi Nakanishi’s comments on Leon Kennedy are just a red herring and that he shows up in Resident Evil Requiem anyway. Another goal of the upcoming entry is to be a sort of “eulogy” for all the characters affected by the Raccoon City Outbreak, so it’d make a lot of sense for Leon to appear.

Well-known Resident Evil leaker DuskGolem has also taken to Twitter in the last few days to double-down on Leon Kennedy’s appearance in Resident Evil Requiem, stating that Capcom isn’t marketing Requiem as a sole horror game, but as a game with “aspects of psychological horror with pulse-pounding action,” and that Capcom is “baiting” fans.