How Capcom designed Resident Evil Requiem with different camera angles in mindHow Capcom designed Resident Evil Requiem with different camera angles in mindHow Capcom designed Resident Evil Requiem with different camera angles in mind

Capcom game director Koshi Nakanishi and producer Masato Kumazawa explain why Capcom implemented two camera options in Resident Evil Requiem.

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Alessandro Fillari , Contributor

October 14, 2025

5 Min Read

Grace Ashcroft of Resident Evil Requiem.

Image via Capcom.

Capcom's Resident Evil series has been one of the defining horror games in video game history, and fast approaching its 30th anniversary in 2026. The series has experimented with a wide range of tones in the survival horror genre, some emphasizing a sense of dread and vulnerability, while others lean into action-horror gameplay to empower players.

The upcoming Resident Evil Requiem adopts the tone of the former games and gives players options on perspective: they can play the game in first-person or third-person view.

During Tokyo Game Show 2025, we spoke with Resident Evil Requiem game director Koshi Nakanishi and producer Masato Kumazawa about what went into making Requiem feel unique in both perspectives—and the value in the unexpected timing of the franchise's 30th anniversary.

Requiem is a timely game for Resident Evil's 30th birthday

Kumazawa told Game Developer that Capcom didn't plan for Requiem to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Resident Evil. But he acknowledged that the date is "undeniably going to be on people's minds at the time the game comes out. Players will be thinking a lot about what they liked about the series."

Though not timed for the 30th anniversary, the game certainly pulls from the franchise's vast library for its story. It moves away from the Ethan Winters saga of RE7 and Village and into a new storyline focusing on Grace Ashcroft—daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft from Resident Evil Outbreak. It also revisits the horrors that took place in Resident Evil 2's Raccoon City.

Resident Evil Requiem follows in the footsteps of Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village, which employed first-person immersive horror after years of increasingly action-heavy third-person games. The first-person perspective immerses players in a foreboding atmosphere filled with harrowing encounters rather than gunplay-focused setpieces.

A first-person view of Resident Evil Requiem

Image via Capcom.

But those aren't the only two Resident Evil games released in the last decade. Capcom also diversified the series' gameplay portfolio with action-heavy remakes of Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4. We see a couple of trends in the overall series: the first-person games focusing on player immersion and the third-person games emphasizing story and character development.

The contrasts between the two styles provided valuable learnings for the dev team looking for the right balance of action and horror for Requiem. The game aims to be the best of both worlds, said Kumazawa and Nakanishi.

"I would best describe Resident Evil 7 as stoic, it focused on being a relatively serious take on survival horror in enclosed spaces, whereas Village expanded on that, almost as a reaction to the previous game, and it was more action based like RE4 in terms of how much gunplay and shooting there was," said Nakanishi.

"Those were great, but with [Requiem], we wanted to bounce back on the scale...there are moments of combat with weapons, but there's more of a focus on the tense exploration of enclosed spaces with enemy encounters that are more sparse but still very intense," the director continued.

Player cameras can define a horror game's tone

Camera controls and how developers think about perspective can be critical in defining the tone of a horror game. The series began with fixed third-person camera angles that fully directed the player perspective, then began opening it up with over-the-shoulder third-person angles.

That perspective was drawn back in again with Resident Evil 7's tight first-person view. Now, Requiem sees the developers taking the unusual step of offering both first-person and third-person perspectives.

This expands on a feature introduced in downloadable content for Resident Evil Village that allowed players to switch to a third-person mode. This turned out to be a test run of sorts for Requiem.

According to Nakanishi, this feature was motivated by a desire to let fans better calibrate the kind of terror they experience and allow horror fans who couldn't handle the first-person gameplay of RE7 and Village to get into Requiem.

There were still people who thought it was just too scary to get into," said the game director. "They tried the game, and they couldn't get through it because they felt it was too tense and too stressful for them, and they didn't want to play it."

Trying both schemes in a demo at Tokyo Game Show, it was impressive how differently the two perspectives can make certain sequences appear. It felt like playing two unique versions of the game.

A third-person view of Resident Evil Requiem.

Image via Capcom.

Because Requiem is going for a balance between immersive horror and character-focused moments, both first and third-person views required distinct design decisions. These include emphasizing the lack of visibility and the enclosed nature of first-person, while also presenting unique character animations to emphasize Grace's mental state in third-person.

"If you're playing in third person, she actually is animated quite dramatically to show her terrified and panicked reaction, she'll actually stumble and fall. Her speed doesn't stop, but it looks like she's panicking more, and it aims to make you feel more panicked and concerned on her behalf," said the director.

"That's not included in the first-person version at all for the same scene, because it would be difficult to clearly convey that and wouldn't feel comfortable in first person," he said, contrasting this approach to the classic method of making "optional" third-person modes that are still anchored around first-person design.

"If you imagine first-person as the base, and then imagine you switch to third person, there wouldn't be really any animations at all. You have to make sure that it feels natural in both perspectives, so that players don't feel they're missing something with one version versus the other."

With the release of Resident Evil Requiem, the developers are building upon the foundations of the series' biggest risks for its blend of immersive and character-focused horror. They have also unexpectedly made a game that has got the creatives and fans thinking about the larger legacy for its 30 year anniversary.

Requiem could also show that there's value in offering ways for players to tune their horror experience to attract players who may have been hesitant to take the plunge into Capcom's landmark series.

About the Author

Alessandro Fillari

Contributor

Alessandro Fillari is a writer/editor who has covered the games, tech, and entertainment industries for more than 12 years. He is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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