Resident Evil: Requiem’s DLC Should Cross Over with Zach Cregger’s Upcoming Movie

Resident Evil: Requiem’s DLC Should Cross Over with Zach Cregger’s Upcoming Movie

“Let Leon swing his axe like a barbarian weapon against those Hollywood horrors.”

After washing my Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT, which I recently purchased after seeing Leon S. Kennedy driving one in Resident Evil: Requiem, I paused to take a look at my shiny new Khaki Field Auto Chrono wristwatch watch (as worn by Leon S. Kennedy, attractive star of the hit game Resident Evil: Requiem), and realized that it was once again time boot up Resident Evil: Requiem, the best game of the year to star Leon S. Kennedy (and friends, and merch).

Leon Must Die Forever, a roguelike speedrun minigame, launched late last week as DLC for Requiem. It’s mostly good stuff. The best part about it is that it’s free. Given the massive amount of debt I’ve chalked up from my recent purchases of a zombie-proof watch and a Porsche, that nonexistent price tag is a massive relief. That said, the mode itself does sit a little strangely alongside Requiem's story mode.

Part of that is Leon’s fault. The most cleverly designed parts of Resident Evil: Requiem put you in the role of newcomer Grace Ashcroft, who by the end of her horrific adventure, becomes a master of analyzing the necrotic and neurotic behaviors of various zombies and using their obsessions against them. By contrast, her co-star Leon comes off as more of a bonehead who basically blasts his way through all his problems. Leon Must Die Forever drills down on that boneheaded approach until it becomes a concentrated glob of extreme violence. It’s basically a short mixtape of Leon’s most intense moments from the main campaign with a little randomization thrown in. The glowing doors you find in each stage will take you to different areas, and they always show up in the same spots, but the weapons and power-ups you gain along the way change up on each run.

So, what’s half-baked about it? It mostly comes down to the zombies. Other than some new, glowing variants, the ghouls on patrol here are the same as they were in the main story. Being tasked to take them on over and over again highlights a preexisting issue with Leon’s campaign: almost all of his zombie enemies are physically the same person. Sure, some have chainsaws, while others sing so loud that you can’t see straight. But the same basic combat strategy (shoot out their knees, melee, and parry any counter-melee attacks) works for every pound of undead flesh that shambles towards you. And with the exception of some surprises near the end of the game, where some skinless freaks and dudes with machine guns show up, it’s wall-to-wall zombie up in here.

Weirdly enough, Zach Cregger, writer and director of this September’s Resident Evil film, has explicitly said that his story will take the opposite approach. In a bold, borderline-spoiler-ish interview with IGN, he said that zombies, in the conventional sense of the term, are only in a few scenes of the movie. Instead, he’s focusing on totally original monsters that only the franchise’s fabled T-Virus could birth. The movie’s initial trailer shows at least two of these never-before-seen T-virus iterations. There’s a massive, pale, naked fella sitting in the sewer in one shot, and what appears to be a bunch of human bodies fused together, doing their best to get through a doorway in another. There’s also a scene where the film’s lead, a hapless organ transporter, spies something growing out of the floor and doesn’t look to happy about it. It could be that he’s just in shock because he’s seeing something wonderful and gentle sprouting before him, like Totoro making a beanstalk, or a baby kangaroo coming out of its mama’s pouch. But we’re guessing he’s seeing a zombie baby get ready to eat his face, or a giant worm growing out of a corpse, or something else equally awful.

All these new ideas could end up making the film feel like Resident Evil in name only, but there is fun solution for that issue should Capcom want to pursue it. Even better, this solution would also help Requiem with its enemy variety problem. That’s right: Just like the headline here says, plopping some of the biohazards from Cregger’s movie into Requiem’s DLC plans would kill both flesh-eating birds with one blood-drenched stone.

That’s a lot more easily said than done, and it would cost a lot to produce, but I’m certain that it’s an idea that would go on to pay for itself. It would also make sense narratively, as the film takes place in and around Racoon City, a key location in Requiem. And, at risk of spoiling it, we can say that the leaked script for the movie shows that the monsters hinted at in the current trailer would be a ton of disgusting fun to fight, challenging Leon to work against his boneheaded “blast everything” instincts and try something new.

We’re talking about movie-to-game synergy! It’s so hot right now. Just look at Fox McCloud’s splashy debut on the silver screen in the recent Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and how it cued him up for a new Star Fox game. Still, seeing how Capcom’s games have rarely acknowledged the movie-exclusive Resident Evil characters and monsters until now, I’m not holding my breath for this one. Hopefully writing about it here will help will this concept into existence. If it worked for WayForward and Cat Girl Without Salad, maybe it would work for Resident Evil: Requiem and giant virus monsters that may or may not be filled with zombie rats.