When is the Resident Evil 9 release date? 2026 marks the 30th anniversary of Capcom’s beloved survival horror series, and it stands to reason that the next installment is as much a look back at what came before as it is another step forward. The official reveal at Summer Game Fest was as good a confirmation as any.
RE9, otherwise known as Resident Evil Requiem, takes us back to Raccoon City for the first time following its destruction at the end of RE3. It’s one of the most iconic horror game locations and holds a lot of memories for Resident Evil’s characters, history, and fans. Prepare for this zombie-infested trip down memory lane with everything we know about the RE9 release date, including the latest trailers, news, and theories.
Resident Evil Requiem release date
The Resident Evil 9 release date is Friday, February 27, 2026. It’s available on PC via Steam, along with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S for console users.
Resident Evil 9 was officially confirmed during Summer Game Fest in a surprise reveal trailer. “When I first got a glimpse of this project last summer, I was absolutely blown away by the scale, scope, and ambition of this developer’s vision,” host Geoff Keighley said in his preamble to the trailer.
Resident Evil 9 trailers
The RE9 reveal trailer was short but sweet, painting the broad strokes of Requiem’s story through a series of cutscenes. The three-and-a-half minutes we got were notably without gameplay, but the footage looks to be running in-engine with post-processing effects. This isn’t too dissimilar to what we saw for the RE Village announcement trailer, which was followed by a full gameplay trailer several months later.
Resident Evil 9 characters
Our latest protagonist is Grace Ashcroft, an FBI technical analyst and daughter of Resident Evil Outbreak’s Alyssa Ashcroft. As a survivor of Raccoon City, Alyssa was the investigative reporter who exposed Umbrella’s bio-organic weapons testing and was responsible for the Raccoon Trials that eventually buried the company.
It’s a tough act to follow, but Grace is set to follow in her mother’s footsteps to the Wrenwood Hotel, where she was supposedly murdered during an investigation. We say supposedly, because it’s not like RE characters coming back from the dead doesn’t have precedent. We’re looking at you, Wesker. And Ada. And Krauser. And – you get the point.
In this case, getting modern audiences reacquainted with Alyssa Ashcroft would be the perfect preamble for a Resident Evil Outbreak remake. Outbreak was the first RE game specifically designed for co-op, but its online functionality struggled, and most players have only experienced it with AI companions. It’s unlikely that we’ll see dedicated co-op support in Requiem, but Capcom will likely build upon companion behaviours we’ve seen in Ashley, Carlos, and Jill.
We hear numerous character voice lines during the reveal trailer, so we already know Requiem won’t be a lonely affair. Some fans even swear that they can identify those voices as Leon, Jill, Carlos, and even Chris. Leon Kennedy and Raccoon City go together like viruses and shady pharmaceutical companies, and we’ve even seen some speculation floating around that Requiem could spell his end.
Resident Evil 9 story
But hang on, didn’t we see Raccoon City get nuked in the final cutscene of Resident Evil 3? Not quite. While it was engulfed in a mushroom cloud, RE3 writer Yasuhisa Kawamura clarified that it was an experimental thermobaric bomb in the official guidebook. The mother of all bombs, yes, but not a nuclear one. Whether you’d consider this established canon or a blatant retcon, the fact remains that Grace is set to venture into the cratered remains of Raccoon City without a Geiger counter. Sorry, Stalker fans.
It’s unclear if the Wrenwood Hotel is even in the vicinity of Raccoon City, but odds are that it’ll be the first location we’ll visit in RE9 as Grace investigates under FBI SAIC Dempsey’s orders. Its dilapidated corridors and exterior suggest a cross between RE7’s Baker house and Silent Hill 2’s Wood Side Apartments. No doubt that plenty of scares are in store as Grace comes face to face with Resident Evil’s shambling hordes for the first time.
The biggest mystery of RE9 is the identity of the hooded man who appears in the reveal trailer. He’s most likely Requiem’s main villain, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves – the chances of it being Albert Wesker are slim to none. The reveal trailer includes a shot in which Grace is strapped to a gurney, a bloody bandage wrapped around her chest as blood is drawn from her arm with an IV. This tells us three things: whoever has her tied down clearly has a medical background, a vested interest in keeping her alive, and an apparent use for her blood.
Since we know that Grace’s mother was infected by the T-Virus and subsequently cured, there’s a possibility that she passed down traces of the virus to her daughter, just like Rose Winters in RE Village. Given that our mystery man calls Grace the “chosen one,” it’s clear there’s more to her than meets the eye. Perhaps he’s another Outbreak survivor looking for a cure, or Oswell E. Spencer up to his old tricks. Sure, we did see Wesker put a knife through his chest, but you know what they say: you can’t keep a megalomaniacal bio-terrorist down.
Ed, our resident (ahem) expert, has his doubts that Requiem is “rooted in the playful, horror-movie-double-bill tone of the originals.” However, like me, he remains hopeful that Capcom won’t go too far down the self-serious path laid by RE9’s reveal trailer. Grace’s ongoing investigation into an “unidentified disease” in the reveal trailer places more emphasis on the Progenitor Virus as a form of bio-terrorism, rather than just a fun excuse to pit our human heroes against zombies, mutants, and tyrants. Regardless, if Requiem can offer us more than just a nostalgia shot of Raccoon City, we’ll be seated.
Resident Evil 9 gameplay
The RE9 reveal trailer might have been light on gameplay, but the Resident Evil formula is long-established by now, and we don’t expect there to be any major divergence in Requiem. We don’t need to see a gameplay trailer to know there’ll be enough inventory management, esoteric puzzles, and speedrun potential to satisfy the most casual RE fan.
Going by the reveal trailer, Requiem is sticking to the first-person perspective that we’ve enjoyed from the mainline entries since RE7. With the horror front and center on our screens, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Capcom lean into the spookiest moments in RE7 and Village. Brace for jumpscares.
Now that you’re prepared to return to Raccoon City in RE9, hop into some of our favorite zombie games to get the next best thing before it arrives. We’ve also got a complete list of the best PC games to play while you wait.
