Capcom has officially confirmed that Resident Evil Requiem, the upcoming installment in the legendary survival horror series, was initially planned as a live service game—until the developers hit pause and rethought the direction mid-development.
For longtime fans of Resident Evil, this will likely come as a relief. The franchise is best known for its tense, single-player, offline experiences, and throwing it into the always-online, multiplayer-driven live service model was always going to be a risky move.
In a Creators’ Message shared during Capcom’s June 27 Spotlight, director Koshi Nakanishi shed light on the early development process of Requiem. “You might have heard some of the rumors,” he said. “Things like an online Resident Evil or an open-world Resident Evil, we spent some time experimenting with. But in the end… we realized it wasn’t what fans wanted to see or play.”
As a result, the team scrapped the live service approach entirely and went “back to the drawing board,” refocusing the game on what made the series a genre-defining classic.
Resident Evil’s Rocky Multiplayer Past
Capcom has dipped its toes into online and multiplayer territory before—but with mixed results. RE:Verse, a multiplayer-only title released in 2022 to celebrate the franchise’s 25th anniversary, is shutting down for good on June 29, 2025, after struggling to maintain a player base, peaking at just over 2,000 players on Steam.
Other multiplayer experiments like Operation Raccoon City (2012) and Umbrella Corps (2016) also failed to resonate with fans or critics.
Back to Survival Horror Roots
With Requiem, Capcom appears to be playing it smart—doubling down on what made Resident Evil iconic in the first place: terrifying atmosphere, methodical gameplay, and compelling single-player storytelling.
Whether multiplayer will ever make its way into a mainline entry successfully remains to be seen, but for now, Capcom’s latest move suggests that Requiem is being shaped with longtime fans squarely in mind.
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