At the time of writing this article, I’m a little over halfway through Resident Evil 9 — about 57% according to my PlayStation — and I keep wanting to go back and play more.
Normally, I wait until I finish a game before forming a real opinion, but this one feels different. Even without the ending, it already feels closer to what I personally want from Resident Evil than most of the other entries I’ve played.
For me, Resident Evil has also kind of become a shared thing. Every time I start one, a friend of mine watches the entire playthrough with me, so I usually only make progress when we’re both around.
That’s actually why I’m sitting at 57% instead of finishing it in a weekend; we couldn’t line up schedules this week, so the game has basically just been sitting there waiting for us.
Most of our sessions end up being half serious and half commentary anyway. His current running joke is that the game’s themes are “courage” and “the inevitable doom of capitalism,” which somehow hasn’t gotten less funny the longer we play.
At one point, we found a pamphlet naming the care center’s lead researcher, Anthony Richardson and completely derailed ourselves laughing because it’s also the name of an NFL player. Playing the games this way almost turns them into a running conversation as much as a playthrough.
Honestly, that’s kind of been true for every Resident Evil I’ve played. No matter how serious the story is trying to be, something always ends up making us laugh, whether it’s the dialogue, the villains or just how dramatic everything is.
I don’t really see that as a negative either. It’s part of why I like these games so much; they’re horror, but they’re also a little ridiculous in a way that makes them fun to experience with someone else.
I’m definitely what people would call a Resident Evil “newgen.” I only really got into the series in the last year or two. Since then, I’ve played Resident Evil 2 Remake, Resident Evil 3 Remake, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil 8, plus part of Resident Evil 5 with that same friend since it’s co-op.
I also hadn’t really been playing many single-player games before getting into Resident Evil. Most of what I usually play are multiplayer shooters, so these were a really easy transition. They still have the shooting and movement I’m used to, just attached to an actual story instead of a match.
So far, my favorites have easily been the 2, 3 and 4 remakes. I know a lot of people hate RE3 Remake, but honestly, I had a great time with it. Jill Valentine is probably my favorite character in the series, and that’s still the only game I’ve actually played with her in it, so I’m definitely biased there.
Those games feel like the perfect balance of creepy atmosphere and actually playing a video game.
The newer first-person style games never fully clicked for me. Resident Evil 7 and 8 had good moments, but I mostly remember them feeling slow until the last stretch, where things finally picked up. They leaned so hard into pure horror that sometimes it felt like I was waiting for the game to start instead of actually playing it.
Resident Evil 9 feels like it finally figured out how to combine both approaches.
The first villain you run into, Victor Gideon, also immediately sets the tone. He’s about as stereotypically villainous as possible, and the fact that everything about him is snake-themed really doesn’t help his case.
The game has you switch between playing as the newly introduced Grace Ashcroft, an FBI analyst with a connection to the greater mystery of the game, and Leon S. Kennedy, a returning veteran character of the Resident Evil series.
Grace’s sections are slower, more horror-focused, and Leon’s are more action-heavy, but instead of clashing, they actually support each other. The scary parts feel more tense because you know the pace won’t stay slow forever, and the action feels better because the tension had time to build first.
I’ve also been spoiled on most of the story beforehand, so unless something dramatically changes near the end, I have a pretty good idea of how I’ll feel overall. Even without finishing it yet, I can already tell the pacing works way better for me.
I’m rarely bored. I’m either tense, exploring or actually fighting something. The game doesn’t sit in one mood long enough to drag, which was my biggest problem with 7 and parts of 8.
More importantly, I actually enjoy playing it moment to moment. I’m thinking about positioning, ammo and movement instead of just creeping through hallways hoping something doesn’t jump out at me.
I still plan on going back and playing the rest of the series eventually, even the ones people warn me about, like Resident Evil 6. But Resident Evil 9 feels like the direction I personally want the series to go.
By the time this article is published, I’ll probably be further along, maybe even finished.
But where I’m at right now, already more than halfway through, Resident Evil 9 feels like it could become my favorite in the series. And honestly, the fact that I’m this confident before the credits even roll might be the strongest praise I can give it.
Whitford can be reached at [email protected].
