Resident Evil Showcase January 2026: 5 Things We Learned

Today, Capcom is holding a Resident Evil Showcase event set to feature “brand new gameplay and news” for Resident Evil Requiem, among other things.

The showcase is taking place at 2pm PT, 5pm ET, and 10pm UK, with a post-show discussion stream to follow, though it’s unclear exactly what that will be about.

Resident Evil: Reqiuem is just a few weeks away, and we’ve already seen quite a bit of it, including the long-awaited reveal of Leon S. Kennedy, who is apparently going to be playable as well, and what seems to be a tease of an open world…or at least a pretty big shift in how the series has historically treated its settings.

Now that the showcase itself is over, it turns out it was actually…pretty thin as far as new information. It was entirely related to Resident Evil: Requiem, and almost fully focused on stuff you can buy in connection with the game. Here’s a quick rundown of the five big takeaways from the showcase today:

Resident Evil: Requiem’s Difficulty Settings

Resident Evil: Requiem will have at least three different difficulty settings, and one in particular seems pretty cool. There’s a Casual mode for those who just want to focus on the story, and it comes with an aim assist. And there’s a Standard mode, which is just what it sounds like.

But the really neat one is Standard (Classic) difficulty, which is the Standard difficulty but with an added challenge, where Grace will need to collect ink ribbons for typewriters in order to save her game.

Bloody It Up

A new game mechanic was revealed today related to the crafting system. In RE: Requiem, a number of items are only craftable using infected blood, which is obtained by killing zombies. Though Grace isn’t much of a fighter, she does have a gun on her (appropriately called Requiem) that she uses to get out of tight jams, and she’ll need to use it to take down zombies so she can get their blood and craft more useful survival tools.

There’s a Lot of Stuff You Can Buy, If You Want

A surprising amount of today’s showcase was dedicated to stuff you can buy in real-life that ties in with the game. There’s a watch collaboration with Hamilton for two different watches, one for Grace and one for Leon, that they’ll wear in-game, and only 2,000 of each watch are being made for sale. There’s the amiibo, which we already knew about, and a special Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller themed around Requiem. There are special Resident Evil orchestra concerts coming, and obviously, the Deluxe Edition of the game and all its bonus content. And Capcom is releasing figurines of both Grace and Leon. If you’re interested in buying any of that stuff, it’s all easy enough to find, but this section of the video really did feel a bit shopping channel given the circumstances.

These Zombies Are…Different

There’s something different about the zombies in Resident Evil: Requiem. Rather than just violent and lurching, some of them seem to have other personality traits, and have carried over characteristics from their lives before. For instance, one custodian zombie continues to clean the building even after being turned. There’s another man frantically pushing elevator buttons. And at the end of the trailer, there’s one that straight up talks to Grace. Like, seems to be holding a normal, smooth, human conversation. What’s going on here? Is this a different virus than the usual one? Mysteries!

Elpis

What? Pipis? No, you said Elpis? Okay, sure. At the end of the showcase, there was a mention of some sort of “secret” Leon is carrying, referencing something called “elpis.” We have…no idea what that is! We know now that it’s potentially related to the murder of Grace’s mother, Alyssa, and we can maybe guess that it’s connected in some way to that zombie bite mark fans keep seeing on Leon in trailers. But this is another mystery that will need further investigation. Or, as Leon S. Kennedy put it in the trailer, a second opinion.

Resident Evil: Requiem is coming to Xbox, PC, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch 2 on February 27, 2026.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].