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choerypie · 11 days ago

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more theorizing...got me jumping up and down

RE9 Trailer Breakdown

I know I'm a few hours late to the party here but I had a situation I had to deal with so I saw the trailer drop live, and then immediately had to dip but I have successfully bought a temporary hot spot so that I could download the trailer and make this post!

First reactions out of the way I'm... not really sure how I feel about this. It's so far removed from everything else in the series that I deadass didn't even know it was an RE game until I saw the destroyed RPD, and neither did a lot of people, judging by the live stream comments. And with that out of the way, here's my breakdown (including the tease with Village since that's part of this.)

I'm gonna start with the title: Requiem. As with a lot of Leon things, we get religious references right off the bat. The game is called "Requiem" which is a term for a special Catholic Mass for funerals. Christian theology and especially Catholic imagery has been something that's been very present in Leon's storyline but has mostly been buried in the novelizations, so I think it's very interesting that they're bringing this up in a huge way now. I think it's also important to acknowledge that "requiem" itself is a way of honoring the dead, and for Leon specifically, the survivor's guilt he carries from Raccoon City is something that effects him deeply, it's the crux of his character... and now we're going back to where it all began, a requiem for the people who died in Raccoon City, and Leon is seemingly going to pay for his sins (not being able to save everyone).

Maggie (VA for Lady D) singing happy birthday is definitely a reference to the franchise's 30th birthday, which happens in March of 2026... but it also seems to be a theme of the game as well. Like I said before, we're going back to where it all began. In that scene, we can also see a typewriter with the RPD logo on it detailing the outbreak and a map of the city as well.

The trailer itself opens at some FBI base-- which is particularly interesting to me 'cause we see a lot of fiction government agencies in the series but not a whole lot of real agencies, so it seems like we might finally see the DSO and FBI interact... which hasn't happened before. We know Leon briefly worked with the FBI for the Pittsburgh bombing & outbreak incident from the Infinite Darkness prequel, but that's pretty much all the info we got there. So now we're seeing the FBI in action, and seeing how they handle the BOW incidents too. I tried to see if I could zoom in and see where this base is, but it's too blurry to tell. Maybe if a 4K version of the trailer gets released, I can zoom-enhance it a little.

And then we meet Grace Ashcroft, daughter of the reporter Alyssa Ashcroft. Now this is particularly interesting because not only did it re-confirm that Outbreak was canon (which realistically we've known for a while 'cause of RE7, but it was still a tough pill for some to swallow) but it introduces the daughter of a Raccoon City survivor. Alyssa was an investigative reporter who went to the Arklay Mountains with a guy named Kurt to start looking into one of Umbrella's abandoned hospitals that was running illegal testing. This kicks off a series of events that becomes the plot of Outbreak, but the main point here is that Alyssa survived RC and went on to be one of the people fighting to expose what Umbrella had done. She used her position as a journalist to try to spread the truth, but the government continued to sweep it all under the rug. In the files of RE7, we learn that she wrote an article for the Dulvey Daily about the series of weird deaths that we know eventually transpired into the plot of RE7. But above all else, I think the most important thing to note here is that her article was written in 2016 meaning that, according to the trailer, it's been 8 years since Alyssa died. That would mean RE9 is set in at least 2024.

We learn that Grace was writing some report about another string of deaths and the FBI has another body come in that matches the same pathology of the others (meaning that they likely died of the same virus or whatever it ends up being in this game). Nathan then slides her the file for the Wrenwood Hotel Incident where her mother was murdered... fucked up but so completely on bar for the government, especially in RE lmfao.

We learn Alyssa went to the hotel-- which has a bad reputation for people dying in mysterious ways-- to attempt to solve and unsolved murder but she ended up meeting the same fate as the other victims. And during what looks to be a very Silent Hill type sequence, we also see some guy in a hood-- presumably her killer-- who looks an awful lot like fucked up dying Vergil in DMC5 lmfaooo. Now who this guy is? Your guess is as good as mine. I didn't notice anything in the trailer that points to any specific guy, I'm just hoping that Capcom doesn't pull some fuckass "somehow Wesker returned" bullshit since we're taking the series back to the beginning. Although since they left out Claire, Becca, Chris, and pretty much every other character that was important to the start of the series sans Leon (and another character, but read the spoiler section at the end for that 'cause I don't wanna ruin the surprise for people), we might be in the clear...

And next up we get a very RE4R-esque scene of Grace's eye opening and we learn she's strapped on a table that's held upside down, and it seems clear she's being held captive and likely being experimented on.

We get some quick shots of a house or building or something, but nothing really identifiable. We do get this shot of a bunch of missing posters, however. Perhaps people that went missing during the Raccoon City Incident? The people who died/went missing at the Wrenwood Hotel? It gets zoomed in on too, so it seems like this will be part of the plot.

And then we get a creepy voice over about searching for a "special one, a chosen one" which sounds very reminiscent of the Los Illumindos cult in 4... so it's clear we've got some witchy culty bullshit happening too. The guy calls "Ashcroft" by name, some maybe the guy talking is the same Dying Vergil guy from earlier?

And finally we get to my favorite part of the trailer: the destruction of Raccoon City. We know from previous games that the government, with the help of Benford who voted in favor of this, decided to bomb the fuck out of Raccoon City without trying to rescue anyone both to contain the virus and to bury all evidence of their involvement with Umbrella and, therefore, involvement in what happened. The city is in ruins, and we see the toppled RPD building. While the montage of the destroyed city plays, we here a conversation exchange between a man and a woman. A man says "Investigating all these strange deaths, huh?" and that sounds like Leon too me. It's been leaked already that he's going to be in the game and not only does the voice sound like him, but that speech pattern sounds like him too. The woman (presumably Grace) says "we need to keep our voices down." I'm not sure if they're talking to each other or if those lines are from the same scene since Leon's definitely has an echo and Grace's does not, but I have a few theories about that later on. We also hear a man say "Have you seen the same shit I've seen?!" which I don't think is Leon?? It sounds noticeably different than the first guy-- a lot more gruff and his voice is deeper-- so I don't think they're the same person.

There's more strange voices, someone who says "please know that you are my hope!" (I'm gonna theorize maybe Grace finds a recording of Alyssa as she was investigating the hotel, Alyssa gets captured and she's speaking to Grace in the recording in hopes of surviving) and one that says "everyone's gone" somewhat longingly, but creepily.

And then the outbreak begins. A guy lying bleeding on the floor yells "stay away from [here?]" and then we get this real fuckass shot of something crawling on the ceiling a la The Shining.

Not Vergil from earlier is back and tries to suffocate who I'm going to assume is a politician, based on the way he's dressed. A few more shots of buildings and such and a woman walking and that's it!

The trailer itself kinda tells us fuck all about what's actually happening in this game, which I personally find frustrating. I get that they don't want to spoil everything (including Leon's appearance) in the trailer, but come onnnn I wanna at least know what we're in for. The media reports are saying the game is going to blend the series survival horror with elements of action and psychological horror as well-- but I think the psychological horror element is especially going to come into play for Leon and his likely return to RC.

So, if I had a guess for what's going on, I think we might be dealing with a cult in the ruins of Raccoon City. It was bombed to hell, but there's still buildings standing, so perhaps once the dust cleared, people returned. The cult might be operating out of the Wrenwood Hotel, and Not Vergil may be the leader. It sounds like Not Vergil if not the cult itself are potentially trying to get revenge on the government for what they did to RC, but going about it in a very "what the actual fuck" way and taking down others with them. Grace gets tasked to the mission and the DSO sends Leon to investigate, it triggers both of their traumas since Grace is revisiting the death of her mother and Leon is revisiting one of the worst days of his entire life. They bump into each other along the way since Leon is the expert and Grace is probably "in over her head" and they have a sort of Helena-Leon Ashley-Leon combo vibe happening. She'll be like Helena in the way that they bump into each other in the field and they both work for the government and are on separate missions, but Ashley-like in the way that she's obviously been kidnapped by the cult (or whoever this ends up being) and is a bit out of her element. I think they're likely going to play the "Grace is used to her desk job," angle which... sigh... but I hope they let her fight and actually let her do things. The game is said to take inspiration from Se7en, although I can't find a source for that, but I can definitely see the inspiration in the trailer. All in all, it seems like less of a Resident Evil game and more of some Silent Hill Se7en crossover.

In other news, I want to go back in time and kick myself because I came up with a whole. fucking. list. of potential RE9 titles and I literally had requiem on the list but I didn't put it in my top 4 post about it 'cause I thought it was one of the less-likely things...

LEAK SECTION

I also want to tie in some info that's been passed around from the guy that leaked that the trailer was dropping today and some of the plot elements, so consider this your potential spoiler warning:

Based on the way this trailer played out, it does look like the rumors about this being Leon's "last game" that ties his story back to the beginning might actually be true. This is also where the confirmation of Leon being in the game comes from, but I didn't feel the need to spoiler-warning that since most people seem to have already figured out that it's him based on the voice over hehe.

With that said, it sounds like Grace and Leon will be the 2 playable characters. Jill is supposed to show up at some point as well (thank fucking god), but how much of a role she plays in the game hasn't really been leaked or hinted at yet.

#resident evil requiem #re9 #potential spoilers ig

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