Resident Evil’s executive producer explains the deeper meaning behind Requiem, and I just can’t get on board

I was brought up with the mindset that when you start something you should see it through to the end, even if it gets a bit tricky. So perhaps that’s why Resident Evil dropping its in-built Roman numerals irks me so.

It all started with Resident Evil: 7 Biohazard where the Roman numerals for seven were shoved into the ‘Evil‘ and then continued with Resident Evil: Village. So, in the lead up to Resident Evil 9 I was on tenterhooks, eager to find out how Capcom was going to incorporate IX into its title.

I had my own theories, settling on Helix or Appendix as my favourite options. It made sense in my head, what with their respective links to DNA as well as the T-virus, and an icky body part that simultaneously means something that comes at the end of a story—I really liked appendix.

Alas, we didn’t get either or those—we didn’t get an IX at all—we got Resident Evil Requiem.

I made my peace with Requiem, it has cool connotations for the game, referring to a prayer for the soul of the deceased or a general act of remembering someone who has died. I also saw one promotional image that turned the ‘q’ in Requiem into the number nine, so that’s something, maybe. But wait, there’s more.

Resident Evil’s executive producer Jun Takeuchi has revealed in chat with Japanese press for RE’s 30th anniversary (via GamesRadar) that the name Requiem holds much more than just the above, bog-standard meaning:

“Let me give you a hint: ‘Requiem’ isn’t just a title chosen for its meaning of ‘requiem.’ The spelling of Requiem (REQUIEM) contains not only the ‘RE (response)’ mentioned earlier, but also a ‘Q (question).’ In other words, this ‘Requiem’ presents both an ‘answer’ and a ‘question.’ I will explain the meaning of that at some point in the future.”

Yeah, I don’t think I’m entirely on board with this breakdown of Requiem. I guess it makes sense but it’s also giving off GCSE English blue curtain vibes. I am, however, intrigued to find out more about this in the future, and perhaps we can also discover what the rest of Requiem stands for. Who knows, it could go something like: ‘U’ for you the player, ‘I’ for me, the player, ‘E’ for evil residents, and ‘M’ for me, the player, again (I get two because I’m special).