Resident Evil Requiem came out on 27 February 2026 (release date) and is, for now, the latest point in the timeline: it takes place on 8 and 9 October 2026, 28 years after a missile wiped out Raccoon City (the marketing says “30 years”; the game says 28). It has two protagonists: Grace Ashcroft, an FBI analyst who has never been in a fight, and Leon S. Kennedy, who survived that night in 1998 and is now dying of it.
This page tells everything the game reveals: the history behind it, the characters, the plot chapter by chapter of the Requiem guide, the two endings and what it changes about Raccoon City and Umbrella. The first section spoils nothing; the rest does.
Before you start
The game takes place in and around Wrenwood, a Midwestern city next to the ruins of Raccoon City. Wrenwood escaped the 1998 outbreak, but not the economic ruin. The ruins are still quarantined, walled off by the army, and the lockdown has just been extended to 2040 (Note Regarding Research Results).
Something is killing the survivors of 1998. Grace is writing up the fourth death when her boss, Nathan Dempsy, sends her to see the fifth: a body in the Wrenwood Hotel, closed and burnt out since her mother, Alyssa Ashcroft, was murdered there in 2018. Meanwhile Leon, a DSO agent, is following the same deaths with Sherry Birkin on the other end of the radio.
The illness has a name: Raccoon City Syndrome (RCS), “Latent Onset T-Virus Syndrome”. The t-Virus that stayed dormant in the 1998 survivors slowly adapts to their antibodies and wakes up. According to the Report on Raccoon City Syndrome, dormancy is followed by three stages: black bruise-like marks and a cough; spreading marks, numbness and vomiting blood; and the end stage, which kills in one or two hours. People who die of RCS do not rise as zombies. Leon has it and hides it. Behind it all there is a name, Elpis, the last project of Oswell E. Spencer, and a man who believes Grace is the key to opening it.
Spoilers from here on: the rest of the page tells all of Requiem, both endings included, and what it reveals about RE2, RE3, RE5 and RE6.
The history behind it
Most of what follows comes from Grace’s Report, the report Grace writes at the end (it unlocks in Bonuses; according to the wiki, after finishing with the true ending), and from the game’s files.
Spencer and the 1980 plan. In 1968 Oswell E. Spencer, James Marcus and Edward Ashford found Umbrella; Spencer’s stated aim is the “viral evolution of the human race”. In 1978 Marcus develops the t-Virus. On 22 April 1980 Spencer signs a four-step roadmap: the Wesker Project and the t-Virus; ARK as the command centre; the development of Elpis; and memory transfer with forced evolution. ARK is his secret lab under Raccoon City, its entrance hidden in the Raccoon City Orphanage; it is run by an artificial intelligence, N0-AH (N0-AH Status Report), and the vault that holds Elpis is called PANDORA.
The orphanage and the clones. Spencer believed memory lives in the blood and that the t-Virus could carry it into a host who survived a mutated strain (Spencer’s Research II). In the 1980s ARK grows cloned embryos and raises them in the orphanage, right above the lab (New Researcher’s Notebook). The Series 60 children are given recombinant DNA, Spencer’s plasma and the t-Virus to inherit his memories. They fail: they develop “mental abnormalities” (Series 60 Results). Charlotte, born on 14 November 1982, is “discarded” on 14 January 1990 (Toe Tag).
In February 1990 the Series 60 kill the orphanage staff and the dead children rise from their coffins. Chloe, the first of the Series 70 and the only stable one, flees into ARK, finds out she was raised in a tube and is caught. Most likely she was put down; the game does not show it. Whose DNA these children carry is never said.
Elpis. According to Grace’s Report, Elpis is finished in the mid-1990s. Spencer stops visiting the orphanage, which passes to William Birkin’s jurisdiction late in the decade. A message of his sums up the project: “Tricell, H.C.F., The Family, and Umbrella. Elpis shall bring it all to an end.” The only leak is that Elpis could “upset the military balance of the entire world”, and that it is locked behind a password only Spencer knows. Everyone who hunts for it takes it for a weapon. The name is Greek: Elpis is hope, the one thing left inside Pandora’s box.
The Connections inside Umbrella. The syndicate that sells bioweapons in RE7 and Village was already inside in the 1980s. In 1986 one of its fronts, the F Foundation, donates 30 million dollars to Marcus. When Marcus dies, in 1988, his protégé Brandon Bailey becomes its contact. The report also ties Albert Wesker to Tricell, and Tricell to The Connections.
Raccoon City, 1998. Alyssa Ashcroft was a reporter for the Raccoon Press and one of the eight people trapped in the bar on the night of 23 September 1998, when the outbreak began: she is one of the playable protagonists of Resident Evil Outbreak and File #2. According to the wiki, she is the only one of the eight whose survival is official. It is the same outbreak RE2 and RE3 live through.
Requiem changes the reason for the missile. The Connections secure ARK first and then lobby for the city to be bombed, so that the blame falls on Spencer alone and they can take Umbrella’s assets. In the minutes of their first assembly (Access Log: First Assembly Minutes), “The Defense” objects that there is no presidential authorization, and someone called “K.D.” answers: “The organization is involved… The blame will fall solely on Spencer.” On 1 October 1998 the missile wipes out the city (Report on the Raccoon City Incident). A redacted Level 9 memo to the White House Chief of Staff ends ”… for the sake of Elpis” (Special Directive for Raccoon City).
Umbrella’s fall. At the Umbrella trials, Wesker testifies against Spencer. Victor Gideon, a t-Virus researcher who idolized Spencer, does not show up and disappears (Report on Victor Gideon). Umbrella goes bankrupt in 2004 according to the game (the earlier games said early 2003). With Connections money, Victor buys the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, a sanatorium on the outskirts of Wrenwood once funded by Spencer’s foundation, and runs it for more than twenty years.
Spencer, Grace and Alyssa. After the bankruptcy (the game gives no exact date), Spencer grants a single interview, to Alyssa. He shows her a baby: Grace, an ordinary orphan he has adopted. He says his research “opened Pandora’s box” and hopes the interview will serve as “a requiem to those who have passed”. His butler, Patrick, holds the child. In her notes, Alyssa finds him “More rational than expected. A ‘pure’ scientist… Anger? Regret?” (Alyssa’s Interview Notes).
In late 2004 Victor writes: “My master’s research has come to fruition. And that child. She must be the final piece”; The Connections get him the child’s medical records (Victor’s Journal Entry). In 2006 Spencer dies at his estate (in RE5, at Wesker’s hands). Patrick writes to Alyssa: the will names her guardian of “my adopted daughter, Grace” (Letter from Patrick). Alyssa never tells Grace, and the two of them move from town to town.
From 2013 to 2023. In 2013 President Adam Benford is assassinated (RE6); according to the report, he wanted to tell the truth about Raccoon City. In 2016 Alyssa writes about the disappearances in Dulvey, Louisiana, the setting of RE7. On the night of 19 October 2018, a hooded assassin sent by Victor, infected with a mutated t-Virus strain, kills the Wrenwood Hotel’s manager and Alyssa in front of Grace; he dies of Alyssa’s gunshots and the hotel burns. The next day Victor’s disposal team removes the evidence (Disposal Team Report). In 2023 the BSAA’s North American branch finds ARK, tries to take it and is wiped out by B.O.W.s and Connections operatives, who have used ARK since 1998 as North America’s bioweapon factory (Raccoon City Bioweapon Research - Report).
The characters
- Grace Ashcroft: FBI intelligence analyst since 2025, at the Midwestern field office. Introverted, with no combat experience. She is Spencer’s adopted daughter and, after his death, Alyssa’s. Victor believes she is the one success of the memory transfer: that she carries Spencer’s memories and the Elpis password. She is not a clone and has no link to the experiments: Victor’s blood test only compared her with her own old medical records. The game gives no date of birth; she is in her early twenties.
- Leon S. Kennedy: RE2’s rookie, later a government agent and DSO agent (RE4, RE6). He is about 49. He has stage 1 RCS at the start and hides the bruises from the DSO; he sees the mission as a way to atone for Raccoon City. He wears a ring on his left ring finger, but the game never says he is married.
- Sherry Birkin: his support on the radio. The girl Leon and Claire saved in 1998, a G-Virus carrier, raised in Derek C. Simmons’s custody and a DSO agent in RE6. She is now on desk duty, with stage 1 RCS on her left hand (the G-Virus slows it) and taking oxycodone.
- Victor Gideon: the antagonist. A former Umbrella researcher who worshipped Spencer without ever working at ARK. He runs Rhodes Hill, kidnapped and infected hundreds of people to study their blood, named RCS (“Umbrella’s Curse”) and carries an implanted Nemesis-γ parasite that lets him keep his mind.
- Zeno: a high-ranking Connections agent, Victor’s employer and financier (“Z” in the minutes and in the Visitor Record). He has powers like Wesker’s, but weaker and with human pupils, and RCS marks on his face, which suggest he was in Raccoon City in 1998; the game never says so. He wants Elpis because he believes it is a mind-control virus that also spreads.
- Emily: “Subject 171”, a blind girl (cataracts from an experiment) who reads braille, raised behind glass at Rhodes Hill. She is a clone grown in ARK.
- Marie, The Girl: “Subject 170”, Emily’s cellmate, another clone. A mix of infected blood gave her strength but no memories (Subject 170 Record); she mutated, cannot bear light and still protects Emily.
- Chloe: the girl from 1990, first of the Series 70. You play her in the orphanage flashback.
- Alyssa Ashcroft: the Outbreak survivor and reporter who interviewed Spencer. She dies in 2018; her disk is the key to the ending.
- Oswell E. Spencer: he appears only in the recorded interview and on an orphanage monitor. Requiem paints him as remorseful, though Grace’s Report admits most remember him as “nothing but a senile old man”.
- The Commander: leader of The Connections’ Elite Guard in ARK. That he is HUNK is a rumour (they share an English voice actor); the game does not confirm it.
- The rest: Norman Cole, the Wrenwood policeman; Harry Reed, the pilot hired by The Connections; the hooded man of 2018; the Care Center’s people, with Chairman Mitchell Bennett; Chris Redfield, who does not appear, and Umber Eyes, of the Hound Wolf Squad; and the 1998 veterans of the R.P.D.
The story, chapter by chapter
Full spoilers. Each stretch links the guide chapter where it happens.
Wrenwood. In chapter 1, Grace enters the Wrenwood Hotel with Officer Norman Cole. Room 204 is papered with photos of her and her mother: Victor wants to confirm he has the right person. A 2018 flashback shows the hooded man and the death of Alyssa, who first hides a satchel behind a painting and tells Grace “you are my hope”. In the present, Grace recovers the journal from there (Alyssa’s Journal) along with a disk. Cole, hit by one of Victor’s darts, turns, and Grace has to kill him. Upstairs Victor Gideon is waiting: he planted the body to lure her, calls her “the chosen one” and chokes her unconscious.
Leon and Sherry are on the RCS deaths; a DSO agent has already identified Victor. Stuck in traffic, Leon sees Victor carrying Grace. Victor darts bystanders with a mutated t-Virus strain to start an outbreak; Leon contains it, but loses him.
The Care Center. In chapter 2 Grace wakes up at Rhodes Hill, strapped to a machine draining her blood, and The Girl hunts her. Leon arrives and Victor orders “Code 6”: staff and patients are infected. Leon finds Grace, passes her his magnum, the Requiem, under a closing shutter, and Victor chokes him unconscious. Seeing his black bruises, he gives the diagnosis: “Umbrella’s Curse”.
In chapter 3 a dying staffer tells Grace about Emily, the blind girl behind the glass, and her cellmate Marie, who dug her way into the basement and is The Girl. Victor tells her she is “the key” to Elpis and that “her master” made her; she tricks him and escapes. She frees Emily, who reads the braille on a box, and The Girl drags Emily into the basement. The chapter’s files, such as Victor’s Journal Entry and Background Check, show how long Victor has been watching her.
In chapter 4 Victor interrogates Leon, cuts his neck with a scalpel and calls him “a dead man walking”. Leon breaks free, kills Chunk, reaches Victor’s hidden office and enters a wrong password on purpose so Sherry can pull the files: the Report on Raccoon City Syndrome, the Special Directive for Raccoon City and the word Elpis next to a photo of Grace.
In chapter 5 Grace finds Emily unconscious in The Girl’s cell, full of dolls, and escapes in a lift; The Girl rides it with them, the cable snaps and The Girl falls. In chapter 6 the pilot Harry Reed promises to fly them out. In the lab under the cabin, Grace overhears Victor talking to Zeno: her blood matches “the specified data” (Grace Ashcroft Blood Analysis Report). Victor sets off the self-destruct, the helicopter crashes in the cemetery, Reed dies and Emily is badly hurt. In chapter 7 Leon covers them with a rifle from the rooftops, holds out in the chapel against a Blister Borne and sends them ahead to the water plant.
The Water Treatment Plant. In chapter 8 Grace opens the roof hatch at dawn and the sunlight melts The Girl: Marie dies on 9 October. Emily has bled out; Grace’s CPR revives her, but the dormant t-Virus makes her mutate, and Leon has to shoot her (Emily, mutated) while Grace begs him not to. Grace throws the Requiem back at him and walks away. Victor introduces her to his employer, Zeno, who tells her she is both the reason Raccoon City was destroyed and its potential saviour; Grace boards their helicopter to learn what Elpis is. Leon coughs blood: his RCS has reached stage 2.
Raccoon City. In chapter 9 Sherry finds nothing on Elpis at the CIA or the Pentagon, and no official authorization for the 1998 missile strike; she is ordered off the case and refuses. Leon kills the Titan Spinner, a leftover from 1998, and reaches the BSAA camp, whose North American branch now operates on its own. A dead soldier’s helmet camera shows his killer, a man Sherry can find no record of: a “ghost”. Who he is has not been confirmed: the wiki describes him with Wesker’s looks and powers, which points to Zeno, not to The Commander. On the elevated highway, Leon beats Victor and his Garmrs: Victor’s bike goes up in flames and he falls into a chasm, where, according to the wiki, he loses his left arm.
The R.P.D. In chapter 10 Leon returns to the police station 28 years later, pays his respects to Marvin Branagh, the fallen officers and Robert Kendo (the 1998 veterans), and finds Marvin’s plan for a welcome party for “young Kennedy” (Top Secret Operation). In the East Wing, Zeno tells Grace his version: Elpis is Spencer’s last virus, a contagious mind-control weapon every covert military is hunting; The Connections lobbied for the missile strike, using their ties to The Family to push through Simmons’s “Sterilization Strategy”; Benford was killed for trying to reveal it. And Emily is one of many clones, going back to Chloe, all made from Grace, “the original”. Zeno is repeating what Victor believes, and he is wrong: ARK’s clones date from the 1980s, before Grace was born, and all Victor took from her was her genetic records.
The orphanage. Chapter 11 is the recording Zeno shows her: February 1990. You play Chloe, unarmed, while the Series 60 kill a doctor and the dead children (The Children) rise in the underground chapel. Chloe reaches ARK’s labs, sees Spencer on a monitor, finds out she came from a tube (“Is that how I—?”) and is caught. Grace, convinced that she caused those children’s deaths and her mother’s, and that she was “made”, faints.
Blackthorn Station. In chapter 12 Leon bursts in, Zeno sets the Tyrant T-501 on him and carries Grace off to ARK. Outside the station, Leon blows up the Tyrant’s missile, destroying its coat (which limited its strength), and kills it as the Super Tyrant. Then he goes down through the ruined orphanage and Blackthorn Station to ARK’s entrance, where he kills Plant 43.
ARK. In chapter 13 Leon finds crates from H.C.F., Tricell and Umbrella, and The Connections’ 2026 catalogue, with the Nemesis-γ priced as “negotiable” (Product Catalog 2 (2026)). The Elite Guard ambush him and their leader, The Commander, challenges him to a knife duel (“Leon Kennedy. We finally meet.”). He loses, with what looks like a fatal cut to the neck, but his body later vanishes. In PANDORA, Zeno is pressing Grace for the password; Leon’s RCS flares and Zeno outclasses him. Grace holds Leon’s gun to her own head to save him, Leon shoots the crane lines and the two of them fall into ARK’s waste disposal system.
In chapter 14 Leon wakes up at stage 3. Grace realizes he also survived 1998; Leon, who sees this mission as atonement, makes her promise to destroy Elpis. Grace crosses the labs alone, gets him out of the dump with the crane and opens the Archives. There she finds the minutes of the 51st assembly (Access Log: 51st Assembly Minutes), where “The State” and “Z” report the key found and the BSAA “fully under our control”, and the 1998 minutes that ordered the missile strike. At the central console there is a slot for her mother’s disk.
In chapter 15 Leon climbs out of the dump and collapses at PANDORA’s door. Grace plays the disk: it is Alyssa’s interview with Spencer. Grace is a naturally born child, adopted and left to Alyssa in his will; Elpis was Spencer’s “blind hope”. Grace goes back to Leon. He offers to buy time so she can enter a wrong password; she has another idea, and he trusts her. Grace offers Zeno to unlock Elpis if he spares Leon. The console asks: “What does the creator desire?” It is the only choice in the game.
The two endings
An autosave just before Grace finds Leon lets you see both. The canon one is the first: the only one with a final boss, a story trophy and a post-credits scene.
Release Elpis (password “Hope”), the true ending. Grace remembers her mother’s last words, believes in Spencer’s regret and types “Hope”. Six vials rise. Zeno, sure it is the mind-control virus, shoves Grace aside and injects one: he loses his powers and his RCS. Elpis is an antiviral that undoes infections from the Progenitor family (t-Virus, G-Virus, RCS) and reverses mutations. Spencer made it to atone for what he had done, and Grace was never special.
Then Victor returns, missing his left arm. He admits Spencer’s notes were incomplete and the clones had nothing to do with Elpis, but hails it as his master’s genius: with every viral weapon made useless, the world order will fall into chaos, and he will carry on Spencer’s dream of forced evolution. Zeno answers that Spencer was “nothing”, that he defied The Connections and paid for it with his life. A Nemesis-γ tentacle grows from Victor’s stump: he beheads Zeno and stabs Grace. Victor takes a vial and enters a wrong password to destroy PANDORA and ARK. Grace injects Leon with Elpis, curing him, and the platform collapses.
Leon fights Victor Gideon, first mutated and charged with ARK’s electricity, and finally in a Nemesis-like form; he finishes him with the Requiem. Trapped in the dark, Grace loses hope, until Umber Eyes rappels in with the Hound Wolf Squad, sent by Chris Redfield: their orders are to extract Leon and Grace and recover Elpis samples. Umber Eyes passes Leon a message from Chris; what it said is not confirmed. Topside, Leon tells Sherry he feels better and has a vial for her; Sherry asks where Chris is, and Leon doesn’t know. To Grace, who blames herself, he says Emily may still be alive: he didn’t hit anything vital.
The epilogue. Emily was found alive inside her mutated form; Elpis cured her and restored her sight, and Grace has adopted her. On the phone, Leon tells Grace that Sherry is cured, until Dempsy interrupts, asking for her report: Grace’s Report. The last shot is Grace’s desk, with a photo of Alyssa and one of her with Emily. According to Wikipedia, what comes out of ARK sparks a global scandal and new investigations into Umbrella, The Connections and the US government.
After the credits. In ARK’s ruins, two soldiers, most likely from The Connections (Wikipedia calls them an unidentified faction), walk past dead BSAA troops: the remaining forces have been neutralized and they are “proceeding to the objective before they send in the wolves”. Then they leave.
Destroy Elpis (password “Destruction”), the bad ending. Grace keeps her promise and ARK’s self-destruct begins. Zeno goes for her; Leon buries his hatchet in Zeno’s neck, pushes Grace off the platform and stays behind. Zeno shoots Leon in the head as Grace screams. ARK goes down with Elpis and, according to the wiki, with Zeno, who keeps his powers. The BSAA picks Grace up, and she looks back wishing she could have saved Leon. There is no Victor fight, no epilogue and no post-credits scene: by implication Emily stays dead and Sherry is not cured.
Requiem in the saga
Raccoon City. Requiem follows the RE2 and RE3 remakes, and rewrites their ending: the missile was not containment, but a Connections operation to take ARK and blame Spencer. The return to the R.P.D. is full of 1998: Marvin, Kendo, Barry Burton’s scavenger hunt, Jill’s beret. The orphanage from the RE2 remake turns out to be a test-subject bank for ARK. The full thread is in Raccoon City.
Spencer and Umbrella. The Spencer of RE5 was a megalomaniac who wanted to remake the world; Requiem gives him last years of remorse, an adopted daughter and an antiviral. Grace’s Report does not absolve him: his true intentions “will forever remain unknown”. Patrick, the butler of his memoirs in RE5 (Patrick’s Memoirs 1), is the one who holds the baby and writes to Alyssa. Zeno says Spencer died for defying The Connections, which, if true, would put the syndicate behind his death at Wesker’s hands in Lost in Nightmares; that is Zeno’s word, not a fact of the game. More in Umbrella.
Wesker’s shadow. The Wesker Project is step 1 of the 1980 plan, Wesker testifies against Spencer at the trials and Grace’s Report ties him to Tricell, and Tricell to The Connections; and Zeno has powers like his without anyone explaining why. The thread is in Wesker.
Leon and Sherry. Requiem closes a circle opened in RE2: Leon and Sherry survived that night and are now dying of it. RE6 comes back through Simmons, The Family and the death of Benford, which Zeno ties to the missile.
The Connections, the Mold and Village. The syndicate that created Eveline in RE7 and dealt with Miranda in Village gets its history here: money for Marcus in 1986, a contact inside Umbrella, ARK since 1998 and ties to the US government. When Zeno says that “the technology to control another’s will already exists. But it’s not efficient at infecting others”, the wiki reads it as a reference to Eveline and the Mold. There are smaller nods: a bottle of Sanguis Virginis in the VIP Suite in chapter 6, Emily’s braille book, Village of Shadows, and Village’s Hound Wolf Squad, rogue since 2018. Requiem does not mention Ethan, Mia or Rose.
Bioterrorism. The H.C.F., Tricell and Umbrella crates in ARK, the North American BSAA acting on its own and a syndicate that claims to control it carry on what bioterrorism tells. In the timeline, Requiem comes after RE7 and Village.
Open questions and the announced expansion
The true ending leaves a lot open:
- The post-credits soldiers: who they are and what “the objective” is: the Elpis vials, Victor’s remains, ARK’s data?
- Chris Redfield: where he is, why he sent the Hound Wolf Squad instead of coming himself and what his message said.
- The Commander: his body vanished, and his identity (HUNK?) is unconfirmed.
- Zeno: where his powers and his RCS come from. Was he in Raccoon City in 1998? Was he part of the Wesker Project?
- K.D., “The Defense” and “The State”: who in the US government ordered the missile strike without presidential authorization.
- The other 1998 survivors: if RCS comes from that night’s t-Virus, Jill, Claire, Carlos or Alyssa’s Outbreak companions could be ill. The game names none of them, and the cure exists in only a few vials.
- Elpis and the BSAA: whether Elpis will be mass-produced, and whether The Connections really control the BSAA.
- Spencer: what he really wanted, what the redaction hides in the line “Elpis will be their ■■■■” in Alyssa’s notes, and whether The Connections had a hand in his death.
- Grace: who her birth parents were.
The story expansion. Director Koshi Nakanishi confirmed on 10 March 2026 that a story expansion is in development. As of September 2026 it has no title, content or date. The rumours about its date are unconfirmed. The “Last Days” DLC, with Ada Wong and a Mercenaries mode, came from an April Fools’ article of 1 April 2026: it does not exist.
What does exist: Leon Must Die Forever, a free minigame (8 May 2026) in which Leon goes after Victor again, which the wiki treats as non-canon; and the five Letters from 1998 in the Deluxe Kit, from Meryl, Marvin Branagh’s daughter (From Meryl to Mommy). The details are in the guide’s extras.