Horror game development just got a reality check from an unexpected source: the masters themselves. During Tokyo Game Show 2025 interviews, Resident Evil: Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi delivered a startling admission that exposes the peculiar challenge of creating terror professionally. “We’ve made so many of these that we can’t tell anymore until someone else plays it,” Nakanishi revealed, explaining how years of crafting nightmares has left the development team completely desensitized to their own scares.
This confession illuminates a fascinating paradox at the heart of horror game development: the people most qualified to create frightening experiences are the least capable of experiencing fear from their own work. For Capcom’s veteran team, who have terrorized millions through Resident Evil 7, Village, and countless other horror projects, the February 27, 2026 release of Requiem represents their ongoing struggle to maintain objectivity about what actually makes players jump out of their seats.
The Horror Developer’s Dilemma
Speaking with IGN, Nakanishi and producer Masato Kumazawa painted a picture of internal uncertainty that would surprise most fans. “There was actually a bit of a worry internally before we showed the [Resident Evil: Requiem] hands-off at SGF and the first hands-on at Gamescom, was this actually scary? Because we don’t even know anymore. This is our bread and butter, what we make every day.”
The revelation exposes how professional horror creators face a unique occupational hazard: complete desensitization to the very emotions they’re trying to evoke. While fans experience each Resident Evil game as a fresh terror, the development team lives with these scares daily for years, analyzing every jump scare frame by frame, debugging monster AI, and fine-tuning atmospheric audio until the frightening becomes mundane.
Kumazawa explained their reliance on external validation: “We don’t know if something’s scary. So we say, we’ll do this, we’ll do that, we keep adding on stuff.” This iterative process continues until they can gauge genuine player reactions, making early demo sessions crucial not just for marketing but for creative validation.
Swinging Back to Resident Evil 2’s Horror Roots
The developers’ uncertainty about fear effectiveness coincides with Requiem’s deliberate return to classic survival horror. Nakanishi described their approach using a fascinating internal framework: “I think you can broadly classify Resident Evil titles on a scale of how much they’re like Resident Evil 2 or Resident Evil 4.”
Resident Evil 7 leaned heavily toward the RE2 side with its emphasis on survival horror elements, while Village incorporated more action and gunplay, shifting toward the RE4 approach. For Requiem, the team made a conscious decision to swing firmly back to the RE2 style, prioritizing atmospheric horror over action spectacle.
“I didn’t want to have to do that with Resident Evil’s ninth title where I just tried to outdo the action in Village and ended up making something I didn’t want to make,” Nakanishi explained. This philosophy reflects awareness of the “inflation effect” where each sequel must escalate action to surpass its predecessor, ultimately leading away from horror toward pure action – a trap that ensnared RE5 and RE6.
The Grace Ashcroft Experience
Requiem introduces FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft as the protagonist, marking another departure from action-heavy characters like Leon Kennedy. The game features dual first-person and third-person perspectives, allowing players to choose their preferred experience – first-person for “tense, realistic gameplay” or third-person for those who prefer “action-packed gameplay.”
Grace faces a persistent stalker monster throughout the game, similar to Mr. X from RE2 or Lady Dimitrescu from Village. However, this creature can track players through walls and ceilings, creating new tactical challenges. Players must crouch and sneak to avoid detection, hide under objects, and use distractions like thrown glass bottles to evade the threat.
The character design reflects Capcom’s commitment to vulnerability over empowerment. Grace carries only a lighter for illumination, which attracts unwanted attention – creating the constant tension between visibility and safety that defines classic survival horror.
Development Team’s Self-Doubt About Scares
The development team’s creative process involves constantly proposing increasingly extreme scenarios to compensate for their lost perspective. Nakanishi shared one particularly revealing anecdote: “We were like, what if [Grace] gets a big gash in her leg, or her leg gets cut off, because that thing attacks her, and oh my god it’s so scary, but we talked ourselves down a little bit.”
This example demonstrates how desensitized developers might overcompensate with excessive violence or gore, thinking such extremes are necessary to achieve the fear response that comes naturally to fresh audiences. The team’s ability to “talk themselves down” suggests experience-based wisdom about finding effective horror without resorting to gratuitous shock value.
The developers noted they couldn’t recall cutting any implemented content for being “too scary,” but acknowledged that their internal discussions sometimes reach extreme proposals before reason prevails. This self-regulation process highlights the professional judgment required to balance genuine scares with tasteful presentation.
Player Reaction as Creative Compass
For horror developers, player reactions serve as essential creative feedback that internal testing cannot provide. The team’s worry before showing Requiem at Summer Game Fest and Gamescom reveals how crucial these public demonstrations are for validating creative decisions.
Unlike other game genres where developers can rely on personal enjoyment or technical metrics, horror requires emotional responses that creators themselves cannot experience. Jump scares, atmospheric tension, and psychological unease must be tested on fresh audiences to determine effectiveness.
This dependency on external validation creates unique pressure during development. The team must commit significant resources to creating scary sequences without knowing if they work until public testing occurs. Failed scares cannot be easily patched – they require fundamental rethinking of pacing, atmosphere, and presentation.
The Innovation vs. Tradition Balance
Nakanishi noted that their goal “isn’t necessarily to innovate horror,” but rather to deliver effective scares within the established Resident Evil framework. This approach prioritizes proven techniques over experimental mechanics that might alienate core audiences.
However, maintaining effectiveness with familiar tools becomes increasingly challenging as players develop expectations and resistance to standard horror tropes. The team must find new ways to surprise audiences while honoring the series’ identity and avoiding the action-inflation trap that compromised earlier sequels.
Requiem’s return to RE2-style survival horror represents this balance – using classic foundations while incorporating modern technology and design sensibilities to create fresh experiences within familiar frameworks.
Industry Implications of Developer Desensitization
The Resident Evil team’s admission raises broader questions about creative industries where professionals lose sensitivity to their own work’s emotional impact. Horror writers, filmmakers, and game developers all face similar challenges maintaining perspective on material that becomes routine through constant exposure.
This phenomenon might explain why some horror sequels escalate violence unnecessarily – creators mistake extreme content for effective scares because they’ve lost touch with normal fear responses. Recognizing this limitation, as Capcom has, allows for more thoughtful creative processes that rely on audience feedback rather than internal assumptions.
The gaming industry could benefit from more developers acknowledging similar limitations in their respective genres, whether regarding humor, excitement, or emotional resonance. Professional detachment from one’s own work’s emotional impact appears to be an occupational hazard across creative fields.
What This Means for Requiem’s Success
The team’s honest assessment of their limitations suggests a development process grounded in humility rather than assumption. By acknowledging their desensitization and actively seeking external validation, they demonstrate commitment to delivering genuinely frightening experiences rather than just technically proficient ones.
This approach likely contributed to Requiem’s positive early reception at gaming events, where fresh audiences could provide the honest feedback that internal testing cannot generate. The game’s February 2026 release will serve as the ultimate test of whether this humble, audience-focused approach creates effective horror.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can’t Resident Evil developers tell if their game is scary?
Director Koshi Nakanishi explains they’ve made so many horror games that they’ve become desensitized to scares, requiring fresh player reactions to gauge what’s actually frightening.
When does Resident Evil: Requiem release?
The game launches February 27, 2026, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC platforms.
What type of horror experience is Requiem aiming for?
The developers are deliberately swinging back toward Resident Evil 2’s survival horror style, prioritizing atmosphere and tension over the action-heavy approach of recent entries.
Who is the protagonist in Resident Evil: Requiem?
Players control Grace Ashcroft, an FBI analyst who faces a persistent stalker monster throughout the game while investigating mysterious deaths at a hotel.
Can you play in both first and third-person perspectives?
Yes, Requiem allows switching between first-person (for tense, realistic gameplay) and third-person (for action-packed gameplay) at any time.
Did the developers cut any content for being too scary?
Nakanishi couldn’t recall removing implemented content for being too frightening, but noted they sometimes “talk themselves down” from extreme ideas during development.
How do horror developers test if their games are actually scary?
They rely entirely on fresh player reactions at events like Summer Game Fest and Gamescom, since internal team members have become completely desensitized to their own work.
Conclusion
The Resident Evil: Requiem team’s confession about losing perspective on horror effectiveness offers rare insight into the creative challenges facing professional fear-mongers. Their honest admission that “we can’t tell anymore” until fresh audiences respond reveals a humility that could be the key to Requiem’s success.
By acknowledging their occupational desensitization and building development processes around external feedback, Capcom demonstrates mature understanding of horror game creation’s unique demands. The team’s commitment to RE2-style survival horror, combined with their audience-focused approach to fear validation, suggests February 2026 could deliver the genuinely frightening experience that both developers and fans desperately want.
Whether this humble, player-reaction-dependent approach succeeds remains to be seen, but it represents a refreshing departure from developers who assume they know what scares people. In an industry where creator vision often overshadows audience experience, Requiem’s team admits they need players to tell them when they’ve succeeded in creating nightmares. That kind of honesty might just be the secret ingredient that makes the game truly terrifying.