There’s only a month left until the release of Resident Evil: Requiem. Time is running out, and on February 27, we’ll see the result of Capcom’s ambitious plans. But you don’t have to just sit around and wait.
We’ve compiled a list of games to help you productively spend the last few weeks before the premiere. From cult prequels to modern blockbusters, this selection has everything you need to refresh your survival skills and build excitement for the big release at the end of winter.
Resident Evil Outbreak
This is a must-read for anyone who wants to delve into the lore of the upcoming release. Since Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of journalist Alyssa, is one of the two protagonists of Requiem, familiarizing yourself with the Outbreak duology is almost mandatory. There, you will learn about Alyssa’s biography and witness the events in Raccoon City that will haunt Grace in the new game. The main series has long ignored the story arcs of these spin-offs, but now Capcom is finally bringing them back into the canon.
Additionally, Outbreak is a unique cooperative survival simulator featuring ordinary citizens such as doctors, waitresses, and plumbers. Unlike the main characters, they have no special training; however, they have a ticking virus in their blood that constantly propels them forward. One key feature is the ability to barricade doors with cabinets and other furniture to delay enemies. It seems that Capcom wants to recreate this atmosphere of complete vulnerability in the chapters after Grace.
However, legally obtaining the game now is quite a quest. By 2026, the only ways to play it will be through emulators or by watching a high-quality walkthrough on YouTube. The second option is more convenient if you need to quickly understand the lore and the mechanics, and the atmosphere that inspired the authors of the new part.
The Evil Within 1 & 2
This two-part series is from Shinji Mikami, the creator of the original Resident Evil game, and it is the series’s spiritual successor. In the first part, Detective Sebastian Castellanos investigates a massacre at a psychiatric hospital and becomes ensnared in a surreal nightmare spawned by a twisted mind. It is a harsh, linear horror game in which reality constantly falls apart, and every enemy encounter becomes a test of endurance.
The second part, The Evil Within 2, is different. Here, there are spacious locations where players decide whether to quietly bypass monsters or engage in open combat. Since Requiem promises both shooting with Leon and hide-and-seek with Grace, this project will be an excellent training ground. It clearly shows how two styles of gameplay can coexist within a single game.
Silent Hill 2 Remake
During the genre’s golden age, Resident Evil and Silent Hill were the two poles of fear. While Capcom’s series focused on bioterrorism, secret laboratories, and special forces, Silent Hill took a different approach with irrational horror and an overwhelming atmosphere of hopelessness.
The second game’s plot is the most famous story in the franchise. James Sunderland receives a letter from his wife, who died three years ago. Hoping to see her again, he goes to their “special place” — Silent Hill. The once popular resort greets him with dead silence and thick fog. The streets lead nowhere, and the surroundings rot and change, adapting to the guest’s crippled psyche. The remake perfectly captures this depressing aesthetic; every rustle and echo of your footsteps is more nerve-wracking than any monster.
In terms of gameplay, Silent Hill 2 Remake is the complete opposite of typical action games. James is not a secret service agent. He can barely handle a heavy pipe and starts to suffocate after running just a couple of meters. If you are not yet familiar with this series, you are making a big mistake, and it is definitely worth correcting.
Dead Space Remake
The story begins with a seemingly routine mission. Engineer Isaac Clarke arrives on the massive ship Ishimura to repair the communications system. For Isaac, however, it’s personal—his girlfriend, Nicole, is on board. Instead of the crew, however, the team finds a blood-soaked crypt. Under the influence of an alien artifact called the Obelisk, the dead have been reborn as necromorphs. They aren’t just zombies but mutilated piles of flesh crawling out of every crack. The plot quickly turns into a journey through the circles of hell. Suffering from hallucinations, Isaac tries to understand what happened to Nicole and how to avoid going mad under the influence of the cult of Unitologists that has taken over the ship.
The original game is rightly considered one of the scariest horror games in history—in 2008, it could turn your hair gray. Dead Space Remake masterfully conveys this primal horror on a new level. Thanks to modern sound and lighting technology, the Ishimura feels alive. You can hear the screech of metal behind you and feel Isaac’s heavy breathing in the cramped corridors. Shooting monsters in the head is useless here — you have to cut them into pieces by severing their limbs. This makes every skirmish a wild test of stress resistance where your main enemy is panic.
Alan Wake 1 & 2
The 2010 original is an atmospheric thriller in the spirit of Twin Peaks. It follows writer Alan Wake as he searches for his wife in a town engulfed by darkness. The plot alone makes the game worth playing: it establishes the foundation necessary to understand the rules of this world and the protagonist’s personal drama in the sequel.
The sequel divides the narrative into two parts, offering completely different perspectives on the overall story. While Agent Saga Anderson conducts a down-to-earth investigation in the forests of Bright Falls, Alan himself tries to escape a surreal nightmare. These storylines constantly intersect, complementing each other and revealing details that would otherwise remain hidden. Alan Wake 2 is an excellent example of how two different perspectives come together to form a whole—exactly the kind of depth we expect from Leon and Grace in Requiem.
The Callisto Protocol
There were high hopes for the project. Glen Schofield, the creator of Dead Space, was in charge of it, and the budget and graphics promised a new era of horror gaming. Visually, the game still looks incredible; the facial details and lighting are top-notch. However, upon release, technical problems and controversial gameplay decisions dashed the game’s ambitions, resulting in mixed reviews. Now that most of the bugs have been fixed, though, it is a technologically advanced, high-quality action game.
The plot takes place in the year 2320 on Jupiter’s moon, Callisto. The main character, pilot Jacob Lee, finds himself in prison when an epidemic of an unknown virus breaks out. The prisoners and guards turn into ugly mutants, and the prison becomes a survival setting. Jacob must escape this hell and uncover the secrets of the corporation behind the human experiments.
The combat system in The Callisto Protocol is based on dodging and baton strikes. The game forces players to “read” their opponents’ movements, turning each fight into a tense duel. The hero’s fatalities and death animations deserve special attention — they are depicted with frightening detail, emphasizing the overall cruelty of the situation.
Daymare: 1998 & 1994: Sandcastle
The Daymare series has a unique history: the project began as an amateur remake of Resident Evil 2. After receiving a polite “stop” from Capcom, however, it grew into a full-fledged franchise. The first installment, subtitled 1998, is imbued with the spirit of ’90s horror games. It’s hardcore in its purest form: Zombies don’t die with a single shot, ammunition is scarce, and managing your inventory will be just as challenging as facing mutants. If you love Resident Evil and miss games that don’t forgive mistakes, this slow-burning, gloomy throwback is just what you need.
The 1994 prequel, Sandcastle, focuses on Delilah Reyes’s story. She’s a former spy and current agent of the special forces unit AID. The action takes place in the depths of the world’s most secretive research center, where Reyes must uncover a mystery that could shed light on the characters’ pasts from the first game.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
The impact of Amnesia on the gaming industry cannot be overstated. It paved the way for a generation of first-person horror games. Without Amnesia, Outlast would not have been as terrifying, and the latest Resident Evil installments (VII and Village) would not have focused so much on claustrophobic atmospheres and vulnerable protagonists. The developers proved that taking away the player’s ability to fight back creates a unique experience of primal fear, transforming the player from an action hero into a hunted victim.
The plot of Amnesia: The Dark Descent centers on Daniel, who regains consciousness in the terrifying Brennenburg Castle. He doesn’t remember how he got there but finds a note telling him to kill the castle’s owner, Baron Alexander. As Daniel progresses, he learns many frightening details about his recent past.
F.E.A.R.
The first part of F.E.A.R. is a unique blend of Japanese horror, reminiscent of The Ring, and an extremely intense action movie. Playing as a special forces operative, you must eliminate Patrick Fettel, a telepathic cannibal who has taken control of an army of clones. However, the real star of the series is Alma, a little girl in a red dress whose paranormal abilities transform the act of clearing office corridors into a chilling nightmare.
The game’s main selling point is the artificial intelligence of its enemies. The clones don’t behave like cannon fodder; they behave like a well-coordinated special forces group. They actively use their surroundings, flank you, smoke you out with grenades, and communicate constantly via radio. Even today, many modern shooters have enemies that behave much more stupidly than those in F.E.A.R. (2005).
In terms of horror, the game masterfully plays on contrasts. One moment, you’re spectacularly shooting special forces in slow motion like Doomslayer and feeling omnipotent. The next, the lights go out, the radio is jammed with eerie interference and hissing, and you see a silhouette at the end of the corridor out of the corner of your eye. The feeling of being a perfect killing machine yet being completely powerless against a little girl’s ghost made players cringe in their seats. If you missed the original, it’s worth playing to experience what a truly intelligent AI is capable of.
Tormented Souls 1 & 2
The game’s plot revolves around Caroline Walker, who receives a mysterious letter containing a photo of twin girls. She sets off to find them at the abandoned Winterlake Hospital.
However, her investigation quickly turns into a fight for her life. At the beginning, she is hit on the head and wakes up in a dirty bathtub to find that one of her eyes has been cut out. She must now not only escape this nightmare but also uncover the gruesome truth about the rituals and experiments that took place within the hospital’s walls.
The second part continues Caroline’s story, but the stakes are even higher. After the events in Winterlake, her sister Anna begins to have terrifying visions that come true. To save her, Carolina travels to Villa Ess, a provincial town in Chile.
For fans of classics like Resident Evil and Alone in the Dark, this series will be a great find. It has everything you need: a gloomy mansion, complex puzzles, and a thick Gothic atmosphere. The Wilder family’s secrets are revealed through notes, and players must constantly move between reality and the “looking glass.”
Obscure
This interactive teen slasher film is set at Leafmore High School, where students have begun to disappear without a trace. After class, five friends—Shannon, Kenny, Ashley, Stan, and Josh—stay behind to uncover the truth, but they find themselves trapped with terrifying mutants.
The game is steeped in the atmosphere of early 2000s teen horror movies and features an energetic rock soundtrack, recognizable character types (the jock, the nerd, and the mean girl), and classic genre mechanics.
Obscure’s main feature is its irreversible death system. You control five students, each with a unique skill. Some are faster at picking locks, some provide clues for puzzles, and some excel in combat. If a character dies, they disappear from the story forever. This forces you to cherish each character because losing a friend with a useful skill can seriously hinder your progress.
Whisper Mountain Outbreak
This is a cooperative PvE horror game reminiscent of the classic Resident Evil Outbreak, but with an isometric camera. The main focus here is on coordinated teamwork: players need to constantly coordinate their actions via voice chat, share scarce resources, and help each other out in battle. While one player lights the way with a flashlight, the others must fend off waves of monsters, heal the wounded, or repair broken equipment in order to advance the plot.
The latter takes players back to 1998 on Mount Bisik, where miners accidentally uncovered ancient ruins during their work and awakened the evil slumbering within them. The area was instantly enveloped in a thick fog, from which monsters began to emerge, trapping the few survivors. Your goal is to explore abandoned buildings and cursed mines to find a way to lift the curse and escape this madness, accompanied by eerie whispers coming from the void.
The atmosphere of Whisper Mountain Outbreak is reminiscent of retro horror games: limited visibility, cramped rooms, and a constant shortage of ammunition create the necessary tension. Before each sortie, you are offered a choice of one of three random classes (there are six in total), each with its own unique bonuses.
Dying Light 1 & 2 & Beast
The series began in 2015 when Techland expanded on the concepts of its previous hit, Dead Island. They added vertical gameplay and complete freedom of movement to the game. The main feature was first-person parkour in an open world teeming with infected creatures. This gave the genre a breath of fresh air. Instead of slowly wandering through corridors, players could nimbly move across the rooftops of the fictional city of Harran. During the day, players take on the role of hunters, gathering resources. But when the sun goes down, the roles change. Deadly jumpers take to the streets, and survival turns into an adrenaline-fueled chase.
Dying Light’s dynamics teach you to quickly assess situations and escape in time. In the upcoming Requiem, there will surely be situations where fleeing is the best tactic, and the instant pathfinding skills the Techland series teaches will come in handy. Additionally, the game features one of the best melee combat systems for cold weapons and crafting, making every encounter with zombies tactile and dangerous.
Last year’s release of Dying Light: The Beast proved that the series still has surprises in store. Originally planned as an expansion, the project has grown into a lively standalone adventure. Fans were thrilled by the return of Kyle Crane, and the more focused, darker gameplay brought back the feeling of danger to the game.
The Last of Us Part I & II
Although The Last of Us may not seem like the most obvious candidate for comparison with Resident Evil, it is worth mentioning. Both games use the same familiar over-the-shoulder view, and both games’ gameplay is tightly tied to a constant shortage of ammunition and resources. Shootouts evoke similar feelings: Every shot must be accurate, and every skirmish requires a thoughtful approach.
The story of Joel and Ellie’s journey through the ruins of civilization is a long-standing benchmark for drama and has earned the series hundreds of Game of the Year awards. It’s a poignant story about humanity and the price of survival in a world where a fungal infection has turned people into nightmarish monsters. If you’ve passed it by, thinking The Last of Us is just another action game, you’ve made a big mistake. It would be great if Requiem offered the same strong chemistry between the characters and deep relationship story as this couple.
