Resident Evil Requiem Switch 2 Footage – A Surprisingly Tense Port

After so many years of performance issues on the original Switch, I haven’t quite gotten used to the fact that most games on Switch 2 hit a stable 60fps and that modern third-party blockbusters run on it well. As such, I raised a sceptical eyebrow when Resident Evil Requiem was announced for Nintendo’s second handheld hybrid during the last Nintendo Direct. From what we’ve seen of it up until that point, the ninth mainline Resident Evil is a graphical stunner and not something I would expect or even want to play on a less powerful console.

It didn’t take long for Capcom to convince me otherwise. Both on the chaotic showfloor of the Tokyo Game Show and tucked away in a conference room, a confident Capcom had Requiem running in handheld mode on the Switch 2. Still sceptical, I sat down for a 30-minute run-through of the same demo you might’ve seen PS5 footage of from Gamescom 2025 and came away impressed with what Capcom has managed to do.

As this was an impromptu hands-on, I only had a small stand for my iPhone 16 available. As you can tell in the footage, the screen was pushed slightly far from me and angled back to avoid the fluorescent lights in the conference room.

The demo begins with new protagonist Grace Ashcroft suspended upside down on a gurney in a rundown hotel. Freeing herself, she then must find a way to escape. Problem is, the gate to the ward she’s in requires a second fuse to open. The fuse, of course, is in a locked room she needs to find a key for, and even then, the fuse itself requires a tool to break from its locked encasement. Oh, and there’s a massive, gnarly monster that resembles an old woman chasing her through the poorly lit corridors.

As you can tell, this demo leans heavily into the classic survival horror side of the franchise. Grace can’t suplex the monster grandma like Leon Kennedy might have, but she did survive a couple of swipes from her massive claws. As a fan of Resident Evil 7, I felt right at home as the monster stalked me through holes in the ceiling and leapt out of doorways to ambush me as I solved the puzzle required to escape.

Even on the small handheld screen, my heart was pumping as Grace pushed a noisy cart across a room in order to climb up it and reach a screwdriver. It was at this moment, with the quality headphones Capcom provided, that I thought how amazing an experience it would be to play Requiem late at night while cosy in bed instead of at my desk or on the sofa—though I do have two caveats when playing this way.

In handheld mode, I found my brief time testing the over-the-shoulder third-person mode a bit disorienting; the first-person perspective felt much more natural on the smaller screen because I could make out items I could pick up on shelves and other details much more easily.

That said, if the third-person perspective feels better for more action-heavy sections that fans have speculated about since the game’s announcement, the option to switch between the two while also switching between handheld and docked mode might give the Switch 2 version an edge over other consoles and PC. I could see myself taking down bosses on my monitor with a grenade launcher and switching to the handheld mode as I solve puzzles while avoiding unkillable monsters.

However, I can’t comment on how much visual fidelity is lost between the Switch 2 and beefier hardware, as there wasn’t another version to directly compare it with. When looking at the Switch 2’s reveal trailer side-by-side with the original announcement trailer, hair and textures in general clearly lose quite a lot of fidelity. To me, however, the game looked amazing on the smaller screen at (presumably) 1080p. While I didn’t have enough time to squint at how many pixels Grace’s hair had as she ran for her life, the differences in the trailers didn’t seem so drastic.

Which brings me to my second caveat: the relative dimness of the Switch 2’s screen in a well-lit room seemed insufficient for such a dark, atmospheric game. This obviously isn’t Capcom’s fault, but compared to something more colourful like Donkey Kong Bananza or Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, which I personally have found no problem with in bright rooms, I worry that you’ll pretty much only be able to see Requiem clearly while hiding beneath your covers after midnight.

You can see this in my footage; at first, the fluorescent lights of the room obscured the bottom half of the screen. Once I angled those out of the way, I was pretty much looking at a mirror image of myself while I stumbled my way through the dark corridors.

Regardless, my experience with RE Requiem has broken me of that Nintendo stigma that third-party blockbusters can’t run on their hardware. I did not notice any dropped frames and — at least in handheld mode — the visual downgrade on the Switch 2 doesn’t seem that drastic.

As a result, I’m seriously considering picking up Requiem on Switch 2 over other versions, as avoiding the grandma monster seems a little bit more spooky and immersive when everyone else is asleep and tucked into bed.