Resident Evil Requiem will feature classic characters connected to the Raccoon City incident, Capcom has now acknowledged — while stopping short of confirming exactly who.

Speculation is rife that floppy-haired fan-favorite Leon S. Kennedy will be back for Requiem, revisiting the city where he spent a fateful first day as a rookie police officer back in Resident Evil 2.

But, to date, Capcom has refused to discuss whether fans will reconnect with any familiar faces in Requiem, choosing instead to focus its marketing efforts on new protagonist Grace Ashcroft, daughter of Resident Evil Outbreak's Alyssa Ashcroft.

Now, in an interview with Well-Played, producer Masato Kumazawa has finally confirmed that "yes, there are going to be some characters from the past series to come in."

It's worth stating that Kumazawa is responding here to a question which asked specifically whether other Outbreak characters, as well as Alyssa, will show up in Requiem. But Kumazawa does then go on to mention characters "involved in the Raccoon City incident" generally will appear. Here's the full quote:

"I would say that yes, there are going to be some characters from the past series to come in, but don’t over-expect or hype it," Kumazawa teased. "We can’t promise you anything about that, but the only thing I can say is that there will be characters that have been involved in the Raccoon City incident involved in the game."

The debate around whether other characters — and specifically Leon — are in Requiem has dominated discussion of the game to date, though Capcom seems happy to keep the speculation going. While focusing on Grace Ashcroft in trailers and early gameplay previews, the publisher has never explicitly stated that she is the sole playable character.

In a separate interview published online this week, Kumazawa branded a specific fan image of Leon with an eyepatch as "fake news," and suggested it was the work of AI. But again, the producer stopped short of simply saying Leon isn't in the game — which, at this point, you'd think developers would simply state in order to manage expectations.

Resident Evil Requiem launches on February 27, 2026 for PC, PlayStation 5, Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S. There's still plenty of time for more reveals.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social