Capcom has been teasing a free minigame addition for Resident Evil Requiem since April, with Koshi Nakanishi hinting that it would involve Leon’s hatchet and telling fans to “sharpen your tomahawk and wait.” Today, the wait ended without warning as the new Leon Must Die Forever mode was shadow-dropped across all platforms with no prior announcement. It’s available to download right now as part of update 1.300!
If you’ve been holding off on picking up Resident Evil Requiem, this is an extra reason to jump in. And if you already finished the main story, this is Capcom’s answer for more Leon content post-credits! Resident Evil Requiem has already been confirmed as the fastest-selling game in the entire franchise’s history, so it’s not a surprise to see Capcom continuing to invest in it, and with story DLC still confirmed to be coming separately at a later date, today’s drop is only the beginning of what’s planned for the game post-launch. Now there are no new achievements tied to Leon Must Die Forever, so you won’t be able to flex your progress on the trophy card, but you always have the option of taking clips and screenshots to have your score live on forever.
What is Leon Must Die Forever?
Leon Must Die Forever is an extra game mode that unlocks after completing Resident Evil Requiem’s main story. It’s a pure combat challenge. There’s no story at all, just Leon fighting his way through areas from the main game against harder and harder enemy variants, with a clock running the entire time. At the end of the mode’s 20 stages, players face off against the boss Victor in what Capcom is billing as the mode’s climactic encounter.
The mode introduces a dedicated enhancement system that will stay exclusive to this mode for obvious reasons. You fill up the enhancement gauge by defeating enemies in order to unlock Leon’s “enhancer abilities,” described as a set of power-ups that don’t appear in the main game at all. The order of areas and the availability of enhancer ability options will vary between runs, giving the mode a unique roguelike replayability hook. This isn’t a linear gauntlet that you clear once, and then that’s it, nothing more to see; it’s something where, sure, you may have the same locations, but each playthrough has modifiers to make it different, and unique builds you can craft to tackle the mode.
“Grace made it home safely, but Leon still has work to do. Use his enhanced abilities to complete this minigame as fast as possible.” – in-game description
Five difficulty ranks are available, escalating up to an extreme high-difficulty mode that Capcom is specifically flagging as being “for only the most confident players.” If you’ve been blazing through Requiem on Insanity difficulty and feel like you want even more of a challenge, this top rank potentially is something specifically designed to humble you.
Everything Else in Today’s Update
Leon Must Die Forever isn’t the only thing in today’s update, as Capcom also dropped several announcements to coincide with the mode’s release:
- DualSense Support on PC: adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, and motion sensor features are now fully supported for PC players using a DualSense wireless controller.
- Bug Fixes across all platforms: This is an obvious one, but with a new update comes new bugs being fixed.
- Leon Must Die Forever Merch: A new line of t-shirts, long-sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies is now available on Amazon.
- Resident Evil Amiibos: The First-ever Resident Evil amiibo figures are confirmed for July 30th, featuring Grace Ashcroft and Leon Kennedy. This was already announced before, but was reconfirmed earlier today.
Back in April, it was confirmed that a story DLC would be coming at a later date, so hopefully this new mode adds a sense of replayability to tide over fans until the DLC hits the public. You can keep up to date with any news about the franchise here at Lagback, so make sure to bookmark this site! But enough reading about this new Requiem info drop, it’s time to hop into the game and try hunting for the best build possible!
