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In This Edition- How Resident Evil Requiem did it - AI video game recommendations- PlayStation scaling back PC support?
Today, I thought I’d dive into something more fun and look at how Capcom delivered a record-breaking hit in Resident Evil Requiem.
I also teamed up with Fancensus to look at what AI is recommending to gamers.
On the Show today, I am joined by GameSpot writer, presenter and producer Lucy James, where we discuss those topics, plus PlayStation’s apparent PC pivot, The Sims 4’s new UGC approach, and the US Government’s investigation of Tencent.
As always, you can watch or listen to the whole thing above. Or check out my write-up below! Enjoy.
Resident Evil Requiem is a record breaker with five million sales in under a week.
By comparison, 2023’s Resident Evil 4 Remake took three months to hit that number, and 2021’s Resident Evil Village took five months. Requiem sold best on PS5, but there was a huge jump in PC players. The game’s peak Steam concurrent player number of 344,214 was more than double the previous best (2023’s Resident Evil 4).
In the press release celebrating the result, Capcom cited Requiem’s “worldwide acclaim” for its commercial success.
And indeed, Requiem was well built for success. A multitude of difficulty options, two playing perspectives (third and first-person), a mix of action and horror, and a high quality experience across all major platforms. The game walked the line between broad appeal and staying true to the core Resident Evil experience, and delivered a great game.
But there’s more to it than that. Resident Evil has been brilliant for some time. In fact, since the 2017 Resident Evil 7, the franchise has barely put a foot wrong. Requiem wouldn’t have succeeded if it wasn’t great, but this level of record-breaking success was delivered through a masterclass in video game marketing. Here’s how they did it.
One of the biggest changes with this Resident Evil campaign is where Capcom chose to announce it. The last five Resident Evil games were all announced during either a PlayStation E3 conference or a State of Play broadcast. PlayStation has always been the spiritual home for Resident Evil, and its narrative-focus fits well with the PlayStation console audience. The partnership made sense.
But with Requiem, Capcom instead teamed up with Summer Game Fest. SGF is a multiplatform event, and Capcom – alongside the entire industry – has seen growth on PC at the expense of console. In other words, if Capcom wants to attract more users to Resident Evil, it will want to get in front of PC players.
The reveal itself was effective. In order to deliver the surprise, Capcom first showed a video where it told fans to ‘bear with us a little longer’ before it could show the new Resident Evil game. That ‘little longer’ turned out to be less than 20 minutes. The first Requiem trailer introduced the new character of Grace Ashcroft, but also featured glimpses of the classic Resident Evil location of Raccoon City, providing an entry point for new players and something for old fans to get excited about.
Limited hands-on was offered to media at the time, and the overall buzz saw Requiem surge to over one million wishlists by the end of the month. Resident Evil also comfortably ended the Summer Game Fest period as the most talked about and covered game of the show.
The demo was taken to Gamescom and PAX for consumers to play. And more footage was shown of the new character alongside the European trade show.
But the next major development for Requiem came in September with the news it would launch on Nintendo Switch 2.
Resident Evil has a long history with Nintendo platforms stretching back to the ‘impossible port’ of Resident Evil 2 on the N64, followed by a series of exclusive games for Nintendo GameCube, Wii, GameBoy Color and 3DS. Capcom released cloud versions of some of its Resident Evil games on Nintendo Switch, but with Switch 2 it was converting all its modern Resident Evil games – 7, Village and Requiem – to run natively on the platform. What’s more, Nintendo was leaning in, with special edition controllers and Amiibo to complement the launch. The whole reveal was part of a Nintendo Direct broadcast.
It’s likely a decent proportion of Switch 2 owners also own other devices capable of playing Requiem. But over time, Nintendo does tend to attract a broader player base, and it’s another new audience for Resident Evil to bring in.
The game’s next major beat took place at The Game Awards in December. Here, it revealed that fan-favourite Leon S Kennedy would be the second playable character for the game. The announcement was so well received that Requiem repeated its Summer Game Fest result, and was the most covered and talked about game of the show. It also achieved the highest trailer views.
Going into this year, Requiem was easily 2026’s second most anticipated video game by every metric – Steam Wishlists, social engagement, trailer views, article posts and comments. It was only beaten by Grand Theft Auto 6. Capcom then ramped up further, with a standalone broadcast, appearances in Nintendo and Sony digital events, plus partnerships with Nvidia, Porsche, Hamilton watches and Fortnite.
All of which delivered a launch unlike Resident Evil has ever seen.
Last week, a video game website (Videogamer.com) published a review for Resident Evil Requiem that was entirely written by AI.
Naturally, it caused uproar, and the website has since been removed from Metacritic.
But it got us thinking: What is AI saying about your video game?
Media data tracker Fancensus has been running a project since January 19 where it’s been asking various AI platforms questions around what video games they recommend people.
Specifically, they asked six different types of questions to ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and did it twice a day until March 2.
The first questions were things like: ‘recommend some games for me’ or ‘what games should I play next?’ This wasn’t specifically for unreleased games. And these were the results
Top Recommended Games: AI Query Mentions vs Press Headlines
Top Recommended Games Ranking: AI Platform Comparison
Top Cited Sources for Recommended Games: % of Responses Cited
Perplexity almost only focused on unreleased games, whereas Gemini also focused a lot on titles that aren’t out yet. This suggests both were influenced more by the news cycle. ChatGPT arguably did a better job by suggesting games that are available for consumers today. ChatGPT didn’t mention Grand Theft Auto 6 at all.
You can also see a marked difference in what the AI platforms were using as their sources. ChatGPT is particularly reliant on Wikipedia, which is its No.1 source. Gemini uses Wikipedia, too, but it’s only the 12th most common source for Google’s AI assistant. During a similar study during The Game Awards, Fancensus found that Wikipedia was a major source for AI platforms.
Both ChatGPT and Gemini cite places like Metacritic and Gamesradar. ChatGPT also used Nintendo.com and The Verge, whereas Gemini did not. Meanwhile, Gemini made use of YouTube, IGN and Reddit, whereas ChatGPT did not.
Looking to the future, Fancensus also analysed what AI is recommending people to wishlist or pre-order:
Top Recommended Upcoming Games: AI Query Mentions vs Press Headlines
Top Recommended Upcoming Games Ranking: AI Platform Comparison
Note: ChatGPT No.1 is WWE 2K26. No.4 is Monster Hunters Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, No.7 is Pragmata
The top recommended upcoming games are not too surprising, and largely mirror our own report last month. Marvel’s Wolverine is No.2 overall, although ChatGPT only recommended that at No.15. ChatGPT didn’t really recommend Wolverine at all until that release date announcement, which caused a spike in press and social coverage.
Resident Evil Requiem was No.4, and it had a big spike in the week ahead of release, with a rise of 45% in terms of references. 007 First Light is at No.5. Interestingly, the State of Play trailer didn’t cause much of an impact on the AI mentions for the James Bond game, despite causing an uptick in press and YouTube activity.
