Since its release in February, I have been rather effusive in my praise of Resident Evil Requiem. It is presently positioned fourth all-time in my franchise rankings, and I have acknowledged that its fluid two-character dynamic should be the standard moving forward.

With that being said, it’s time to address the elephant in the room… or rather, the elephant in the city — Raccoon City, to be specific.

It is a commonly held opinion that Leon’s arrival in his old hometown is where the game suffers the most, transplanting us from the tense, claustrophobic fear of the preceding areas and forcing us to gallop around town on a fetch quest. Again, I don’t hate it, but when I replay Requiem, this is the part I least look forward to.

While trying to unpack exactly why this section of gameplay is so divisive, I came to an interesting conclusion; Resident Evil tends to falter when the surroundings are stripped of their personality.

Nearly every game has “that part”; that is to say, the dip in quality that makes subsequent playthroughs less enjoyable. On the surface, you could surmise that the gameplay is merely not as fleshed out, but this isn’t necessarily the case — oftentimes we’re doing similar things as we were in the other locations, just within a drab and oppressive atmosphere, and this is typically true of the endgame.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard offers a helpful parallel with its own dreaded sequence once we have boarded the wrecked ship. Like Requiem, I gushed about RE7 once I completed it, and like Requiem, my enthusiasm levels drop significantly at this point in the game.

As you scour the ship multiple times across the present and the past, you’ll traverse through a series of rooms devoid of character. They are uniform in nature, and dilapidated in appearance. Try as I might, the only areas I can even recall offhand are the control room and the elevator shaft. It’s not that they’re all that nifty either; it’s more a matter of them being points of importance for navigation and/or story progression.

It’s creepy at first, sure, but it sure grows dull pretty fast.

Compared to the eerie Baker Estate, the bug infested old house, or Lucas’ compound of torture, there is nothing exceptional about it. Something those areas had in common was a sense of eccentricity in their design and features.

To me, it hearkens back to one of my biggest grievances with Revelations 2. From start to finish, the game is bereft of pizzazz, outside of a few exceptions such as Alex’s lab or the shoehorned mansion towards the end. I didn’t want to soak in the atmosphere, I just wanted to proceed through it in search of my goal.

Even my favourite game in the franchise, 2002’s remake of the original Resident Evil, suffers from this to a degree. Spencer Mansion is iconic, and any number of its rooms are identifiable by their unique features, whether it’s the taxidermy room, the portrait room, or the costume room. Are these realistic things you could expect to find in a mansion? No, but neither are zombies, and nobody bats an eyelid about that.

While the residence is no slouch either, with its vine-choked corridors and the legendary aqua ring, the underground and endgame laboratory aren’t quite as memorable. The former is at least helped along by its rolling boulders, Black Tiger battle, and the return of Lisa Trevor, whilst the latter does have some intrigue owing to the bloodstained operating theatres. They’re not quite as special as the mansion proper, but they do maintain at least a modicum of character. More importantly, they don’t overstay their welcome.

I can readily pluck as many examples as necessary, but you get the point. Returning to Requiem, then, I reflect on the various places we explored in Raccoon City. There’s an apartment building, a warehouse, a gas station, the subway platforms… the moment-to-moment action here is fine, but nothing particularly sticks out about any of these landmarks.

What is the highlight to me? Aside from the opening scramble against the oncoming Titan Spinner, it absolutely has to be the Willis Tower. Thanks to its skewed perspective, it induces a real sense of vertigo while we jump from platform to platform. Going back to the point I was making before, it stands out as unique from the ramshackle structures that surround it.

Obviously, it’s hard to add distinguishing features to Raccoon City when it’s a desolate wasteland. Moving forward, however, it makes me ponder whether the same mistakes could be avoided in Resident Evil 10. Why can’t we have a funhouse of mirrors mark the final encounter? Or an abandoned toy store? Or some kind of BDSM dungeon, complete with zombie gimps strapped to the walls?

I’m not being entirely serious, and I understand that a more toned down environment better reflects the stakes of approaching the mastermind at a game’s conclusion. But I will posit that I’ve had quite enough of the laboratories and factories that typify the end of nearly every Resident Evil entry. I reject the notion that gravitas need influence our sense of immersion.

Give me something weird, give me something wacky, and give it to me outside of the first half hour of gameplay.