Capcom tried to hide it for as long as possible, but fans managed to sniff out Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil Requiem long before the game launched. Even so, Leon’s grizzled appearance still managed to surprise some players.
“He’s yet wiser to the world, he’s been through 25 more years of missions and bs and global takeovers and outbreaks,” Leon’s voice actor Nick Apostolides told us. “He’s just been there and seen it all.
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“In the Resident Evil 2 remake, he was excitable; he was seeing everything for the first time. In the Resident Evil 4 remake, he was a bit more trained, a little bit more grizzled. But [Requiem] is the peak, the limit he’s reached; everything has taken a toll at this point. He’s older now, and any fight could be his last.” Leon may look a little more tired in Requiem, but I refuse to accept he’s reached his limit; he’ll still be roundhouse kicking zombies well into his 90s.
Denial aside, age doesn’t just bring a weathered look; it also adds some confidence. “I had to do a bit of internal work with this one, more than RE4,” Apostolides says. “I knew the assignment from day one on RE4, and I knew how to approach it because I was incredibly familiar with the original RE4. [Requiem] is all new; this is uncharted territory even for the developers, and we were finding this version of the character together throughout the whole process, for almost two years.”
When you say Leon Kennedy, I think cool, calm, and collected. He’s certainly seen enough ungodly mutants and been through enough near-death experiences for stress to just roll off his back. But he was somehow even more chill in Requiem than I had expected.
There wasn’t even a moment of fear with Leon. You had so many guns, melee weapons, and body armour that nothing felt like much of a challenge. Even with some of the bigger fight scenes. But this was a welcome change to Grace’s sections, which were often quite stressful and terrifying, especially when she was in Rhodes Hill Hospital.
But how did Apostolides get into this unbothered, steadfast headspace for Leon Kennedy? Well, it’s simple really, he did some arts and crafts: “I did create a whole mood board, with words, phrases, ideas, imagery, art, all kinds of stuff, music. Just to get into that [headspace]. I would revisit this mood board before every major session, just to get into that mindset of really understanding every scene that we filmed. The stakes are higher here.”
