I played Resident Evil Requiem on a laptop, gaming PC and Steam Deck. Only one kept me coming back

I’m not surprised Resident Evil Requiem is the new fastest-selling game in a franchise that’s been scaring gamers for three decades, having shifted a staggering six million copies in under a month since launch; for me the big shock is how I’ve preferred to play the survival horror epic.

The games console plugged into my living room TV? Gathering dust like a decaying Racoon City shambler. Instead I’ve been bouncing between a laptop, PC and Steam Deck handheld. It’s given me some perspective on the performance versus convenience debate, even if the one I gravitated the most to didn’t exactly come as a surprise.

The contenders

First up, the gaming PC. It’s a prebuilt system supplied by PCSpecialist. The UK-based bespoke PC builder has been around for more than twenty years and has an extensive line-up of machines to suit every budget. My rig was originally sent to test test Battlefield 6 on Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5070, which is still the 1440p baseline for most gamers. It’s hooked up to an LG Ultragear 4K gaming monitor (which is admittedly punching above the 5070’s weight class).

On the laptop side I’m using the 2025 Razer Blade 16, which crams in an RTX 5090 Laptop GPU with 24GB of dedicated video memory. It has less RAM than the desktop, and uses an AMD processor rather than an Intel one. The 16in display is considerably smaller than my desktop monitor, but the 2560×1600, 240Hz panel isn’t nearly as demanding on the graphics card.

Finally my Steam Deck is an OG model, with an LCD display and a battery that doesn’t last quite as long as I remember it doing in the early days of my ownership. I’ve swapped the stock 256GB SSD for a 1TB model, but haven’t ever felt the need to fully disassemble it and re-paste the processor in the name of improved cooling.

The engine

Capcom’s home-grown RE Engine is possibly one of the best of the current gaming generation. With the right hardware it’s able to put out near photo-realistic visuals, yet it scales incredibly well on less powerful systems – as long as you’re happy with turning down the detail presets. The firm has even delivered impressive performance on the Nintendo Switch 2 – though this isn’t a PC/console showdown. That bodes well for the Steam Deck and other PC-based gaming handhelds.

Resident Evil Requiem pushes the engine further than ever, with full path-traced lighting that brings the opening street scene to life in ways RE7, Village and the various remakes never got close to. There’s none of the micro-stutter seen on Unreal Engine 5 games and upscaling isn’t a necessity. Ultrawide monitor aspect ratios are supported natively and so is HDR.

The PC version of the game has an impressive number of settings available to tweak, with an automatic configuration that plays it a little conservative. Using it on the laptop defaulted to a mix of medium and high presets, but it was perfectly happy running everything fully maxed out. The gaming PC defaulted to High, while the Steam Deck picked the lowest settings out of the box.

DLSS upscaling with frame generation is supported natively, and forced on by default if you enable path traced lighting. I preferred to keep it at 2x frame gen, as this kept ghosting and halo effects to a minimum while still giving frame rates a healthy boost. The game doesn’t currently support the newer DLSS 4.5’s 6x frame gen.

Gameplay

Modern Resident Evil games have either ramped up the tension with a first person perspective, or gone all-in on action with a third-person viewpoint. Requiem cherry picks from both, with equally memorable moments seen through the eyes of series newcomer Grace Åshcroft or over the shoulder of returning hero Leon S. Kennedy.

The opening hours are mainly told from Grace’s perspective, with a few fleeting visits to Leon’s side of the story just when being stalked through dark corridors by unkillable monstrosities was in danger of getting old. Grace has to contend with limited ammunition, head-scratching puzzles and plenty of backtracking as you navigate a care centre filled with fresh takes on the familiar zombie tropes. Requiem‘s newly undead still remember aspects of their past lives, with maids compulsively cleaning and an oversized chef cooking up something foul in the canteen.

In comparison, Leon’s parts feel like they’re running at double speed: groups of zombies can quickly surround you, but a sharp hatchet and an uncanny ability to parry virtually any attack can usually get you out of any sticky situations. They’re rarely as overtly spooky, but can still prove pretty tense when you’re low on ammo.

The plot goes heavy on the lore, with new villain Victor Gideon getting a starring turn in the opening section and plenty of throwbacks to please series veterans. Capcom does rely a little too heavily on multi-part fetch quests to stagger the set-pieces, but they’re always memorable once you’ve finished the busywork. One of my favourites was a shootout in a toppled high rise, where you could break the glass under enemies’ feet to send them tumbling but ran the risk of trapping yourself in a corner if you got too trigger happy.

I doubt it’ll turn out to be the series’ final entry, but it’s absolutely the new Resident Evil high point.

The performance – and my winner

I started playing Requiem on my gaming PC, but had to accept that it just wasn’t able to handle things at 4K with path tracing enabled. Even with DLSS, I regularly encountered hitching and slowdowns that made Leon’s more action-oriented sections a chore. 12GB of VRAM just isn’t enough to get that particular job done, at least at UHD resolutions. Once the ray tracing was dialled back, however, it ran comfortably around the 100fps mark, thanks mainly to the DLSS Balanced preset and 2x frame generation.

Playing on the Steam Deck meant compromising on graphics, with the Medium preset being about all the handheld could manage even with upscaling. The RE Engine maintains a good level of clarity at these settings, though, and the 30-40fps I was seeing was just fine for Grace’s slower, more horror-leaning first person sections. Played at night and in the dark for added fright fuel, it was easily my favourite way to play the opening hours.

Load times are much longer on the Deck, though, and the LCD screen left dark scenes (of which Requiem has lots) looking washed out. I also struggled a bit with Leon’s more action-heavy levels, which could be a bit more variable on frame rate.

If visual fidelity is the goal, the gaming laptop took some beating. I was able to run Requiem on full, at the panel’s native resolution, and still get a wonderfully playable 115fps using the DLSS Quality preset and 2x frame gen. It looks absolutely fantastic, even if the performance penalty that comes with path tracing doesn’t always seem worth it when so much of the game is plunged into darkness.

Downsides? The laptop gets properly loud when its fans spin up to full and the screen isn’t quite as cinematic as the 32in display on my desk. While I could hook the two up, the extra resolution would put extra strain on the GPU and probably sink frame rates below a playable 60fps.

That meant I most often found myself in front of my desktop PC: the difference between the lower ray traced lighting settings and full path tracing was small enough during moment-to-moment gameplay that I felt I was missing out by not playing on the laptop. I’m also more comfortable playing with a keyboard and mouse than a controller or the Steam Deck’s built-in buttons.

Ultimately this game runs brilliantly on a range of hardware, and looks stunning even at lower detail levels, so horror fans should absolutely pick it up however they plan to play it.