Capcom arrived at Gamescom this year with three new titles, each offering a surprisingly comprehensive demo to play. The most anticipated of these, for me, was Resident Evil: Requiem, the latest horror installment in the long-running series, which, after the funhouse of horrors in Village, returns to its newfound roots of unarmed protagonists facing overwhelming odds. I got to spend half an hour with Grace Ashcroft’s nightmare, and it nearly caused me to have a panic attack.

The demo begins as Grace wakes up in a desperate situation. Someone has strapped her upside down to an old hospital bed, slowly bleeding her dry. But our brave heroine doesn’t just lie there at the mercy of fate—after a little struggle, Grace breaks free, and the player is thrown into a fight for survival.

Requiem can be played in either first or third person, with the latter altering the experience somewhat. In the demo, this manifests as Grace stumbling and swaying from the effects her induced paralysis, occasionally forcing the player into unexpected moments as her legs give out during an escape. The developers on site, however, emphasized that the first-person experience is the preferred way to play, and after testing it out, I can see why. The experience is staggeringly terrifying.

If you're familiar with the series to date, especially Part 7, you're in for a good time. The demo wasn't heavy on surprises in terms of controls or mechanics. Everything leans heavily—and satisfyingly—on nostalgia. Even the puzzles are the familiar Rube Goldbergian contraptions, where opening even a small box requires three extra steps.

To understand the budding panic attack, I should clarify a few things. My own cognitive ailments have been a millstone around my neck my whole life, and alongside them, a fear of the dark has plagued me well into adulthood. Blind spots are unpleasant even in everyday life, as are distorted proportions. Don't ask me why, I couldn't tell you. It's just enough to cause anxiety.

The demo I tested is set in a hospital where the lights are always failing. Naturally, they're broken in a video game logic kind of way, where fuse boxes power only a few rooms instead of entire floors. In the distance, you can hear faint screams and the heavy thumping of footsteps. Outside, it’s raining. The halls are so pitch black you can see maybe a meter ahead, if that. Grace stumbles forward slowly, with nothing but a feeble lighter for help.

Once again, Capcom has crafted an moody experience unlike any other.

In my controlled test, my goal was to get Grace to the other side of a safety door, which required finding a fuse and placing it in the right spot. The fuse, of course, was locked in a glass cabinet at the other end of the ward, and I had to find a screwdriver to pry the whole door off its hinges. Once again, you just have to get used to the logic. The Resident Evil series has never been able to escape its own traditions. You can’t break glass, and you can’t shoot doors open. The world is just static enough for the horror to take center stage.

Then, after a few designated jump scares, something else crawls into frame. Huge and monstrous, its twisted fingers caked in blood. Bulging eyes search for prey in the dark. The creature's skull is caved in at one point. Matted hair barely clings to the scalp. The teeth are filed down to sharp points at the gums. Whatever is chasing Grace is no longer human. And this isn’t a cutscene—it’s a real-time horror, like the worst nightmares of Alien: Isolation, cranked up to eleven.

The first time I encountered the monster, I dropped the controller on the table, and Grace met a quick end. Whether it was the exhaustion from a week of gaming or the combination of darkness, tight corridors, and body horror, the result was too much at that moment. I had to take a few minutes to recover.

Once I’d recovered from the initial shock, Resident Evil: Requiem revealed itself to be a devilishly clever game of cat and mouse that was scary in just the right way.

The creature hunting Grace learns from the player’s habits, much like the Xenomorph in Alien: Isolation. When I realized the monster avoided light, I repeatedly ran for safety into rooms where I knew the lamps still worked—until, suddenly, the creature climbed onto the ceiling above the lamp and tore the whole fixture from its place. The same happened in long corridors, where the monster started setting ambushes, or around blind corners, where you could never be sure what was waiting.

Even during the short demo, Resident Evil: Requiem made one thing clear about its gameplay loop: Grace is always in danger, and no traditional safe space is guaranteed.

Though release is still over half a year away, this renewed vision of survival horror presented in the demo was distressing, brutal, and—most importantly—wonderfully traditional.

I eagerly await the panic attacks to come.