As a finishing touch to our complete guide to Resident Evil Requiem, we wanted to add this section featuring the best Easter eggs we found while playing. Bear in mind that you should not read any further until you have finished the game. Spoilers are completely unavoidable when discussing these references, some of which are very well hidden. We should also mention that the Easter eggs in The Final Puzzle are covered in a separate section.
We have tried to list them in chronological order based on when they can be found. We have included interesting details, a few very specific secret mechanics, lore that provides off-screen explanations for things you can see and that are justified by previous installments, and details that the characters could never explain but which fit with other events in the series. Bear in mind that we do not consider excessively obvious details to be Easter eggs. Things such as "Sherry was the little girl from Resident Evil 2" or the charm depicting Claire Redfield do not count as Easter eggs in our view.
Right at the beginning of the game, on the street Grace follows towards the hotel, you will pass several businesses. The first one on the left is a steakhouse advertising "Dulvey Beer". As if that were not enough of a clue, the neon sign depicts an alligator, making it impossible not to associate it with Dulvey in the Louisiana bayous. In case there was any doubt, this is the setting of Resident Evil VII. Another shop window features an advertisement for the same beer, whose slogan reads "From the Bayou to the Beach."
Shortly afterwards, you will come across several advertisements for Dingo Red Cigarettes. If the name does not sound familiar, that is understandable, as this is a rather obscure Easter egg. This tobacco brand first appeared in an advertisement at the gas station in Resident Evil 2 Remake, during the game's prologue.
In another shop window, you can see some containers resembling tubes of Pringles-style potato chips. However, if you look closely, the packaging appears to reveal that the mascot of this fictional brand is a raccoon. It is fascinating how popular raccoons are in this universe.
This last detail leads us to the fictional versions of real brands found along the street, which are obviously intended to avoid legal issues. For example, there are signs saying that VIWA and Amazing Express cards are accepted, references to Visa and American Express; advertisements for the soft drink 9UP, based on 7UP; and businesses recommended by Good Trip, a parody of Tripadvisor.
The main villain, Victor Gideon, was clearly inspired by Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs (1991). The character from the film, played by Ted Levine, has an appearance that is impossible not to recognize in Gideon's overall design, even without mentioning his particular hobby of abducting people.
Everything from the receding hairline and slicked-back hair to his facial expression evokes the character. There are also the similarly designed night-vision goggles and the sequence in which Gideon cuts the power and stalks Clarice... we mean Leon. With rather different results in each case, of course.
Leon's license plate reads ND-9642. The numbers represent the games in which he has appeared as a playable protagonist: Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 6 and Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth main installment.
The moment when Leon meets Grace mirrors his first encounter with Claire in the original Resident Evil 2, although the scene can play out slightly differently in the remake. A creature stalks Claire or Grace before Leon shoots it in the head.
One of the mechanics associated with zombies is that they continue doing "things they did when they were alive". Service workers feel compelled to clean up bloodstains, while what appear to be janitors are constantly trying to turn off any lights you switch on. Both behaviors can be used to your advantage to distract them.
It is unusual to see zombies behaving this way, making it difficult not to connect them to the zombies in Dawn of the Dead (1978). In George A. Romero's film, the zombies went to the shopping mall "because that was what they did when they were alive". It served as a metaphor for consumerism at the time. Whether the reference was intentional or not, it is hard not to think of those zombies when watching the ones in Requiem.
The roulette wheel in the Game Room, located in the west wing of the Patient Center's ground floor, hides a double Easter egg.
If you interact with the roulette wheel, the ball will always land on 7, 15 or 29. If you then shoot the corresponding 7, 15 or 29 on the table, you will receive an Ancient Coin, although there is no point trying to repeat the trick. You can exchange the coin at the nearby display cases. That is not all: the numbers 7, 15 and 29 also correspond to the registration date of the Umbrella Corps. trademark: July 29, 2015, or 7/29/15. Umbrella Corps. is one of the less fondly remembered spin-offs in the series.
Grace can open certain simple locks using lockpicks.
Doing so unlocks the Like Mother, Like Daughter achievement or trophy. This is a direct reference to Alyssa in Resident Evil: Outbreak. In that game, Alyssa had a lockpick as her personal item, allowing her to open simple locks. She clearly taught her daughter how to do it.
While searching for the helicopter key, Grace must find a way into Gideon's secret laboratory. To do so, she needs to locate an item hidden inside a wine bottle whose label says it came from Castle Dimitrescu, where wine was produced using a very special ingredient: blood. Curiously enough, Gideon's research also revolves around blood.
One of Requiem's plot points suggests that Gideon's objective is to turn Grace into the new "vessel" for Spencer's memories and consciousness. Spencer was one of Umbrella's founders. Although this ultimately turns out to be a deception, something similar has already happened in the series.
In Resident Evil Revelations 2, we met Alex Wesker, the only other survivor of Project Wesker besides Albert. At the end of the game, it was revealed that Alex had transferred her consciousness into Natalia Korda, and a cutscene suggested that the experiment had been successful.
During the sequence in which Leon drives towards Raccoon City after leaving Rhodes Hill, he passes the gas station where Leon and Claire first meet in Resident Evil 2 Remake. The remains of the jeep Leon used to get there are still lying nearby.
If the traffic police ever discover that he simply abandoned the vehicle, the fine for leaving it there for 30 years is going to be quite something.
In Resident Evil 3 Remake, you can see several posters for fictional movies while exploring the subway platforms. One of these is Wolf of the Battlefield, which was itself a reference to Commando (1984), a Capcom game whose Japanese title was the same as that fictional movie.
When Leon passes through the remains of the subway shortly after reaching Raccoon City, you can see the same poster on the platform, now damaged by the passage of time. Several other recognizable posters can also be found, although most of them are in very poor condition.
When Leon reaches Rhodes Hill, it is impossible not to recognize the doctor wielding a chainsaw as a reference to Dr. Salvador from Resident Evil 4. If that was not enough to remind you of that rather unusual physician, more chainsaw-wielding enemies appear at the gas station. Upon seeing the first one, Leon asks whether he is the village lumberjack. If the earlier reference was not obvious enough, this makes it clear that Leon still has some unresolved trauma.
When Leon and Claire reach Raccoon City in Resident Evil 2, an infected truck driver forces them to separate after crashing his tanker truck in the middle of the street. This is the same street that Leon begins exploring when he reaches Downtown Raccoon City.
On the same street, just as in the original game, you can see a sign for a business called ARUKAS.
This is a small Street Fighter Easter egg referencing the character Sakura, as ARUKAS is Sakura spelled backwards.
The Raccoon City Police Department, or R.P.D., contains more Easter eggs and references than any other location in the game, for obvious reasons. Leaving aside the Marvin Branagh flashback, there are quite a few to discover:
As soon as you enter, you will find the only typewriter Leon can interact with... although it is clearly no longer in very good condition.
After climbing the stairs in the Main Hall and watching the cutscene, you can see the welcome sign that had been prepared for Leon. Leon picks up a note beside it that appears to indicate Zeno moved the decoration here, knowing they were following his trail.
You can interact with two of the three statues bearing symbols that had to be solved to progress through the story in Resident Evil 2 Remake. Leon remarks that they are strange puzzles. Grace makes a similar observation upon entering the Game Room, wondering how people are supposed to get inside. This highlights just how bizarre it is for someone to hide keys inside puzzles at a police station.
In the West Office, you can see one of the safes from Resident Evil 2 Remake. Naturally, it is already open, as our heroes left no stone unturned.
In the same office, on the north wall, you can see one of the bases belonging to the original Mr. Raccoon figures, which first appeared in Resident Evil 2 Remake. Back then, their bases were red.
In the southwestern corner of the southwestern corridor on the ground floor, you can find a skeleton without a jaw. This is the same corpse whose jaw we saw fall off in Resident Evil 2 Remake, in exactly the same location.
Inside the S.T.A.R.S. Office, you will find familiar references to its members: Jill's beret, Chris's jacket, Rebecca's first-aid bag... and a rather unusual briefcase that we will discuss shortly. If you read Barry's notes containing clues for a treasure hunt, they will eventually lead you to the Operations Room in the western section of the ground floor. Climb onto a box to interact with the overhead monitor and obtain the Locker Key.
This key opens JoJo's locker in the West Office. This secret contains several different references. JoJo is a nod to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, as Joseph Frost, the S.T.A.R.S. sharpshooter, was named after Joseph Joestar. The locker appeared in both previous versions, the original and the remake, but could not be opened until now. Inside, you will find all sorts of items referencing Capcom games:
The locker contains a console, copies of Resident Evil and Mega Man, a Street Fighter Alpha poster and other Capcom games. The top shelf also holds two tickets to Raccoon City Zoo, a location visited in Outbreak, the game that introduced Alyssa Ashcroft.
It is worth noting that once you are able to retrieve the Locker Key, you can encounter Tofu, the protagonist of the extra mode in Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 2 Remake. Tofu shares a scenario with HUNK but is equipped with only a knife and an enormous amount of health. You can see him emerge from the western hole in the Operations Room, and he has several possible spawn points in the southwestern corridor.
Incidentally, no, there is no way to kill him. Not even the rocket launcher works. However, if you shoot him, you will hear the same sound he made when taking damage: an interjection in Japanese. Continuing with the second treasure hunt, a series of documents will eventually lead you to a photograph of Rebecca that also appeared in Resident Evil 2, suggesting that Wesker had a strange obsession with the team's rookie.
This photograph also conceals the clue needed to open the briefcase in the S.T.A.R.S. Office: the combination is RRR, meaning Rising Rookie Rebecca. Inside is a charm modeled after Wesker's glasses. Later, you will find the hydraulic jack in the Library, which is required to progress. It is exactly where it was left in Resident Evil 2 Remake after being used to move the bookshelves that would later serve as a bridge to the attic.
The final Easter egg before leaving the police station appears when you escape from the T-501, the new version of Mr. X. It attempts to attack you with what appears to be a steel beam. Look closely, however, and you will see that it is actually the tail section of the helicopter that crashed into the police station.
Another interesting detail about this new version of Mr. X is that it provides proof that the Tyrant program is still very active. Mr. X units have appeared in several canonical games, movies, comics and graphic novels set after the Raccoon City incident. However, this is the T-501 series, an entirely new iteration that is mass-produced by Connections and sold for $120 million per unit, according to a document found later in the game.
Finally, in the police station garage, after leaving the R.P.D. and before entering Kendo's Gun Shop, you can see the van that Ada rammed into Mr. X to help Leon. Look immediately to its left to find a charm shaped like a teddy bear, just like the keychain attached to the keys Ada gives Leon at the end of Resident Evil 4.
When Leon travels through ARK near the end of the game, he encounters the Commander of ARK's elite guards, who were stationed there on Connections' orders. Although there is no official confirmation, the character was clearly designed to make us think he is HUNK, the Boba Fett of Resident Evil. Despite having only one canonical appearance in the games, in The 4th Survivor — the Resident Evil 2 mode in which the elite UBCS agent escapes from the Raccoon City sewers with a sample of the G-virus — he became one of the series' most popular characters and subsequently appeared in several Mercenaries modes in other installments.
As mentioned above, there is no official confirmation, but if he is not HUNK, the developers clearly want us to believe that he is. He dodges bullets, wears the same mask, faces Leon in one-on-one combat without taking advantage whenever Leon starts coughing, and even attempts to use his Neck Breaker, HUNK's signature move. Once he falls, you can also obtain his axe, Deadly Edge. The weapon's description refers to it having claimed countless lives, while Leon himself says that "he lived up to his reputation".
Right at the end of the game, Grace passes through Spencer's office in ARK. On one of the walls is a painting of a woman seen from behind, holding what appears to be a baby. The painting is signed simply "M".
This is a reference to Miranda, the main villain of Resident Evil Village and, indirectly, the person responsible for many of the problems throughout the series.
