Resident Evil Requiem originally planned to bring back Spencer Mansion, leaker claims

Resident Evil Requiem is a full tour through 30 years of franchise history. The adopted daughter of Outbreak's Alyssa Ashcroft heads to Raccoon City and the RCPD alongside a Wesker clone, while Leon faces off against Mr X, Plant 43, a giant spider, a new Nemesis, and even someone who looks a lot like Hunk – all building to the revelation that Oswall E. Spencer regretted everything and wanted to make amends.

Spoilers!

According to reputable leaker Dusk Golem (who first broke the news that Leon Kennedy was returning), Capcom originally planned to go even further back into the series' past.

"I never said this publicly (& glad I didn't as people might be trying to execute me if I did), but I am aware they did work on a return to the RE1 Mansion that's just not in the final game," Dusk Golem said.

From a logical standpoint, bringing back Spencer Mansion is a tough sell. Mr X, Wesker clones, and a new Nemesis all make narrative sense – they can be reproduced. We've seen tanks full of tyrants and other Umbrella experiments. Even Raccoon City's return holds up, since the Resident Evil 3 remake retconned the explosion so that the RCPD and other key locations survived the blast.

Spencer Mansion is a different story. At the end of the 2002 Resident Evil remake, the mansion is completely destroyed by the self-destruct sequence – nothing remains but rubble in the Arklay Mountains. Players also already visited a 1:1 reconstruction of it in Resident Evil 5, which means a return just a few games later would carry far less weight than walking back into the ruins of Raccoon City.

Capcom may still revisit the idea in DLC – the ending teased Chris Redfield's return, and he was supposed to have his own expansion back in Resident Evil Village. But even Dusk Golem isn't convinced that'll happen.

"To see if they use scrapped stuff in DLC or something, who knows? I don't," he concluded.