Resident Evil Requiem’s Wildest Fan Theory Echoes Star Wars’ Worst Problem

Resident Evil’s ninth mainline installment, Resident Evil Requiem, launches in a little over a month and a half. But besides the reveals of two playable protagonists, Grace Ashcroft and Leon S. Kennedy, and a handful of sparse story details, not much at all can be said for certain about what Resident Evil 9 will entail, or how it may affect the series moving forward.

Because so few official details have been shared, Resident Evil Requiem fan theories are understandably running rampant. Nothing will truly be out of the realm of possibility until Resident Evil Requiem’s release date has arrived, but one theory would rival Star Wars’ biggest problem when it comes to linking new characters with legacy characters: Leon being Grace’s father.

Star Wars Has a Legacy Character Problem

In a similar vein to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the quality of Star Wars movies and TV shows has been a mixed bag lately. In particular, Star Wars’ sequel trilogy has been critiqued for lackluster subplots and character developments, a lack of clear direction or a coherent throughline, and an overreliance on legacy characters.

For instance, after The Last Jedi established that Rey was truly a “nobody,” The Rise of Skywalker revealed that Rey is Emperor Sheev Palpatine’s granddaughter. While Finn and Poe Dameron avoided being arbitrarily ascribed to legacy characters themselves, rumors stil swirled about anyone they could be related to, as well.

Connecting a new character to a legacy character with a familial tether isn’t an inherently poor idea, but it can be hard to do in the right way. Done poorly, arbitrary connections can feel like little more than a way to rely on nostalgia for popular figures and give inorganic significance to characters with minimal development.

Resident Evil 9 Shouldn’t Muddy Its Waters

If Leon’s primary reason for being in Resident Evil Requiem is that he’s secretly or unknowingly Grace’s father, it would be a classic case of assigning a familial connection when there didn’t need to be one. It’s obvious from Resident Evil Requiem’s Leon reveal trailer that he is afflicted once again by something, whether it’s a parasite or a virus, and his story intersecting with Grace’s might be the precursor to a daddy-daughter date spent slaughtering bioweapons.

This is merely a theory, anyway, but it is hopefully untrue. Grace is already the daughter of Resident Evil Outbreak’s Alyssa Ashcroft — a legacy character in her own right, though only in two Resident Evil entries that aren’t nearly as beloved or well-known as the mainline, numbered installments. Learning that she and Leon had a child together between the events of the games would be terribly sudden and aimless.

Not only would this theory be a random, needless attempt to make Leon relevant again when his popularity is so great that he wouldn’t need any excuse to appear, but it would also effectively undercut a contentious and arresting relationship with Resident Evil’s Ada Wong that’s been nearly 30 years in the making. Revealing that Leon had a child with Alyssa, even if they aren’t an item anymore or never had a notable relationship themselves, would speak to a whole other life he had beyond being smitten by the best antihero character in Resident Evil.