Upgrades in Resident Evil Requiem can make all the difference, from allowing you to carry more items to making every shot hit harder. Obtaining these upgrades is, however, part of the challenge when playing a survival horror. Most of them require you to invest in some sort of resource, which in general are quite scarce in these games.
Considering you won’t have the resources to unlock every upgrade, you should prioritize the best upgrades in Resident Evil Requiem for Grace and Leon.
Best upgrades for Grace in Resident Evil Requiem
As she tries to stay alive and deal with the monstrosities that invaded her life, Grace must work with whatever she finds. Grace’s upgrades are limited, but fairly effective, when it comes to reducing her suffering in an already hellish situation. Some upgrades can be crafted and found, but, for the most part, you will need to find and spend antique coins to obtain them. Here are the upgrades you should prioritize as Grace.
Hip pouch
Hip pouches are the best upgrades for Grace because they increase her inventory space. One hip pouch gives her two extra inventory slots, and there are four of these to be found in Resident Evil Requiem. You can buy one hip pouch in the Parlor for three antique coins; the other three are scattered throughout the other areas.
You won’t hit zombies with your fancy hip pouch, but you will definitely be more prepared to fight them with one. Most items like herbs, ammo, and scraps occupy one slot each. They don’t stack, so it takes only a few items to fill your inventory. Although this might sound good, when you don’t have space to carry more items, you are forced to either leave them behind, or spend an item to make space for the new one. With more slots in her bag, you won’t have to worry about that (too much), and have enough items and materials to face whatever comes her way.
Steroids
Unique to Grace, steroids are consumable items that increase her max health. Depending on the difficulty mode you’re playing, it only takes four hits from a regular zombie for Grace to reach low health. So, by increasing her health, you have better chances of survival.
Once used, the effect of the steroid injector is permanent during that playthrough, which means steroids aren’t carried over to a new save file. You can buy one steroid injector from the lockers in the Parlor for four antique coins, but if you analyze the Blood Specimen (Reversible), you unlock the steroid recipe and can make more of it. To craft a steroid injector, you need one empty injector and 120 blood. You can use up to four steroids as indicated above the health indicator in the menu.
Override Manual
More ammo or additional med injectors are great, but as Grace, nothing will make you happier than seeing a pool of blood or a bucket filled with this rich liquid. Once you unlock the blood collector, you can start crafting all kinds of tools and weapons, like the powerful hemolytic injector and even handgun ammo! Because of that, you want to have as much blood as you can and, with the override manual, you increase the blood collector’s capacity by 50. To get the override manual, you’ll need to buy it from the locker in the Parlor for six antique coins. With the upgrade unlocked, you’ll have enough blood to craft more steroid injectors.
Best upgrades for Leon in Resident Evil Requiem
Unlike Grace, Leon has a multitude of upgrades to choose from, but all of them are for his gear. You can’t increase his health or firepower with consumables. Instead, you’ll need to unlock armor and tune his weapons to protect him. After you make it to Raccoon City, most of Leon’s upgrades can be purchased from supply boxes using the credits you receive from killing enemies. There are, however, a couple you obtain from warped closets in the Care Center.
Although there are enough enemies in the game for you to buy most of Leon’s upgrades, here are the ones you should prioritize:
Case upgrade (8×13)
Leon’s blessing and misfortune is that he has access to several different guns. Carrying at least a pistol, a submachine gun, a shotgun, and a sniper rifle helps you to prepare for anything, but you’ll also need a lot of space. Since Leon’s inventory follows the Resident Evil 4 style, every item occupies a certain number of slots — especially big guns. That’s why you want to invest as soon as possible in the case upgrade (8×13) to expand the number of slots he has. This upgrade is available as soon as you unlock the supply box in Raccoon City, and it costs 4,000 credits.
Body Armor
Despite Leon’s vast arsenal, he can’t kill enemies fast enough to avoid being struck all the time. With body armor, you don’t need to worry about that. In Resident Evil Requiem, the body armor will only mitigate part of the damage Leon takes. Once unlocked, you have up to two bars of armor and to restore it, you must pay a small amount of credits at a supply box. You can buy level one body armor for 8,000 credits in a supply box, which can be upgraded to level two for 15,000 credits.
There are some nasty foes in this game that can throw rocks, use knives, and even clumsily use a submachine gun to hit Leon. Body armor is the extra layer of protection you need to prevent all this damage going directly to his health, reducing the number of times you must stop shooting to heal yourself. Besides, he is the one who will face the toughest boss fights, so having more protection is the best way to prepare.
Ammo capacity
Even with a large inventory and the extra layer of protection body armor provides, there isn’t much to be done when you run out of bullets with a licker looking (you know what I mean) directly at you. For this reason, you want to focus on increasing your gun’s ammo capacity. Most guns have one upgrade in the “Tune Up” screen that will increase its magazine size. The prices vary depending on the gun, but they are definitely worth investing in after having acquired the case and the armor upgrades.
