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From the very beginning, Resident Evil has had strong female characters fighting horrors beyond comprehension. Whether it's Jill Valentine, Claire Redfield, Ada Wong, Sheva Alomar, or Rebecca Chambers, the women of Resident Evil are bona fide badasses. But for a franchise celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, it's only natural for Resident Evil to expand upon the types of characters featured in its games. We already got a hint of this with Ethan Winters, a regular civilian who stumbles into the cursed Baker family plantation in Resident Evil VII: Biohazard. But there is plenty more territory to be explored, more ground to be covered. 

And this is where the protagonist of Resident Evil Requiem, Grace Ashcroft, comes in. Grace is a young FBI analyst, meaning she works a desk job. As such, Grace is no Clarice Starling. She's more introverted and is intent on discovering the truth about the death of her mother, Alyssa Ashcroft, many years before. 

When I spoke to actress Angela Sant'Albano, who plays Grace in Resident Evil Requiem, she emphasized the differences between her and the other women we're used to seeing in these games. "There are such strong women in the Resident Evil franchise, and I think what's beautiful about Grace is she really is her own. I was able to create something entirely my own and entirely new," Sant'Albano began.

"She's really first and foremost an analyst. She's not so much, you know, great at combat. Let's say she maybe had a little bit of training, but it's just not her strength. And she is more introverted and timid and just really gets stuck into her research, which is where you meet her at the beginning of the game, as you saw in the trailer," Sant'Albano said. 

There's a reason why, in the ninth mainline game in the franchise, Capcom is switching things up. Based on what we've seen in the trailers for the game thus far, Requiem looks terrifying. And I don't know about you, but I still get scared while playing these games, even though I've spent scores of hours playing and replaying them. And there's a bit of a discrepancy between how I react to, say, the Regenerators in Resident Evil 4, versus how Leon reacts. In Requiem, however, there won't necessarily be this discrepancy. Elsewhere in our conversation, Sant'Albano underscored that Requiem is meant to feel more "human" through its characters' reactions to the horrors they face. 

“We all want to believe that in a terrifying situation, we would stand up and be the hero. But I think the real human reality is that at times, you would run away and hide in a corner and scream or hide, and then you might also have moments where you do stand up for yourself, you do overcome your fear to protect those around you," Sant'Albano said. 

This impulse, for Sant'Albano, is what makes Grace Ashcroft such a relatable character in Resident Evil Requiem. “She is a heroine, but in her own way," Sant'Albano began. "It’s a more truthful version of, like, who the heroine is in everyday life, someone who feels the fear and still decides to stand up for both themselves and for other people.” It's fitting, then, that Grace Ashcroft teams up with Leon S. Kennedy, who debuted as a rookie cop in Resident Evil 2 before growing into the grizzled, middle-aged man who appears in Requiem. I can imagine that there is quite a lot about Grace's life that Leon can empathize with. 

Even if seven minutes is all you have to play with, these Resident Evil articles will get you ready for what's next:

• How to play the Resident Evil games in order
• Resident Evil shelved Leon Kennedy for 14 years because Capcom didn’t want players to see him scared
• How to watch the Resident Evil movies & TV series in order