Perspective as a Compositional Design Apparatus in Horror Video Games: First- and Third-Person Configurations in Resident Evil Requiem

For three decades, one question has organised scholarship on perspective in horror games: Which configuration produces stronger horror, first-person or third-person? Comparison across games cannot settle it, because character, space and affordance vary along with the setting. Resident Evil Requiem holds them still: one game, two protagonists, both perspectives and a toggle available throughout . This article reads that design through close playing across four configurations. The perspective never alters what a player-character can do. It alters what the player is permitted to know about the body she is operating: its condition, its capability and its bearing. The same setting carries opposite affective values across the two protagonists, and across Grace herself once she is armed. The reach of the setting narrows as the range of action widens. Perspective is a compositional apparatus, and what it produces is set by the point of action it frames.