Steam is Resident Evil Requiem’s top platform
Requiem has sold through 4.3M+ copies across Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation, with over half of these coming from Steam.
Resident Evil Requiem is enjoying the best launch in the series’ history, over 5M units as per Capcom’s official sold-in numbers. The success is the culmination of almost a decade of stellar Resident Evil titles, and a terrifying remix of the franchise’s highest highs.
It’s a nostalgia free-for-all, and a bloody fantastic game. Literally and figuratively. But the new Resident Evil also underlines an important shift for Capcom.
Requiem is emblematic of Resi’s successful transition from a beloved legacy Japanese console IP into a global PC powerhouse while also catering to fans of old.
As Resident Evil Requiem celebrates the franchise’s 30th anniversary, our Steam, PS5, and Xbox estimates from its first six days confirm the shift in where the audience actually lives (resides?)
Our estimates show that as of March 4, just six days post-launch, Requiem had sold through 4.3M+ copies across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Capcom recently announced 5M units typically “sold-in” (shipped to retailers), so our “sold-through” estimates focus only on the sales to consumers – and don’t include Switch or Epic.
Still, Steam’s performance can’t be understated:
Requiem has generated gross revenues of over $340M across all platforms in under a week, and Steam accounts for almost $200M.
Valve’s platform also accounts for 2.3M Requiem copies sold, or 53.1% of the playerbase across Steam, Xbox, and PC (console and Windows).
This dwarfs even the PS5 (1.7M/39.5%) sell-through, and leaves Xbox in a distant third (300K/7.4%).
Capcom’s PC-first dream is now a reality, and for a franchise that was once the spiritual ward of PlayStation.
Capcom’s management has been aiming to do this for half a decade now and has been telegraphing this for months. In its FY25 Q3 earnings, Capcom confirmed that PC already accounts for 55% of its total unit sales across the back catalogue.
Japanese third-party publishers have been more anchored to physical media due to domestic retail inertia, Now, Capcom’s strategic pivot toward a digital-first model is yielding some hefty structural advantages.
Spreading the t-virus to new markets
Capcom’s PC expansion is also growing its footprint in more challenging territories, most notably China. Our estimates show that China is Resident Evil Requiem’s #2 market on Steam, accounting for 16% of the total player base there.
In China, console hardware penetration has historically been stifled by regulatory hurdles and cultural barriers, but the open grey-market nature of PC makes it more accessible:
Resident Evil has long landed with China’s gamers, but Requiem has been its most visible and successful debut there.
Peak concurrent users (CCUs) for the Steam version of Requiem begin their ascent around 14:00 UTC, aligning with China’s evening prime time.
This suggests that the record-breaking 344K Steam CCU was driven as much by Shanghai as San Fran.
Even on PS5, China ranks as Requiem’s #3 market (7%), sitting neck-and-neck with the Japanese domestic market (7%). Speaking of Japan, and despite the global shift toward PC, Requiem still did well on the Famitsu software charts in its debut week, moving 155,373 units on PS5 and 38,793 units on Switch 2.
Whether people want to play physically or digitally, console or PC, big screen or portably (the Steam Deck version’s decent, by the way), Capcom has catered to everybody with Requiem’s distribution.
And that flexibility extends to the game design, too.
10 hours with endless replayability: A sweetspot for Resi’s audience
In an era of 50-hour open-world slogs, Requiem succeeds in its leanness. The main story took me about 10 hours to get through on the default difficulty. This is music to the ears of folks with kiddos and busy lifestyles, which make up a chunk of the IP’s ageing core demographic.
The result is easy to see: people are seeing the game through. I just aggregated trophy and achievement data across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox; in under a week, Requiem’s average completion rate (on Casual mode or above) is over 40%.
While most $70 games see a massive drop-off at the midpoint, even among early adoptors, Requiem’s playtime distribution shows a pretty chunky tail of engagement. That closure makes the next instalment a more likely purchase.
Even after just six days on the market, our engagement data shows a peak between 10 and 15 hours (22.2%), precisely where players are finishing their first run and beginning the endgame.
Even more impressive is that over a fifth of the total player base has logged over 20 hours. This hardcore cohort (hardcohort? Sorry...) are already on their next playthroughs, speedrunning, or – in my case – getting rinsed in Insanity mode.
Speed runs, hardcore runs, and knife-only challenges – Resident Evil has always been about that repeatable loop. I’m glad Capcom didn’t take a cue from Umbrella and change that core DNA too much.
Capcom is letting players play their way, even down to different camera perspectives per character.
Fair play to Capcom
In an industry currently defined by layoffs, cancelled projects, and live-service disasters, Capcom’s trajectory is a beacon of competence (although it definitely tried to get a Resident Evil online thing for a while…)
Focusing too heavily on PvP was its downfall there. A PvE Resident Evil, though, that could work. Resident Evil 5’s inevitable remake is fertile ground for this, so I reckon it’s coming.
Capcom has already righted the horrors of Resident Evil 6 by successfully recreating the action-horror back-and-fourth with Requiem.
Maybe it can do the same for its co-op and live-service mistakes by making good on co-op with Resident Evil 5. A co-op Mercenaries mode could really work, maybe with some roguelite elements thrown in. Just sayin’.
As we dived into in our first client-exclusive The Playbook newsletter, co-op is hot right now. And horror is driving plenty of those revenues on Steam:
But in the end, Requiem proves that if you respect the player’s time, deliver consistent high quality, and fans on their platform of their choice, the audience is willing to show up.
And in higher numbers than ever before at this point in the lifecycle:
Capcom has successfully navigated its transition to a digital-first, PC-led future without sacrificing the high production values or the franchise’s core identity.
It’s refreshing to see Capcom’s flexibility and steadfast commitment to its core paying off. They’ve prioritised brand equity over fleeting industry trends, and in the process, they’ve expanded their user base in a way that feels incredibly organic.
Dino Crisis, you’re up?
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They’ve sure come a long way from their Crapcom days! This should be the North Star for companies like Ubisoft. There’s hope!
Hard not to root for Capcom, and it looks like Konami is slowly re-entering gaming with a similar trajectory. Great to have them both back firing on all cylinders like this, Exoprimal aside.
Physical format Sold or Physical and digital? The Xbox data is very strange