After spending my first 6-7 hours in Resident Evil Requiem fighting the camera more than the Ganados, I finally stopped, opened the Options menu, and really dug into the controls. That’s when the game clicked. The default setup is playable, but between Grace’s first-person sections, Leon’s third-person combat, and the mix of PC and console inputs, you’ll save yourself a lot of frustration by dialing everything in early.
This guide is the reference I wish I had at launch: every major control on keyboard/mouse and on Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch controllers, plus the exact settings I changed to make aiming and movement feel smooth. If I can get Requiem feeling good on both mouse and controller, you can too.
I started on a Series X pad, then swapped between DualSense and Switch for testing. The core layout is the same across all of them; only the button labels change. Here’s how actions map by default:
That quick turn input took me a while to get used to. Don’t make my early mistake of hammering B/Circle on its own and wondering why nothing happens – you need to be pulling the stick back at the same time.
If you’re swapping between platforms like I did, the mirrored confirm/cancel on Switch versus Xbox/PS can really mess you up in menus. You can’t change Nintendo’s system-level convention, but you can remap in-game actions if you want consistency.
On PC, mouse aiming feels excellent once you tweak sensitivity, but the default key layout is a bit cramped. Here’s the out-of-the-box mapping:
W / A / S / DRight Mouse ButtonLeft Mouse ButtonSpaceCtrlXFRQGMTabP1–6The breakthrough for me on mouse/keyboard was moving Quick Heal from Q to one of my mouse side buttons and Parry from Space to Shift. Don’t be afraid to put frequently used actions on your mouse if you have extra buttons.
Resident Evil Requiem is very generous with customization. You can fully rebind controls for keyboard/mouse and for all controller types, and you can also change which button icons the HUD shows.
From any platform, follow this path:
Options → Controls → Button Configuration
The mistake I made early was trying to remap too many things at once. Change 2–3 actions that feel wrong, play a chapter, then adjust again. Your muscle memory will catch up faster that way.
If you’re using a PS5 DualSense on PC but want Xbox-style prompts, or vice versa, you can change what icons the game displays:
Options → Controls → Button Icon Type
I ended up locking mine to Xbox prompts on PC, even with a DualSense, just because most third-party guides and videos reference those labels.
This is where most players (including me) struggle at first. Grace’s first-person camera feels especially sluggish with a controller until you tune it properly. Here’s how to get aiming feeling sharp.
Start here on any platform:
Options → Camera
On controller, the game ships with a fairly large dead zone that makes fine aiming feel mushy. I dropped Right Stick Dead Zone from the default (around 25) down to 5–7. That single change made a huge difference for precision shots without introducing stick drift for me.
Requiem quietly hides separate camera settings for Grace (first person) and Leon (third person), and unlocking these was my real breakthrough.
Options → Camera.F or clicking an arrow icon) to open their specific sliders.What finally worked for me:
Give yourself at least one full encounter after changing these before judging them. Your thumbs need a few minutes to recalibrate.
If you’re on controller (especially on Switch handheld), don’t be shy about using aim assist. It’s configurable enough that it doesn’t feel like cheating, more like smoothing.
Look under:
Options → Controls → Aim Assist
My sweet spot was Follow mode at about 3–4 strength. It helps smooth tracking without yanking the camera away from where I’m trying to look.
On PC, Requiem natively supports Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch-style controllers. Plug in a pad and the game should automatically switch button prompts to match, or you can override them via the Button Icon Type setting mentioned earlier.
In my case, the only time things got weird was when Steam Input tried to sit between the game and my controllers.
If your controller is recognized in other games but not in Requiem, or you get double inputs, try disabling Steam Input for this title:
After I did this, my DualSense and Xbox pads both behaved consistently with the in-game bindings instead of Steam’s layout templates.
On PS5, Requiem supports DualSense features properly, but on PC those aren’t fully implemented. You get standard rumble, but no proper adaptive trigger resistance and only partial haptic nuance. The good news is that all the important tuning – dead zones, acceleration, aim assist – still applies to the DualSense as a regular controller.
Once or twice after a long session, I had the game suddenly stop accepting keyboard/mouse input while audio continued in the background. If this happens to you:
It feels like a launch bug rather than a hardware issue. Keep an eye on patch notes — I’m expecting Capcom to quietly squash this in an update.
There are a couple more options that indirectly affect how good the game feels to control.
Options → Camera.If you just want a strong baseline without obsessing over every slider, here’s what I’d recommend based on my testing on PC and consoles:
Once you get past the initial tweaking, the rest of the game is smooth sailing from a controls standpoint. Getting your inputs dialed in early means you can focus on what matters: surviving, managing ammo, and enjoying one of the series’ best-feeling entries.
If you take one thing from this guide, let it be this: don’t settle for the default controls. Spend 10–15 minutes in the Options menu now, and Resident Evil Requiem will feel like an entirely different, much better game for the next 15 hours.
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