Zeno: the Connections Villain of Resident Evil Requiem

Zeno is one of the villains of Resident Evil Requiem, a high-ranking representative of the Connections, the bioweapons syndicate that made Eveline. He backs the former Umbrella scientist Victor Gideon because both men want Elpis, the last creation of Oswell E. Spencer. With slicked-back hair, sunglasses and inhuman speed, he looks a lot like Albert Wesker, but the game never says who he really is. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Who is Zeno?#

Zeno speaks for the Connections, the shadowy syndicate that first showed its hand as the makers of Eveline in Resident Evil 7. Requiem gives no first name or backstory. What it does show is that he has influence well beyond the syndicate: he is the money and protection behind Gideon's experiments at the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center. (Resident Evil Requiem; Resident Evil 7: Biohazard)

He also isn't fully human. Zeno moves fast enough to dodge bullets and overpowers Leon in a straight fight. Those enhanced abilities matter at the end, because Elpis takes them away. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Is Zeno Albert Wesker?#

This is the question most players ask, and the honest answer is that the game doesn't tell you. Zeno shares Wesker's slicked-back hair, his sunglasses and his trick of dodging gunfire, and reviewers were quick to call him a Wesker lookalike. But Wesker died in Resident Evil 5 and does not return in Requiem. (Resident Evil Requiem; Resident Evil 5)

The closest thing to a hint comes from Gideon. In the ending where Elpis is released, he sneers at Zeno as a cheap imitation just before killing him, without saying what Zeno is an imitation of. Some fans read that as a nod to Wesker. Requiem leaves it there, and so do we. (Resident Evil Requiem)

What does Zeno want?#

Elpis. Zeno tells Grace he believes Spencer's last project is the ultimate weapon, a contagious virus that lets its user control other people's minds, and he wants it for the Connections. In Zeno's version of history the Connections pushed for the 1998 missile strike on Raccoon City to keep Elpis buried for themselves. (Resident Evil Requiem)

The trouble was getting in. Elpis sat behind a terminal in ARK guarded by a fail-safe that would destroy it if anyone gave the wrong answer. Gideon was sure Grace knew the password, because he believed she was the one success of Spencer's experiments to move his mind into a new body. Zeno bought into it. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Zeno and Grace#

Zeno first meets Grace after the disaster at Rhodes Hill. Emily, the blind girl Grace had protected through the outbreak, had apparently died, and Grace, broken, agreed to go with Gideon and Zeno because they promised answers about Elpis. (Resident Evil Requiem)

While Gideon went to stop Leon on the road into Raccoon City, Zeno took Grace into the ruins of the Raccoon City Police Department. There he told her what he thought Elpis was, and passed on Gideon's theory that Emily was one of many clones of Grace and that Grace was Spencer's success. He then took her down to ARK. (Resident Evil Requiem)

He was wrong about her. The disc Grace's mother left behind proved she was no clone and had nothing to do with the experiments: she was a foundling Spencer had taken in as a baby and entrusted to Alyssa Ashcroft. (Resident Evil Requiem)

How does Zeno die?#

Leon caught up with Zeno in ARK, fought through his soldiers and got Grace away from him for a while. In the end all three met at the Elpis terminal, which asked one question: what does the creator desire? What happens to Zeno depends on Grace's answer. (Resident Evil Requiem)

If Grace destroys Elpis. ARK starts to destroy itself. Leon stays behind to hold Zeno off so Grace can escape, and in this ending Zeno overpowers him and kills him as the two fall into the depths of the facility. Grace gets out alone. (Resident Evil Requiem)

If Grace releases Elpis. Zeno grabs it and injects himself, still sure it's a weapon. Instead it strips away his enhanced abilities, because Elpis is an antiviral. Then Gideon arrives, having survived Leon, and the two men fall out over what Elpis is for. Gideon calls him an imitation and beheads him. (Resident Evil Requiem)

Either way, the Connections lose their man in ARK. The group itself survives the game, and the post-credits scene of the Release Elpis ending leaves open who raided ARK afterwards. (Resident Evil Requiem)