For many members of the gaming community, Resident Evil Village is one of the most highly anticipated titles releasing in 2021. Serving as a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7, Resident Evil Village looks to expand upon all of what its predecessor introduced. Though, one aspect that many fans are looking forward to are technical and visual improvements.
When Resident Evil 7 first released, one thing many players were quick to notice was its graphics. The game featured a level of detail and polish that was far beyond anything the franchise had seen before. However, one advantage that Resident Evil Village has over its predecessor is the new technology found in next-gen systems, which will allow for even more improvements in terms of graphics.
A new video put out by Digital Foundry compares and contrast Resident Evil Village's multitude of performance and resolution modes on the PS5, the PS4 Pro, and the PS4. All of this footage was captured by way of the newest PlayStation demo released for Resident Evil Village, and upon comparison, Digital Foundry found that the quality of the game looks to be consistent across all platforms.
The only noticeable difference that Digital Foundry encountered between the various versions of Resident Evil Village was ray-tracing. In terms of most AAA games, ray-tracing has become common, especially on next-gen platforms. It allows color-contrast and lighting effects to become much brighter and crisper. For instance, the remastered version of Marvel's Spider-Man on the PS5 includes ray-tracing features that allow players to soak in the graphical detail much more vividly.
Capcom mentioned that Resident Evil Village would have some big improvements over Resident Evil 7, but the use of ray-tracing for PS5 players should greatly improve its quality of life and atmosphere for a number of players. Given the franchises' horror roots, environments are much darker and murky by design. So, having ray-tracing turned on will allow players to engage with the environments easier while maintaining its immersion.
In any case, it will be interesting to see what else Capcom has in store for players. The release date for Resident Evil Village is swiftly approaching, and for how much Capcom has shown the game off, there's still a number of details that fans don't know about. Then again, it's probably important to leave some surprises for when the game officially releases.
Resident Evil Village launches May 7, 2021 for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.