The highly anticipated Resident Evil Village has finally released, marking the eighth installment in the celebrated franchise. As a cross-generation title, RE8's PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions take advantage of new, more powerful hardware. The PlayStation 5 version, in particular, has some special bonus features involving the new DualSense controller. But how does Resident Evil Village on PS5 stack up against PS4?

PlayStation 5 can deliver perhaps the most immersive experience of Resident Evil Village, since the DualSense has full haptic feedback and adaptive trigger support. Environmental cues can be felt with acute accuracy, and each gun has a different resistance strength when pulling the trigger. Of course, the DualShock 4 still has traditional rumble, but the DualSense provides a much higher level of sensory input. The other most immediately noticeable difference between the two is the load times. Thanks to the PS5's SSD, RE Village loads in a matter of seconds. The PS4 can take over half a minute to get players into the game.

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In terms of visuals, there is a wide array of outcomes for Resident Evil Village's resolution and frame rate based on hardware and settings. According to Capcom, the PS5 displays RE8 in 4K with HDR and a targeted frame rate of either 45 or 60 fps, depending on whether or not the player has ray tracing turned on. The PS4 Pro also has two options: 1080p and 60 fps, or 4K and 30 fps. Really showing its age now, the base PlayStation 4 runs Village at 900p and 45 fps.

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It's not at all surprising Capcom chose to release Resident Evil Village as a cross-generation title. Dropping the player base still using PS4s and Xbox Ones would cause a huge drop in sales, and prior to Village, there was only one new mainline Resident Evil game last generation. Playing RE8 on PS5 is certainly a higher quality experience than playing on PS4, but it's tough not to imagine what Village might look like if it were exclusive to the new consoles.

Returnal, another newly released PS5 title, managed to hit 60 fps in 4K with ray tracing turned on. Perhaps by the time Resident Evil 9 comes around, developers will have worked with the new hardware enough that such performance is more common than not. For now, playing Resident Evil Village on PS5 is the definitive way to experience it on a PlayStation console, although PS4 owners won't miss out on all that much.

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Source: Capcom