Assuming nothing changes in the immediate future, Resident Evil Village is on course to be one of the first next-gen-only games available for Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. Capcom confirmed that the series’ eighth mainline installment will be ditching existing devices in favor of Microsoft and Sony’s upcoming consoles at one of the latter’s showcase events earlier this year, though it now appears as if development may not be going as swimmingly as hoped.
In a series of comments recently published over on Twitter, prolific leaker AesthethicGamer – an accurate source of unconfirmed Resident Evil information – has described how Village originally started life as a cross-gen title, with Capcom only later deciding to drop support for PS4 and Xbox One after it came to the realization that neither would be able to accommodate the technically demanding nature of certain gameplay elements.
Following a shift in focus (and positive feedback from numerous playtesting sessions), the sequel ultimately ended up in its current form as presented to the public a few months ago, and while reception so far has been outwardly positive, clear performance issues haven’t gone unnoticed. This, according to the whistleblower, is due to the PS5 version of Village experiencing numerous problems.
Going into further detail, they say:
The next-gen improvements they’re making work fine in the PC & Xbox X versions, but are really affecting the PS5 version. They’re debating to step down on the effects & features, trying to figure out what’s going on here, & with these hiccups & thinking of sales debating if they should go all-in on Next-Gen for the benefits it brings to the game, or cut back to make more widely available, they’ve even been giving some questionnaires to testers including asking about the next-gen or cross-gen focus.
Assuming the above to be accurate – and we’re inclined to believe so, given the source’s reliable track record – does this mean that Capcom could be investigating the possibility of a current-gen Resident Evil Village? At the very least, it would seem as if the company is weighing up its options. The worst case scenario would be a PS5 version markedly inferior to those on PC and Series X, but we’ll ultimately just have to wait and see what transpires.
With any luck, we’ll learn more at the showcase scheduled to take place this weekend at Tokyo Game Show, so stay tuned.