Following up on Resident Evil Zero HD Remaster, Capcom have now gone ahead and released Resident Evil 6 HD Remaster, the weakest entry in the long running survival, horror and action franchise. Capcom also have plans to remaster Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 4 later this year. At this pace every single Resident Evil game could possibly be remastered on the PS4 and Xbox One.
This year alone will see four remasters…which to be honest is stretching it a bit. Why exactly Capcom is implementing such a releasing schedule is baffling and one that is beyond us but we can only assume that this is for the funding of the long rumored Resident Evil 7. Regardless, how do the PS4 and Xbox One versions perform? Should players who have already played the title back in 2012 decide to take a double dip? Let us find out.
Resident Evil 6 on last gen platforms was already a decent looking game. The MT Framework engine did a great job of rendering dynamic lighting, a decent post processing anti-aliasing solution and some fantastic in-engine cutscenes. Unfortunately, the game struggled with performance issues and screen tearing resulting in mediocre experience at times. Resident Evil 6 HD Remaster to an extent fixes all of these issues due to the processing power of the PS4 and Xbox One.
As is expected, Resident Evil 6 HD Remaster runs at 1080p on both the PS4 and Xbox One resulting in a sharper image quality compared to sub-HD 720p resolution on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Furthermore, we are also looking at a target fps cap of 60 fps and for the most part the game runs at that standard, especially in enclosed areas. The game provides five different campaign modes for each character. For the purpose of this article we only analyzed the initial sections of Leon and Jake’s campaign.
Performance was relatively stable during Leon’s mission which is expected since most of that takes place in a mansion. We witnessed frame rate struggling a bit during the prologue helicopter scene and during the initial sections of Jake’s campaign. Fortunately, the game is very much playable and there were no drastic frame rate drops observed. Furthermore, the screen tearing issue from last gen consoles is almost non-existent.
This all sounds well and good but how much of visual jump are we talking here? Is this a big leap over the 2012 original? Does it come anywhere near to the quality of remastering we have seen in the likes of Gravity Rush and Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection? The answer is simply no. Other than the improvements in anti-aliasing, better rendering resolution and frame rate, most of the core assets remain the same. Texture quality, filtering and ambient occlusion are slightly improved compared to the original but for the most part we did not found any major improvements. Unfortunately, some of the graphical inconsistencies that plagued the original make a return to the remaster. Shadow quality although improved in some places could be downright awful and blocky. Dithering shadows is another thing and may be acceptable to some players but total disorientation is not. Remember, this is a remaster of a game that is more than 3 years old so it’s quite disappointing to see such inconsistencies getting carried over from the last generation
Regarding the differences between the PS4 and Xbox One versions…well, there is nothing substantial. We witnessed no differences at all and the developers have done well to maintain the parity between the two platforms something that they have managed to implement since they started remastering on current gen consoles.
So where do we stand regarding Resident Evil 6 HD Remaster on the PS4 and Xbox One? At its core, Resident Evil 6 is one of the weakest games in the series that may appeal only to the hardcore fan-base. So if you want to experience it all over again with improved image quality, better performance and slightly improved graphical facets than you may appreciate what the remaster offers. As a whole, the remaster work is decent. It isn’t ground breaking and for the most part the developers have done an OK job. It’s certainly not up to level we have seen in the likes of Resident Evil Zero HD Remaster. Overall we expected much more than what we received which is tad disappointing.