Resident Evil Village is Next-Gen Only Due to “Bigger Focus on Exploration”

Capcom unveiled Resident Evil Village during last week’s PS5 showcase event, confirming months of rumors about the story and setting. The survival horror title will be releasing for Xbox Series X, PS5 and PC, skipping this generation of consoles entirely. According to insider Aesthetic Gamer aka Dusk Golem – who leaked the game’s presence at the PS5 showcase, among other things – it’s next-gen only.

This is despite earlier plans to make it cross-gen. Why? Because apparently the game’s focus on exploration (with no loading) lead to issues on current gen consoles. On Twitter, he stated that, “I got some clarification on why they made RE8 next-gen only, when it was cross-gen previously. With the updated graphic fidelity overhaul they’re doing (still in progress), the way RE8 was designed lead to past-gen consoles having a lot of pop-in/long texture loads/ load times because the game has you traveling through most of the Village and had a lot of load zones.

“Because there’s a bigger focus on exploration this would lead to the last-gen console versions having notable issues, and it was holding back how pretty they could make certain scenes. So they decided to drop the last-gen versions of the game to make it so the game had no loading at all (not limited by last gen hardware) and push the graphic overhaul further without the limitations of last-gen tech in mind.”

It would make sense, especially considering the solid state drives of both next gen consoles and their ability to stream assets much faster. Still, one has to wonder just how much the exploration has been expanded on since Resident Evil 7: biohazard. We’ll have to wait for more details in the coming months.

Resident Evil Village is currently slated to release in 2021.

(1/3) Okay, I got some clarification on why they made RE8 next-gen only, when it was cross-gen previously. With the updated graphic fidelity overhaul they're doing (still in progress), the way RE8 was designed lead to past-gen consoles having a lot of pop-in/long texture loads/

— AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem (@AestheticGamer1) June 13, 2020

(2/3) load times because the game has you travelling through most of the Village and had a lot of load zones. Because there's a bigger focus on exploration this would lead to the last-gen console versions having notable issues, and it was holding back how pretty they could make

— AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem (@AestheticGamer1) June 13, 2020

(3/3) certain scenes. So they decided to drop the last-gen versions of the game to make it so the game had no loading at all (not limited by last gen hardware) and push the graphic overhaul further without the limitations of last-gen tech in mind.

— AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem (@AestheticGamer1) June 13, 2020