That said, the game is two weeks out from release, so one might assume that Capcom would prefer the demo to fully represent the game to come.
Of course, this is demo code and may not be representative of the final product - certainly, this area of the game was the focus of the playable demo I experienced at EGX Berlin, right down to the 30-minute time limit, suggesting that the code may lack some of the optimisations of the final product.
It's interesting to note here that the effects on PS4 Pro look a little chunkier than the Xbox One X equivalents, which may suggest reconstruction from a lower resolution. We can ascertain this by using the PC version with its fully configurable resolution selection, and comparing the same scenes.īeyond that, from a visual standpoint, the only differences between the consoles we can determine would be a slightly different look to the depth of field and screen-space reflections on all platforms - possibly owing to the differences in rendering resolution that they may be tied to.
Switching over to the beefier enhanced consoles, 1620p is our preliminary guess for both consoles - but again, there is some evidence of reconstruction. This is something we'll look at in more depth on final code. Looking at camera cuts where TAA cannot be applied, sometimes the base resolution looks markedly lower for a few frames, while other similar shots seem to resolve a native 1080p.
Both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 deliver a 1080p resolution - but there are some artefacts suggesting that the Microsoft console is reconstructing from a lower base resolution, obscured somewhat by the temporal anti-aliasing solution. While the game's internal artwork looks impressive, performance and resolution changes significantly according to the platform you play on.
It may not be physically correct, but it serves to highlight the lifelike details of the player model - another neat trick for the smoke and mirrors that is real-time rendering. There are other technical tricks designed to showcase the high fidelity assets: when you bring the camera on around Leon up close, the game spawns a tight shadow-casting light directly above his head, following the camera.
Character modelling is also top-notch with realistic animations both in and out of cutscenes, and a lot of weight and physicality - from the way zombies react to the velocity of your gunfire, all the way down to the subtle animation on Leon's hair as he trudges down the dark hallways. When all of those effects are combined together, we are looking at a highly atmospheric and smooth-looking game - and that is just the environments. We'll be looking at the final version more closely to fully confirm this, but the lavish volumetric effects look quite a lot like the frustum voxel aligned type we have seen in many games this generation, giving any and every light a chance to illuminate the fog. So just how does the remake push the RE engine harder than before? All versions of the demo showcase a filmic per-object motion blur, each surface that is smooth enough receives screen-space reflections, and the game makes extensive use of volumetric lighting and a bokeh depth of field. Meanwhile, the PC version opens up a vast array of possible settings, but based on the experience the demo delivers, the top-end experience does require some meaty hardware. It's shaping up to be a beautiful game that sees the consoles push higher-end features of the foundation RE engine for the first time, and it also sees the developer make some fascinating technical choices for both the vanilla and enhanced consoles.
At the tail-end of last week, Capcom delivered a multi-platform release of the Resident Evil 2 Remake - the so-called '1-shot' demo that gives users just 30 minutes to play a very small portion of the full game.