Between all of the PS5 Pro upgrades we’ve tested to date, the Resident Evil series enjoys some of the greatest benefits by running on Sony’s new hardware. In order, we have 2017’s Resident Evil 7, the remakes for RE 2 and 3, Resident Evil Village, and most recently Resident Evil 4 Remake. Capcom’s in-house RE Engine forms the technical backbone for all five games, of course, and each one runs as a native PS5 app. Except, there’s often been a catch to their performance delivery on base PS5 – whether it’s using RT features at 60fps in some cases, or enabling a 120Hz HFR mode in others, there’s potential not being totally fulfilled on base hardware. PS5 Pro offers a solution across the board with its increased GPU power and more advanced PSSR upscaling, via which there’s now a genuine means to bridge the gap to those frame-rate targets.
Before we get to the performance, the basic facts first: out of all five games, only RE4 Remake and RE Village are actually updated with Pro support. The other three games still receive a performance boost on PS5 Pro, but the features and visual settings remain the same as the standard PS5. For RE4 Remake and Village, the PlayStation Store pages show a PS5 Pro Enhanced symbol, and sure enough, the upgrade is evident on booting PS5 Pro where we now get a new 120Hz toggle on each. Essentially, this works much like the 120Hz toggles already present in the RE2/RE3 remakes and RE7, but it’s a Pro-exclusive feature for the latest two games.
Let’s kick off our tour of the series’ upgrades on PS5 Pro with RE Village. This is the only game to get PSSR upscaling, with core visual settings otherwise staying in place from the base machine. PS5 Pro runs at a fixed 1536×864 resolution which is reconstructed to 4K using PSSR in every mode – whether you have ray tracing enabled or disabled, or run at 120Hz or 60Hz. The result is respectable, though there is a trade-off when compared to the 4K checkerboarding method used on base PS5, which renders at a native 1920×2160. This makes it more of a side-step visually: base PS5’s image is sharper and crisper – but with more pixellation artefacts owing to the checkerboard approach. Meanwhile PS5 Pro’s handling of similar fine detail is generally more stable, though prone to its own causes of flicker, depending on the moving content within the frame. Static shots do resolve to a comparably crisp 4K image as information accumulates over multiple frames using PSSR, though, and the only other drawback is that fine hair detail becomes blurred in motion (not a problem on base PS5). It’s a mixed result – at times subtly improved in its temporal stability, and at other points worse – though there are thankfully no other visual side-effects as we saw in Dragon’s Dogma 2, another RE Engine title.
Jumping over to frame-rate testing, running RE Village with RT engaged is a much more robust 60fps experience on PS5 Pro. We get RT reflections, ambient occlusion and a form of GI here, improving the game’s shadows and local bounce lighting for interiors. Looking at base PS5’s delivery with this RT mode, it generally holds a stable 60fps and with a VRR display it looks nigh-on perfect – save for the most demanding moments in the game, where the frame-rate can dip into the mid-40s. As for the game’s new 120Hz high frame-rate mode on PS5 Pro, it hits its 120fps target almost flawlessly if RT is disabled, and even with it enabled the run of play is typically 55-90fps. Overall, it’s a superb turnout if you’re willing to sacrifice the ray tracing option.