What Resident Evil Village on iOS tells us about the future of AAA mobile game development
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When you play Resident Evil Village on an iPad Pro, it's flabbergasting to believe that this is Capcom's latest mainline entry running natively on a mobile device, looking every bit as good as its home console counterparts.
It feels like alchemy when considering the most recent port of the game to a handheld device was the cloud version on Nintendo Switch. Factor in the rise of cloud-dedicated devices like Logitech G Cloud and Razer Edge, plus cloud gaming services like Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and GeForce Now, and the assumption would be that the only practical way to experience the most bleeding edge titles portably is via streaming.
But Apple's inclusion of its powerful M2 chip inside its latest devices, including the sixth-gen iPad Pro released last year, and most recently the iPhone 15 Pro, means that developers finally have the power of a high-end console in their hands.
There are nonetheless some unique circumstances that make Resident Evil Village a smooth port to iOS, namely that Capcom had already ported the game to MacOS last year compatible with machines with the M2 chip.
"We could reach a point where we're able to target [mobile] alongside current-gen consoles"
"We have a relationship with Apple that existed previously to this latest hardware [iPhone 15 Pro] being released," Masachika Kawata, one of Resident Evil Village's producers, tells GamesIndustry.biz. "But we just saw the new M2 chip as a great chance to bring Resident Evil to more players around the world and we're always happy to have that kind of chance. We were very happy with how powerful [the M2] was as well and what it led us to achieve with this port."
It's clear
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