Resident Evil 4 Remake arrived with a slew of issues at launch, including image quality issues, inconsistent performance, ugly screen space reflections, and controller response issues. It was an engaging effort, but it lacked the finishing touches.The recently released Title Update 1.004 added Mercenary Mode and fixed many of these issues. Here’s how it’s currently played:
The most prominent launch version issue is image quality, with all console versions suffering from a noisy appearance and the PS5 seemingly suffering from additional rebuild issues. but the final result is mixed at best.
On the plus side, the PS5-specific issues have been resolved to some extent, giving it a sharper look despite some artifacts, but oddly enough, the Series X/S release is more impressive than the launch version. It’s getting worse.The Xbox series release has a lot more aliasing and a sharper look. All resolutions are the same as at launch, splitting to 1080p/1440p on the Series S (performance and quality modes), splitting to 1800p/2160p on the Series X, and splitting to 1944p/2160p on the PS5. Image processing between patches 1.002 and 1.004.
Capcom should probably rethink its approach here: RE Village had a cleaner image on consoles than the RE4 remake, but it also featured a fairly lush world. Perhaps a less aggressive checkerboard solution or moving to a native resolution approach with fewer pixels would be a better fit for this title. A softer, more temporally stable final image would be desirable, especially given that RE4 tends to be dark and low-contrast.
Finally, the PS5’s “Lens Distortion” and “Lens Distortion with Chromatic Aberration” options now render correctly, eliminating the blurry low-res look they used to have. We recommend turning these options off, but at least leave them at their defaults, they shouldn’t affect image quality significantly.
Another major launch issue affected reflections. Low resolution RT reflections and very poor implementation of screen space reflections. This is an issue carried over from previous RE Engine efforts. As of the latest patch, neither the PS5 nor the Series X feature screen-space reflections at all, with Capcom replacing them with cubemaps or RT reflections depending on the situation and switching visual settings. It’s a downgrade in settings, but it’s definitely a net improvement in my eyes, and one I recommended in my launch review.
On the Series S, screen space reflections seem to have mostly disappeared, but for some reason reappeared in framerate mode on a single reload. Partly because of this, it’s hard to tell if this was an intentional change or an unwanted side effect of changes elsewhere, but I hope the screen space reflections are gone altogether. increase. Of course, a better-behaved SSR implementation with less artifacts would be ideal, but I think it’s unlikely we’ll see an improvement there.
Beyond the graphics issues, RE4’s launch code wasn’t particularly performant either. Most mode combinations ran unlocked, with the PS5 and Series X holding 60fps more regularly on their lowest configurations, while the Series S performed more uniformly than either premium his machine. was inferior to
There have been some significant improvements on this front, with the Series X running 5-10 fps better than the launch code. This means that the default framerate mode runs consistently at 60 fps. The resolution mode plays pretty much the same as the framerate mode at launch, with most gameplay bottoming out around 50 fps at or near 60 fps. However, with all graphics options turned on, depending on the complexity of your scene, you could end up with a variable frame rate of 40 fps in the worst case.
The Series S performs significantly better than the earlier formats by locking 60 fps in framerate mode, outside of a few specific scenes, such as the rain sequence at the beginning of Chapter 5. . A very clumsy response, but perhaps understandable given the RT reflex.
The results on PS5 are a little less clear. Here the framerate mode is fixed at around 60 fps, no real issues, but it’s similar to what we observed in the launch patch. Resolution mode hangs him in his early to mid 50s even with heavy taxes, and old dress options often run in his mid 40s. It’s certainly possible that the PS5 will show a performance improvement here, but if it does, it’s a minor boost than the series consoles have received.
Finally, thankfully, the dead zone issue on Xbox Series consoles has also been mitigated. At launch, players had to deflect the stick about 40% throughout its range of motion to get any on-screen response. As of the latest patch, the game is significantly more responsive, comparable to similar games like RE2 and Dead Space.
In addition to the fix, this patch also adds the free Mercenaries Mode DLC. This basically takes areas from the campaign, fills them with challenging enemies, and puts a time limit on the proceedings. The emphasis is on killing enemies as quickly as possible and moving around the map to pick up time extensions. RE4’s accelerated mechanics fit this mode really well, and I enjoyed it even though the content was limited to his three small maps. However, A and S ranks are fairly easy to achieve, so there isn’t much of a challenge here.
The performance of The Mercenaries basically matches the more intense combat areas of the main game, so we recommend sticking to the higher performing options here. It runs at a fairly stable lock at 60 fps. Curiously, the hair option seems to be completely disabled here, so you can’t enable it at all in The Mercenaries.
All things considered, RE4 is a huge improvement over its launch release, but there are still many areas that need attention. Strand-based hair looks weirdly worse than default curd-based hair. RT is pretty limited and low resolution, but the visual options for navigating a premium console are overwhelmingly rich.
Improved performance in quality-based modes is desirable, and the ability to lock to 30fps is also welcome. Capcom has improved image quality a bit on all consoles, and while the PS5 delivered a real improvement, the final image still had issues, with a softer, more stable look being better suited to the artwork. I think. Perhaps moving away from checkerboard to a more robust temporal supersampling anti-aliasing option might yield better results.
That said, the game is more beefed up than the launch code, and the game’s key issues have been at least partially addressed. Let’s hope to see future patches to continue.
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