Something to look forward to: Players can probably consider the just-released free demo for Capcom's Resident Evil Village Gold Edition a benchmark for that game and the upcoming remake of Resident Evil 4. The titles have similarly modest system requirements, at least for 1080p gameplay.

During a Halloween presentation this week, Capcom shed some light on the Resident Evil 4 remake and unveiled details for the expansion pack to last year's Resident Evil Village. The new footage of the remake remains faithful to the original 2005 version but reveals many subtle changes along with a tremendous leap forward in graphics.

Capcom showed off the earliest section of Resident Evil 4. It should look familiar to those who've played earlier editions of the game, but it also significantly expands in some areas. Gameplay alterations include apparent stealth elements, new functionality for the knife, a deeper crafting system, and new behavior for some enemies.

The RE4 Remake is graphically similar to Resident Evil Village, evidenced by their identical system requirements. However, it has a smaller gap between the minimum and recommended GPU specs.

Capcom suggests a GTX 1050Ti or RX 560 for playing in 1080p at 60 frames per second with the game set to "prioritize performance." Alternatively, the publisher recommends a GTX 1070 or RX 5700 to play at the same resolution and framerate at higher settings.

The one caveat is that to use ray tracing, Capcom recommends mid-range Turing and RDNA2 graphics cards, with minimum and recommended specs very close to each other. Of course, turning the resolution up to 1440p or 4K will require higher-end hardware. Since Resident Evil Village supports AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0, which Capcom added to its other recent Resident Evil titles along with ray tracing, it's safe to assume the Resident Evil 4 remake will include the feature. One detail Capcom hasn't revealed yet is the remake's storage requirement.

Minimum:

  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 3 1200 / Intel Core i5-7500

  • Memory: 8 GB RAM

  • Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 560 with 4GB VRAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti with 4GB VRAM

  • Additional Notes: Estimated performance (when set to Prioritize Performance): 1080p/60fps. ・Framerate might drop in graphics-intensive scenes. ・AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 required to support ray tracing.

Recommended:

  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 / Intel Core i7 8700

  • Memory: 16 GB RAM

  • Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 5700 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070

  • Additional Notes: Estimated performance: 1080p/60fps ・Framerate might drop in graphics-intensive scenes. ・AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 required to support ray tracing.

Resident Evil 4 launches on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Xbox Series consoles (but not Xbox One) on March 24, 2023. Resident Evil Village Gold Edition releases next week on October 28.

Gold Edition adds a new short storyline and an optional third-person camera mode. The 60-minute demo lets players test the game's performance and the new camera mode, which Resident Evil 4 shares.

Resident Evil Village also comes to Apple Silicon with Gold Edition next week. The game supports all currently-available M1 and M2 Macs running macOS Monterey and Ventura.

Likely the most demanding game yet to arrive on the platform, Resident Evil Village will use MetalFX Upscaling to increase framerates. It should be interesting to see how it compares to the PC version's AMD FSR.