The Resident Evil franchise is easily one of the most successful series in the video gaming industry. This long-running series has been the icon of horror games ever since the first game came out in 1996. Capcom is coming up with a Resident Evil 4 Remake later this year, and we had information on the upcoming Resident Evil Village DLC a while back. Amidst these upcoming releases, the developers also have come up with next-gen versions of Resident Evil 2, 3, and 7 on the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Although these launches have been smooth on consoles, the PC community was not particularly happy with all of its aspects.
The new releases add next-gen features like ray-tracing and enhanced 3D audio. These additions have improved the game significantly on consoles. But, it also has increased the hardware requirements on PC and rendered several mods useless. Thus, players with low-end hardware are facing difficulties in running the game as the new update forces players to run the enhanced version of the game. Also, the modding community is unhappy with the treatment dealt with by this update. Probably the worst part about this update is that it forces players to play the next-gen versions of Resident Evil 2, 3, and 7.
Capcom, however, has listened to the player base. It sent out a tweet announcing that the next-gen versions can now be rolled back to their original DirectX 11-based releases from a few years back. These releases do not come with ray tracing and enhanced 3D audio.
This rollback should solve the problem for PC users. But this is not the end of the story. Players who got Resident Evil 7 via the PS Plus Collection on the PlayStation 5 are being charged for the new update. This is very vague as Capcom had declared that the next-gen update will be available for free to all players irrespective of how they got their hands on the original game. Capcom has not addressed this issue yet.
But, apart from these issues, the franchise is faring well. The next-gen upgrades for Resident Evil 2, 3, and 7 do make these games look fantastic on the next-gen consoles and particularly on PCs with high-end hardware. The developers still have to reveal more information on the upcoming Resident Evil 4 Remake and the Resident Evil Village DLC that is upcoming later this year. Overall, Resident Evil seems to be headed in the right direction!