Resident Evil 8 PS4 and Xbox One versions cancelled due to performance

While the next entry in the Resident Evil franchise was recently revealed during the PlayStation 5 reveal stream, many fans were wondering what happened to the leaked Resident Evil 8 PS4 and Xbox One versions. 

Despite every detail of Resident Evil 8: Village that leaked ahead of time being completely accurate – including setting, plot, characters, enemies and inventory – the Resident Evil 8 PS4 and Xbox One releases were surprisingly absent.

However, Resident Evil insider Dusk Golem has said that the current generation versions of the upcoming horror title were cancelled due to complications with the game’s performance on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, especially due to the game’s larger environments and visual overhaul.

“Okay, I got some clarification on why they made RE8 next-gen only, when it was cross-gen previously,” Dusk Golem said on Twitter. “The way RE8 was designed led to past-gen consoles having a lot of pop-in/long texture loads/load times because the game has you travelling through most of the Village and had a lot of load zones.”

“Because there’s a bigger focus on exploration, this would lead to the last-gen console versions having notable issues, and it was holding back how pretty they could make certain scenes.”

“So they decided to drop the last-gen versions of the game to make it so the game had no loading at all (not limited by last gen hardware) and push the graphic overhaul further without the limitations of last-gen tech in mind.”

(3/3) certain scenes. So they decided to drop the last-gen versions of the game to make it so the game had no loading at all (not limited by last gen hardware) and push the graphic overhaul further without the limitations of last-gen tech in mind.

— AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem (@AestheticGamer1) June 13, 2020

The current iteration of Resident Evil 8: Village does lead some credit to this rumour considering the graphical inconsistency of some of the game’s assets that have been shown so far. While the game does have some very striking looking areas, charterers and enemies, some of the scenes show much lower quality assets all around.

Saw some debate about Resident Evil 8 and its Character Models. My hunch is that the trailer is a mix of Old & New Builds.

These are the same character in the trailer & it's more than just the lighting changing their quality. RE2 did similar from reveal to release #REBHFun . pic.twitter.com/zeQM7XSyus

— Jawmuncher (@Jawmuncher) June 12, 2020

Capcom’s track record with Resi has been pretty solid over the course of the generation. From the fantastic Resident Evil 7 to the truly amazing Resident Evil 2 Remake to the pretty good Resident Evil 3 remake, Capcom has provided fantastic games to play that look drop dead gorgeous.

While it is a shame that the Resident Evil 8 PS4 and Xbox One ports have been canned, the series has undoubtedly had one of its greatest lineups on this generation of consoles.