‘Resident Evil 7 biohazard’ iPhone 15 Pro Review – The Best Capcom Port Yet, but Not Perfect – TouchArcade
Resident Evil 7 biohazard (Free) is one of the most important Capcom games of the last 10 years as far as I’m concerned. It felt like a turning point for the publisher back in 2017 when we saw the PS4 get multiple superb releases from Japan within a short period including Persona 5, Yakuza 0, NieR Automata, and more. Resident Evil 7 biohazard was the start of what I consider the “Capcom is back” phase that is still going on. The publisher consistently puts out games I love each year, and Resident Evil 7 biohazard was the start. Since launching on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, it has seen PS5 and Xbox Series X upgrades and a cloud version for Switch in select regions. More than 13 million copies later, Resident Evil 7 biohazard arrived on iPhone 15 Pro, macOS and iPad (M1 and later), and this is easily Capcom’s best Resident Evil port yet to Apple hardware.
What set Resident Evil 7 biohazard apart back in 2017, was in how it was genuinely a horror game first and foremost. Fast forward to today, Resident Evil 7 biohazard remains excellent with its immersive and scary atmosphere, interesting story, stunning visuals, and more. The RE Engine is truly one of the best in the business, and it has been awesome seeing it scale down to iPhone 15 Pro while delivering smooth gameplay and great visuals. Yes, Resident Evil 7 biohazard on iPhone is actually a great version of the game in general, not just great because it is on a phone or iPad. Not only is the full experience present here, but it actually feels better to play (with a Backbone) than it did back in the day on PS4 where I first played it. Resident Evil 7 biohazard was always a technical showcase even on consoles, but being able to play it with HDR at and targeting 60fps on my iPhone 15 Pro is something else.
If you’ve not played Resident Evil 7 biohazard before, it is a great entry point into the series, and one of the best Capcom games. The first person horror experience has you taking on the role of Ethan Winters looking for his wife while trying to survive gruesome enemies, solve puzzles, and more. While the prior games like Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6 had more of an action focus, this one went back to the first person survival horror roots. I know there’s a lot of discourse for first person, third person, action focus, and horror focus in the Resident Evil community, but I can safely say that Resident Evil 7 biohazard, Resident Evil Village, and the remakes of 2,3, and 4 are all worth playing for fans of the series. It is great that we have such a spread across the different kinds of main Resident Evil games as well today, and that’s even reflected on iPhone with both Resident Evil 7 biohazard and Resident Evil Village being available alongside Resident Evil 4 Remake and Resident Evil 2 Remake joining in.
When Resident Evil 7 biohazard was announced for iOS, an auto fire option was revealed. I wasn’t sure if we’d see Capcom put more effort into touch, or just hope players use a controller as usual. Having now played Resident Evil 7 biohazard on my iPhone 15 Pro, the team bringing the game to Apple hardware has done a lot more here compared to Capcom’s prior releases, but it isn’t as good as Assassin’s Creed Mirage is when it comes to controls. This is definitely a big step in the right direction though. You don’t need to use on-screen buttons for all navigation anymore. It feels like a port that actually does more for touch controls than Resident Evil Village or Resident Evil 4.
In addition to the usual touch control customization, you can toggle an auto fire option on and various control settings before getting to the other surprising part of Resident Evil 7 biohazard on iOS. This release actually has a few notable graphics options. The display options also have HDR support, which was toggled on by default on my iPhone 15 Pro. On the graphics side, you can use one of three presets: prioritize graphics, prioritize performance, and balanced. You can also adjust screen resolution (1560×720, 1952×900, 2342×1080, and 2556×1179), FOV (70 to 90), toggle motion blur, and toggle depth of field.
Resident Evil 7 biohazard in its current state even on the prioritize performance mode can’t maintain a locked 60fps all the way. There are drops, but I ended up sticking to this mode with a higher resolution option selected to play. I find it hard to enjoy most first person games at 30fps, especially with bad frame pacing. Capcom needs to improve the 30fps cap’s frame pacing in Resident Evil 7 biohazard because it doesn’t feel perfect. Visually, Resident Evil 7 biohazard looks excellent and makes use of the full aspect ratio aside from the 16:9 cut-scenes. I don’t have a supported iPad to test out Resident Evil 7 biohazard though, but it played a lot nicer than Resident Evil 4 Remake did on my MacBook Air. This video is a good showcase of how it runs on different iPad models.
Resident Evil 7 biohazard is a free to try game on Apple hardware. The full game unlock is priced at $19.99 (including Not a Hero and Dirty Coin) with an additional $19.99 for an upgrade to the Gold Edition with all DLC included (Banned Footage Volume 1 and 2, End of Zoe, and Survival Pack). The major DLC for Resident Evil 7 biohazard is also really good and having all of it for $39.99 with a comparatively excellent conversion plus it being a universal purchase across iPhone 15 Pro (and Pro Max), iPadOS, and macOS with iCloud save syncing makes this an amazing value proposition for newcomers to the game. This price also matches the Gold Edition bundle price on Steam.
While I wanted to give Resident Evil 7 biohazard a fair chance with touch controls to try out the auto fire option, I also used my USB-C Backbone One controller to see how it felt with traditional controls. The first thing to note is Resident Evil 7 biohazard only seems to support Xbox button prompts even when using a DualSense wirelessly or my PlayStation edition Backbone controller. Capcom confirmed that keyboard and mouse gameplay is not supported in Resident Evil 7 biohazard on iPad or iPhone.
Speaking of Steam, I redownloaded Resident Evil 7 biohazard on Steam Deck to see how it feels today. After some cut-scene issues with Proton, a surprise considering the game is Steam Deck Verified, Resident Evil 7 biohazard ran flawlessly. Obviously a PS4 generation game is expected to run better than PS5 or cross-generation titles, but Resident Evil 7 biohazard is a joy to play on both iPhone 15 Pro and Steam Deck. The latter is definitely the best way to experience it on the go, but this iPhone 15 Pro version is close. If you were turned off by how Resident Evil 4 Remake or Village ran on your phone, you should give this one a shot to see how much better it runs and feels.
Resident Evil 7 biohazard on iPhone 15 Pro is Capcom’s best conversion yet in the series, but it isn’t perfect. A bit more optimization would go a long way, but this is finally a game I can recommend on iPhone without big caveats. It is even good to play with touch controls now, but something like a Backbone or Razer Kishi will give you the best experience. I also love being able to take my progress to my MacBook Air and continue playing there. Resident Evil 7 biohazard gives me hope that we might see a similarly performing port for Resident Evil 2 Remake whenever that arrives on iPhone 15 Pro. Until then, this is Capcom’s best Resident Evil port on iPhone by a big margin, and Resident Evil 7 biohazard itself is an excellent entry in the amazing series.
