2023-11-10 20:07:34
You only need to see Leon Scott Kennedy from Resident Evil 4 walking around the forest for a few moments on the screen of an iPhone 15 Pro Max, with textures, lighting and movements almost worthy of a console, to arrive at this realization: the limits of mobile gaming as we knew them until now no longer hold.
Resident Evil 4 is one of the titles at the heart of a new offensive by Apple to establish itself in video games. In addition to this new version of the famous Capcom game, Apple also recently announced the arrival ofAssassin’s Creed Mirage and of Death Stranding Director’s Cutwhich I also had the opportunity to try briefly this week during an event organized by Apple.
Resident Evil 4 can also be played with on-screen controls on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Video: Maxime Johnson.
All of these games will be launched over the coming months on Mac, iPadOS and the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max (the only two models powerful enough for complex titles of the genre).
And these mark the culmination of a strategy put in place by Apple several years ago.
Chips and APIs
First, there are the fleas. These (both the A range on the iPhone and the M range on Macs) are not only more powerful from generation to generation. They are also increasingly suitable for video games.
The latest M3 chips (those found in the latest MacBooks and the new iMac) and A17 Pro (those in the iPhone 15 Pro) support, for example, ray tracing, which allows more realistic reflection of light in games . Apple has also implemented features to maximize the stability of games and new technologies to improve their visual fidelity.
It’s not just AAA games that benefit from advances in Apple’s chips. Traditional mobile games too, as this beta version of Diablo Immortal, where ray tracing has been enabled. Video: Maxime Johnson.
The rest of the ecosystem, especially the Metal programming interface (API), has also made giant strides over the years.
The company is not reinventing the wheel. On the contrary, it is rather gradually catching up in the creation of tools facilitating the work of large-scale video game developers.
And since the iPhone 15 Pro, these improvements are significant enough to allow developers to port real AAA games with high graphics quality to mobile. Mobile gaming as we know it will not disappear (Apple also presented other more conventional games this week, like The Division : Resurgence, Sonic Dream Team et Hello Kitty Island Adventure), but this is a new option available to players.
Really the same games?
In the two examples tried here, the games are exactly the same as those on PC and consoles. The gaming experience is identical. Death Stranding In fact, it doesn’t even have on-screen controls to play it with your iPhone. You will need a controller or a Backbone type adapter to take advantage of this.
Is the quality the same though? Not exactly. I’ve found Resident Evil 4 particularly beautiful in bright scenes, but a little less in darker scenes (too bad it’s not the other way around!). The textures of Death Stranding on iPhone were as realistic as on console, but the quality of the image seemed to degrade quickly towards the horizon. It’s also difficult to predict at what frame rate the game can be displayed, but a constant 60 frames per second would surprise me.
Although it is good, the quality of the games presented on iPhone 15 Pro Max was not the same as on Macs. Photo: Maxime Johnson.
Apple’s software tools and chips aren’t magic following all. A MacBook Pro with M3 Max is more powerful than an iPhone 15 Pro. It is therefore normal that there is a difference in quality between the two. But from what I saw, the acceptable threshold was still reached on iPhone.
My only downside, however, is the text, which often appears small. For games with a lot of content to play, a phone will likely be a platform to avoid.
How much will you pay for these games?
Only Capcom has announced the price of its game for the moment: US$60, that is to say the same price as on other platforms. However, this is a universal purchase, which you can also download on an iPad and a Mac.
And your games will obviously be synchronized across all your devices.
Ubisoft and Kojima Productions have yet to announce their intentions, but I have a feeling a similar strategy will take hold.
Because following all, a phone will probably never be the device of choice for large-scale gaming. For all their strengths, the latest iPhone 15 Pros are less powerful than the latest Macs, and that always will be the case. And these games were designed to be played on large monitors or televisions. Not on the small screen of a phone.
The market for $80 mobile-only games is probably infinitesimal. Personally, I know that I would never pay that much.
Resident Evil 4, on three different devices. Photo: Maxime Johnson.
For developers, and especially for Apple, however, everything is more a question of ecosystem. Having the same software tools and chips on Mac, iPad and iPhone makes it possible to join multiple types of devices at the same time. Death Stranding is not ported to the iPhone. It is focused on the Apple ecosystem.
So the question won’t be whether you want to play your next game on mobile rather than on your computer. But rather to know which device will suit you best at the present moment (a vision which also joins that of Microsoft, with its Xbox Cloud Gaming).
That’s a bit like this, this new era of gaming on iPhone. Sometimes the platform of choice will be on a computer, an iPad or a TV (the Apple TV will eventually be powerful enough to enjoy these games too). Sometimes it will be in virtual reality, with the Apple Vision Pro (no one has confirmed it, but I would bet that the games presented here will also be on this headset when it launches next year). And sometimes it will be on his phone.
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