Capcom released another Resident Evil Village demo earlier this week. It doesn’t include more content than earlier previews, but it does have the distinct advantage of being playable from your internet browser thanks to Immersive Stream for Games, a licensable version of Google’s Stadia tech.
The appropriately named Resident Evil Village Online Streaming Demo lets you play through the game’s previous “Village” and “Castle” demos via Chrome (on PCs) and Safari (on iOS) without downloading anything. It also supports PlayStation and Xbox controllers in addition to the obvious keyboard and mouse scheme. The resolution tops out at 1080p and it doesn’t use HDR, but it’s still an impressive feat.
I spent some time playing this Resident Evil Village demo and can confirm that, yep, it’s Resident Evil Village alright. The graphics leave a lot to be desired, naturally, but the framerate and latency were almost identical to playing the game on my PlayStation 5. Of course, your experience will vary depending on the speed of your internet connection (Capcom suggests 10 Mbps or higher).
Writing about games professionally can be a challenge. It’s a constant tug-of-war of wanting to remain professional while also expressing excitement and joy about our little electronic toys. We shouldn’t be in the business of writing mini commercials. I worried that that’s exactly what I was doing with this blog until I realized why I thought the browser demo was so cool: its accessibility.
Resident Evil Village is great. Anything that removes a barrier to entry for folks who want to try it before wasting bandwidth and/or spending $60 is worth celebrating. Streaming technology, even in the face of Stadia’s high-profile failure, still feels like a big step for video games, especially when it comes to topics of accessibility and preservation. Here’s hoping more developers see the benefits of letting folks check out their games this way.
It was recently announced that Resident Evil Village is also coming to PlayStation VR2 if that’s more your thing.