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Safari just doesn’t support key features — and Safari’s the only option
Something keeps coming up at the Epic v. Apple trial as a potential alternative for getting Fortnite on the iPhone: web apps. It’s an intriguing idea, as web apps are able to do surprisingly complex things: just look at a Chromebook or even game streaming services on the iPhone. But potential is far from reality, because the ability for web apps to look, feel, and perform as well as native apps on iOS is severely limited.
These web apps aren’t the preferred way for consumers or developers to use or create apps on the iPhone, either. But Apple has forced companies like Microsoft and Nvidia to use web apps, instead of native ones available in the App Store.
Though the term itself hasn’t really come up explicitly, what’s being discussed are Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs. If you’re unfamiliar, think of them as slightly more advanced web apps that you can “install” directly from your web browser on to your home screen. Google has been pushing the idea (though support for PWAs on its own platforms is a little mixed), and some companies like Microsoft and Twitter have wholeheartedly embraced PWAs.
Not Apple, though. There are a variety of reasons for that — ranging from genuine concern about giving web pages too much access to device hardware to the simple fact that even Apple can’t do everything. There’s also the suspicion that Apple is deliberately dragging its feet on support for features that make PWAs better as a way to drive developers to its App Store instead.
Fortnite running on an iPhone before its removal.Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge
But the App Store has restrictions that aren’t tenable for some developers. That’s the whole crux of this trial for Epic, after all. On the stand, a Microsoft executive detailed the company’s struggles to get its xCloud game streaming service onto iOS. Lori Wright, VP of Xbox business development at Microsoft, revealed the company spent around four months talking to Apple to try and get xCloud launched as a native app. Apple seemed, initially open to the idea of letting Microsoft use the same model as Netflix or Audible. But Apple changed its mind and forced Microsoft, Nvidia, and others to list cloud games as separate apps.
Submitting Xbox games one-by-one was simply a nonstarter for Microsoft, so it resorted to making a web app. In addition to the technical hurdles a web app involves, it also introduces a discoverability issue. Users simply aren’t used to installing apps from the web on their iPhones. Apple has effectively trained everybody that if they want an app, they go to the App Store.
Wright essentially admitted that the only reason Microsoft is releasing Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) as a web app is because Apple’s terms on the App Store are too onerous. “People don’t play games through the browser on iPhone,” said Wright, but “it was our only outcome in order to reach mobile users on iOS.”
Even the judge in the case seemed confused by Apple’s rule, which says that services that stream movies can offer them all in a single app but services that stream games have to separate each game for individual listing and review. “I can use Netflix with a native app and I can see lots of different movies or TV shows or whatever. Is it that you didn’t want to use a subscription model?” Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers asked at one point.
Apple has forced Microsoft and others to head to the web for gaming streaming.Photo by Nick Statt / The Verge
But back to those technical hurdles: they’re tall, numerous, and can be blamed both on the nature of web apps and Apple’s own decisions. Safari on the iPhone only recently became capable of supporting a service like Xbox Cloud Gaming via specific controller support. Until then, that sort of thing was on the list of features Apple was reticent to include in Safari. There are legitimate reasons to block things like Bluetooth access from web apps, including fingerprinting for tracking, but it was getting harder to justify and Apple needed some kind of escape valve as pressure mounted to support cloud gaming services.
Google software engineer Alex Russell recently published a very comprehensive list of all the features that Safari on iOS doesn’t support yet — and it’s a long list. For PWAs to truly be a viable alternative to App Store apps, there are at least a few of these features that need to be enabled. The inability to send push notifications via a web app, for example, is particularly galling as it’s already possible on Safari on macOS. An app that can’t send notifications is simply not competitive with an app that can.
Grant is touching on some more of the benefits to native versus web apps; push notifications and ARKit both come up. The former is another example of Apple letting native apps reduce friction points — Epic needs to convince the judge these smaller features are meaningful.
— Adi Robertson (@thedextriarchy) May 5, 2021
As Russell notes, his “interests and biases are plain” as a Google engineer. But it doesn’t change the fact that there are many things that a PWA cannot do on the iPhone that a developer like Epic would need to support Fortnite as a web app.
“Native [iPhone] apps would have access to a far wider range of APIs than web apps,” explained Andrew Grant, engineering fellow at Epic Games, during the trial. “Access to things like push notifications, to Siri, to health data, and augmented reality features” are also limited to native apps, said Grant. Web apps also have to be far smaller than native apps, and are capped at about 50MB in size.
Plus, from a simple performance perspective, web apps have more overhead than native apps — and lack access to Apple APIs that can speed up games like Fortnite.
In fact, this was a sticking point for a lot of the questioning of an Nvidia employee. Nvidia, like Microsoft, has been trying to get its GeForce Now cloud gaming service into the App Store, but has faced the same restrictions that Microsoft is struggling with. Nvidia director of product management Aashish Patel spent a lot of time answering questions around latency in a browser and the benefits of using native apps.
“There are less controls over the streaming, so you could argue in some ways it’s worse,” than a native app, said Patel. Developers are also locked into using the video codecs provided in Safari on iOS, whereas they could use alternatives that might be better at handling latency inside a native iOS app.
All iOS browsers run the same WebKit engine underneath.Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
All of this is compounded by yet another Apple policy: no third party browser engines. You can install apps like Chrome, Firefox, Brave, DuckDuckGo, and others on the iPhone — but fundamentally they’re all just skins on top of Apple’s Webkit engine. That means that Apple’s decisions on what web features to support on Safari are final. If Apple were to find a way to be comfortable letting competing web browsers run their own browser engines, a lot of this tension would dissipate.
As it relates to Epic v. Apple, a lot of this PWA discussion isn’t germane to the fundamental arguments in the case. Fortnite as a PWA would necessarily be a streaming app instead of a native game and that introduces an entirely different set of compromises. Which is why it’s so fascinating to see Apple’s lawyers float web apps as a potential solution — because web apps on the iPhone are famously more limited than they are on other platforms, including even Apple’s macOS.
The human-readable versus machine-readable code bit is back now — Grant is talking about how web apps don’t go through the same kind of compilation process that increases processing efficiency, yet another reason they’re not as good as native apps.
— Adi Robertson (@thedextriarchy) May 5, 2021
Even if every single browser feature was available on mobile Safari or even if Apple allowed alternative browser engines on the iPhone, a web app will never match the performance of a native app. At the end of the day, though, all the discussion of web apps in the Epic v. Apple case highlight the limitations of Apple’s App Store policies, not PWAs.
(Pocket-lint) – While many of us are still very much locked indoors for the foreseeable, working from home, the spectre of a potential commute is beginning to rear its head for plenty of people. Now more than ever, an electric bike is an attractive prospect.
Avoiding public transport, getting fresh air, but without the risk of exhaustion, what’s not to love? The main downside is that many of the most well-known options are prohibitively expensive.
That provides an opportunity for the likes of FuroSystems, a smaller manufacturer who can attract people with cost-saving as well as features. Its Aventa is a prime example – a great e-bike that doesn’t reinvent the wheel by any stretch, but offers a great experience at a very sensible price.
Sleek and disguised
Weight: 16.5kg
Aluminium frame
Central LCD display
Tektro HD-E290 Hydraulic Disk Brakes
Turning first to the look and feel of the Aventa, the good news is that it falls safely into the “you wouldn’t know it” category of electric bikes. This is a bike that at first glance doesn’t look electrified, which we consider to be a good thing.
Only one chunky part of its frame and the motor on the rear wheel give the game away, but the matte paintwork and FuroSystems logo do a good job of disguising this.
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An integrated front light keeps things sleek up front, athough there’s no back light for some reason – and you’ll need a reflector/light to ride on UK roads legally – while a fairly narrow set of handlebars and a sleek saddle makes for a racing-style fit. It’s not the most laid-back e-bike we’ve ridden – that honor belongs to VanMoof – but when you get the Aventa’s saddle adjusted right it’s entirely comfortable and feels nice and nimble.
The Aventa’s other big clue as to its electrification is a little dashboard that’s located between the handlebars – a small digital display that acts as a speedometer when its turned on, as well as indicating the battery level and what amount of pedal assist you’re currently getting.
We’re a bit torn on this. On the one hand, it gives you a bunch of useful information if you want it, with the pedal assist level particularly good to keep track of. Equally, however, it’s fairly ugly and has a tendency to make you look like you’ve got a GPS or phone strapped to your bike and are in the process of getting lost. If we could remove it easily, we probably would – indeed we think that’d be a good thing to stop it looking like a fancy e-bike.
Pocket-lint
On the left handlebar, nicely nestled where your thumb rests, is the main control point for this e-bike, comprising a power button (holding it down switches it on and off), and a button each to either raise or lower the level of pedal assist. These are smartly placed and easy to use while riding, letting you adjust on the fly. The right handlebar houses a traditional gear switcher to let you control the bike’s nine standard gears.
Overall we’re impressed by how premium the Aventa looks and feels. It’s not quite at the level of VanMoof and Cowboy’s bikes – particularly when it comes to cable tidying, with most of the cabling on the bike’s exterior – but it’s also a big chunk less expensive than those options. And sometimes that can be what matters most.
Pedal assistance
6 levels of pedal assist, 25kmph/15.5mph top speed
Integrated Lithium-Ion battery
60km/37m range per charge
An e-bike’s design is important, but how it feels to ride is the key variable, and FuroSystems does well on that front. The newest version of the Aventa is easy to switch on and has six different levels of pedal assist to pick from – which help you to get up to a speed of 25kmph/15.5mph before letting you put in the work to go faster. That speed cap is the UK legal limit for an e-bike, it varies in other territories.
Pocket-lint
Between the first and second levels of assist you won’t even notice a huge difference, with acceleration just feeling a bit easier than it otherwise would. Putting things up to level three or four on the power scale gets you a more appreciable boost as you kick off from a standstill, and makes getting up to speed feel really easy. On strenghts five and six, meanwhile, things feel really zippy – just after you start turning your pedals you’ll get a nice push of extra power.
Getting the system right on pedal assist is a little harder than it seems, while making sure that you feel in full control of your acceleration is something other e-bikes we’ve tested haven’t quite managed, but the Aventa strikes a great balance. You’ll find it super easy to get going at traffic lights; hills also won’t pose much of a challenge as far as maintaining your speed. All this is achieved without a particularly loud motor noise – just a very low-level whirr that wind-noise cancels out.
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With a standard nine-gear shifter also available, if you run out of battery then you’re far from stranded, and using normal gears in conjunction with the pedal assist levels lets you get to a pretty precise level of work as you cycle, which makes the Aventa good if you’re keen on having plenty of control.
A sizeable 80km/50m range means you can get plenty of cycling done on a single charge too, which is for the best since the Aventa’s battery isn’t removable – a typical shortcoming of e-bikes’ designs at the moment.
A four-hour charge should juice it back up, but you’ll have to lug it near to a power point to do so, and at 16.5kg you’ll find that a slightly tiresome task. Still, heaviness is also far from unique to the Aventa, it’s part and parcel of an e-bike, so it’s not a great sin. For context: a carbon road bike, all in, is about 8kg; a London ‘Santander Cycle’ is around 24kg, so this sits somewhere in the middle – not bad considering it’s the only electrified option.
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Apart from that pedal assist things are extremely simple to operate – there’s no companion app or smart features to speak of here, which means an ease of use that’s almost refreshing at times.
On the flip side, it does make for a lack of security features that competitors can offer, like bike tracking or even integrated locking. Still, provided you gear yourself up with a proper bike lock you’ll be able to lend it to mates and ride it without your smartphone, both options that can be surprisingly tricky on some so-called ‘smarter’ bikes.
Verdict
FuroSystem’s pitch is pretty clear when it comes to the Aventa: you can get a lot of the same feeling while riding it that you’ll find from the Cowboy or VanMoof S3, but you’ll have spent hundreds less on the bike.
That’s a surprisingly accurate summary of how it feels to use too. No, the Aventa might not have a ‘killer feature’, but it doesn’t put many feet (or wheels) wrong at all. You get really solid pedal assist, impressive range, and a design that manages to look as sleek as you could reasonably hope – and discreet too.
While a removable battery, smarter features, and better cable integration would be nice, the savings you make on the up-front cost more than explains their absence. So, if your budget doesn’t stretch to one of the more chic names in the market, the Aventa is an option that’s well worth considering.
Also consider
VanMoof S3
VanMoof also doesn’t have a removable battery, but its smoothness of ride and comfort are unrivalled, making its S3 or X3 brilliant options to ride. Either model is pricier than the Aventa, but you get a lot of app-based smart features like auto-unlocking and bike tracking, plus a design that’s a little more unique and modern.
Read our full review
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Cowboy
If your budget can go even further, the Cowboy is a superb option that has perfect pedal assist and probably the best app integration of any e-bike we’ve tried, making for a superb package that is just a bit of an upgrade on the Aventa in most areas. The biggest fillip it lands over other bikes, though, is that removable battery – making it miles more convenient than many competitors. Still, you’ll be paying for those privileges.
Read our full review
Writing by Max Freeman-Mills. Editing by Mike Lowe.
The Oppo Reno5 lineup launched at the beginning of this year, but it’s only now that it’s getting a European release. Now, the most affordable of the bunch – the Reno5 is here and looks well-equipped too. An OLED panel with a high refresh rate, fast charging, capable SoC, lightweight build and plenty of base storage and memory.
And in a (not so) surprising move, Oppo is releasing this one under two names in Europe. The Reno5 is launching in Eastern Europe, whereas Western Europe is getting it as the Find X3 Lite. The two models are identical in specs as you can see.
Oppo Reno5 5G • Oppo Find X3 Lite
So even though we got specifically the Reno5 model for review, our review findings should apply to both devices in equal parts.
While the Oppo brand is well-known in Asia, and even though it’s yet to make a name for itself in Europe, it’s positioned as a premium brand elsewhere. So it’s no wonder that the company avoids undercutting the competition price-wise and yet focuses on making well-executed handsets with a premium look and feel.
The Reno5 (or Find X3 Lite, if you prefer) uses a bright, 90Hz OLED panel and a 64MP main camera and it also offers one of the fastest charging technologies. It’s also nicely compact and pocketable.
Probably the biggest selling point of this one is its size and ergonomics. In a market where behemoths rule, the Reno5 5G is a breath of fresh air with its compact 6.43-inch display and a weight of 172g.
Oppo Reno5 5G specs at a glance:
Body: 159.1×73.4×7.9mm, 172g; Gorilla Glass 5 front, plastic back and frame.
Display: 6.43″ AMOLED, 90Hz, 430 nits (typ), 750 nits (peak), 1080x2400px resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, 410ppi.
Chipset: Qualcomm SM7250 Snapdragon 765G 5G (7 nm): Octa-core (1×2.4 GHz Kryo 475 Prime & 1×2.2 GHz Kryo 475 Gold & 6×1.8 GHz Kryo 475 Silver); Adreno 620.
Memory: 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 12GB RAM; UFS 2.1.
OS/Software: Android 11, ColorOS 11.1.
Rear camera: Wide (main): 64 MP, f/1.7, 26mm, 1/1.73″, 0.8µm, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 119˚, 1/4.0″, 1.12µm; Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4; Depth: 2 MP, f/2.4.
Front camera: 32 MP, f/2.4, 24mm (wide), 1/2.8″, 0.8µm.
Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps; gyro-EIS, HDR; Front camera: 1080p@30fps, gyro-EIS.
Battery: 4300mAh; Fast charging 65W, 100% in 35 min (advertised), Reverse charging, SuperVOOC 2.0.
Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); 3.5mm jack, The phone also comes with 128GB of base storage, and the Snapdragon 765G 5G is nothing to scoff at.
What we can scoff at is the phone’s current pricing. The launch price of €450 is quite optimistic considering that the competition in the midrange is quite heated and this phone comes with a plastic back and frame.
But let’s not rush to any conclusions as this phone might offer more than what meets the eye at first glance. First, time for an unboxing.
Unboxing the Oppo Reno5 5G
The phone comes in a premium-looking box and fresh mint color. It contains the usual user manuals and the 65W-capable wall charger with a USB-A to USB-C cable.
Oppo has also thrown in a bonus case, too, along with a pair of 3.5mm headphones.
Home/Tech News/Intel ‘Atlas Canyon’ NUC 11 Essential to feature Jasper Lake processors
João Silva 15 hours ago Tech News
A new leak shows that Intel is working on a new affordable NUC powered by Jasper Lake processors. Codenamed ‘Atlas Canyon’, the NUC 11 Essential leak details its specifications and a possible release date, which might be as late as Q1 2022 due to the ongoing chip shortage.
The leak, which was shared by FanlessTech, shows Intel has apparently removed the 2.5-inch drive from its predecessor and replaced it with an M.2 slot. The small and compact casing includes an active cooling system, but a fanless system seems doable given the low TDP.
The slide below shows that there will be three CPU options: the 4C/4T Pentium Silver J6005 (up to 3.3GHz), the 4C/4T Celeron J5105 (up to 2.9 GHz), and the 2C/2T Celeron J4505 (up to 2.7 GHz). The NUC 11 Essential support up to 16GB of DDR4-2933 memory in dual-channel configuration and up to 2x 4K displays. Some models include 64GB of eMMC storage.
Image credit: FanlessTech
Featuring a vast set of connectivity ports and features, the NUC 11 Essential supports Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and 1Gbps Ethernet connectivity. As for the ports, there’s an HDMI 2.0b port, a DisplayPort 1.4, 2x front USB-A 3.1 ports, 2x rear USB-A 3.1 ports, 2x rear USB-A 2.0 ports, an audio-in 3.5mm jack, and an audio-out 3.5mm jack.
The NUC 11 Essential will be reportedly available as a mini PC, a barebone kit, and as a board only. All should feature a 3-year warranty.
KitGuru says: Despite its entry-level specs, the NUC 11 Essential is very useful as a media PC for the living room or as a work computer that can be mounted on the back of a mid-size monitor to save some desk space.
Home/Peripheral/Monitors/Philips latest gaming monitor boasts a 240Hz IPS panel and HDR
João Silva 2 days ago Monitors
Philips has recently announced a new monitor, expanding its ever-growing portfolio of gaming displays. The latest addition is the 272M1RPE, an IPS gaming monitor with a 240Hz refresh rate that delivers smooth gameplay without sacrificing image quality.
The 27-inch IPS panel has a 1ms response time (G2G), FullHD resolution, and AMD Freesync Premium support for stutter-free gaming. The panel’s typical brightness hovers around 400nits and the contrast ratio at 1000:1, allowing the monitor to cover 119% of the sRGB colour space, 95% of the NTSC spectrum, and 93.4% of the Adobe RGB gamut. Moreover, the monitor comes factory-calibrated with a ΔE < 2 (sRGB).
The 272M1RPE features Philips’ Ambiglow technology, providing a colourful glow around the edges of the monitor, and flicker-free and low-blue light technologies to prevent eye strain. This monitor is VESA DisplayHDR certified and features SmartImage HDR presets, including ‘HDR Gaming’ and ‘HDR Movies’.
The included SmartErgo Base offers a full set of ergonomic features, allowing the user to adjust the tilt, swivel, pivot, and height, but users may also use the monitor with a VESA 100x100mm bracket. For I/O, this monitor comes equipped with 2x HDMI 2.0, a DisplayPort 1.1, a USB-B upstream port, 4x USB 3.2 ports, and a 3.5mm audio jack.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru says: A 27-inch FHD/240Hz monitor might not suit everyone due to the low pixel density, but some users prefer the high refresh rate instead of the higher resolution of the QHD/144Hz or 165Hz monitors out there. Which do you prefer for your gaming setup?
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Roccat has two new keyboards hitting the market – the Magma and Pyro RGB. The Magma is a membrane keyboard with a fully illuminated RGB top place, while the Pyro is a mechanical keyboard with more traditional per-key RGB lighting.
The Roccat Pyro keyboard is the most feature-packed of the pair, equipped with a brushed metal top plate, Roccat’s AIMO lighting on each key, and TTC’s linear red mechanical switches. These red switches have a rated actuation force of 45g, a lifespan of 50M keystrokes, and a 4mm travel distance, providing gamers with a durable and responsive keyboard for all levels of skill.
The Magma keyboard on the other hand aims to push RGB to a new level with a semi-transparent top plate, featuring five zone, 10 LED RGB backlighting that users may customise to their liking. The backlighting can be synchronised with other Roccat AIMO-compatible devices, creating a unique RGB light show on the user’s gaming setup. This membrane keyboard features rubber dome keys, offering a reliable and responsive experience when typing.
Both keyboards feature detachable palm rests, anti-ghosting technology, and dedicated media keys. They also feature Roccat’s Easy-Shift (+) technology, providing gamers with the ability to set a secondary function to certain keys. The release date of both keyboards is scheduled for May 30th. The Pyro keyboard will be priced at $99.99 and the Magma at $59.99.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru says: Looking for a new keyboard? What do you think of the latest from Roccat?
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João Silva 2 days ago Featured Announcement, Graphics
Narrowing down the RTX 3080 Ti launch window has been a pain for insiders, with the date shifting every couple of weeks. The latest reports indicate that the RTX 3080 Ti will now be announced on the 31st of May, followed by a retail launch in June. According to some sources, the RTX 3070 Ti will launch in a similar time frame.
After multiple delays, the latest rumours regarding the announcement of the RTX 3080Ti points to a reveal on May 31st. The review embargo is expected to end on June 2nd, so the release should be around this date. The RTX 3070 Ti is also rumoured to be announced on May 31st, but this card will release a bit later, with a reported review embargo of June 9th.
On a similar note, retail listings for the RTX 3080 Ti have been shared by VideoCardz. On Aquila Technology, there’s a listing for an MSI RTX 3080 Ti Ventus 3X 12G OC priced at NZD $2,543.46 (£1316.23) and a Gigabyte RTX 3080Ti Gaming OC priced at NZD $3,152.50 (£1,631.40). Over on Computer Perth, listings for a Gigabyte RTX 3080Ti Vision OC and a Gigabyte RTX 3080Ti Eagle OC were spotted, both with a AUS $1732.75 (£966.75) price tag. Computer Perth’s listings mention the NDA ends in late May.
The RTX 3080Ti is expected to feature the GA102-225GPU with 10240 CUDA cores and a 1665MHz boost clock speed. It should come with 12GB of GDDR6X memory at 19Gbps across a 384-bit bus and the Ethereum mining limiter.
The RTX 3070 Ti is rumoured to ship with a GA104-400 GPU with 6144 CUDA cores, 48 RT cores, 192 Tensor cores and 8GB of GDDR6X memory.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru says: After five delays, let’s just hope that this one will be the last. Are you hoping to get one of Nvidia upcoming Ti GPUs at launch?
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Matthew Wilson 2 days ago Featured Tech News, Software & Gaming
A few weeks ago, we learned that Epic Games had spent around $330 million on obtaining Epic Games Store exclusives so far. Now, thanks to testimony given during the first day of the Epic Games v Apple trial, we know that the Epic Games Store is well away from being profitable, but Epic expects things to take a turn by 2024.
Epic Games CEO, Tim Sweeney, gave testimony yesterday during the trial, stating that the Epic Games Store is “hundreds of millions of dollars short of being profitable”. Sweeney later added that this is due to the upfront costs of starting the store and that it is expected to turn a profit “within three or four years”.
An Epic Games 2019 strategy review (via PCGamer), which was one of the many documents uncovered as part of this trial, shows the five year plan to profitability for the Epic Games Store. Starting in 2019, the store generated a $181 million loss, followed by a $274 million loss in 2020. Epic expects these losses to wind down over the next few years, leading to an eventual $45 million profit in 2024.
Even with the Epic Games Store being a money drain for the time being, the company is far from being in any form of financial trouble. Fortnite still brings in billions each year and just recently, a group of investors injected the company with another $1 billion in funding.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: The dominance of Steam as the go-to PC gaming platform really shows here. Just to even attempt to compete, Epic has had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars with the hope that those investments will eventually pay off.
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AMD’s Ryzen 5000 (Cezanne) desktop APUs will make their debut in OEM and pre-built systems before hitting the retail market by the end of this year. However, the hexa-core Zen 3 APU (via Tum_Apisak) is already showing up in multiple benchmarks around the Internet.
The Ryzen 5 5600G comes equipped with six Zen 3 cores with simultaneous multithreading (SMT) and 16MB of L3 cache. The 7nm APU operates with a 3.9 GHz base clock and 4.4 GHz within the a 65W TDP limit. The chip also leverages seven Vega Compute Units (CUs) that are clocked at 1,900 MHz.
The Core i5-11400, on the other hand, is part of Intel’s latest 11th Generation Rocket Lake lineup. Intel’s 14nm chip features six Cypress Cove cores with Hyper-Threading and 12MB of L3 cache. The hexa-core processor, which also conforms to a 65W TDP, sports a 2.6 GHz base clock and 4.4 GHz boost clock. On the graphics side, the Core i5-11400 rolls with the Intel UHD Graphics 730 engine with 24 Execution Units (EUs) with clock speeds between 350 MHz and 1.3 GHz.
The results were mixed, which didn’t come as a surprise. They probably originated from different systems with different hardware so one result might have an edge over the other that we don’t know about. Futhermore, the available benchmarks aren’t on our preferred list so we should take the results with a pinch of salt.
AMD Ryzen 5 5600G Benchmarks
Processor
Geekbench 5 Single-Core
Geekbench 5 Multi-Core
UserBenchmark 1-Core
UserBenchmark 8-Core
CPU-Z Single-Thread
CPU-Z Multi-Thread
Ryzen 5 5600G
1,508
7,455
149
889
596
4,537
Core i5-11400
1,593*
7,704*
161
941
544
4,012
*Our own results.
Starting with Geekbench 5, the Core i5-11400 outperformed the Ryzen 5 5600G by up to 5.6% in the single-core test and 3.3% in the multi-core test. The Core i5-11400 also prevailed over the Ryzen 5 5600G in UserBenchmark. The Rocket Lake part delivered up to 8.1% and 5.8% higher single-and multi-core performance, respectively.
The Ryzen 5 5600G didn’t go home empty-handed either. The Zen 3 APU offered up to 9.7% and 13.1% higher single- and multi-core peformance, respectively, in comparison to the Core i5-11400 in CPU-Z.
It goes to show that while Zen 3 is a solid microarchitecture, Intel’s Cypress Cove isn’t a pushover, either. The Ryzen 5 5600G has a 1.3 GHz higher base clock than the Core i5-11400, but the latter still managed overcome the Zen 3 APU.
So far, the benchmarks show the processors’ computing performance. It’s unlikely that the Core i5-11400 will beat the Ryzen 5 5600G in iGPU gaming performance, which is where the 7nm APU excels at. After all, consumers pick up APUs for their brawny integrated graphics. The Ryzen 5 5600G will makes its way to the DIY market later this year so we’ll get our chance to put the Zen 3 chip through its paces in a proper review. The Core i5-11400, which retails for $188.99, is the interim winner until then.
The Anker PowerConf C300 is a consistent strong performer across lighting conditions, with a bevy of genuinely useful features that help make up for some stumbles in presentation.
For
+ Consistent image quality
+ Bonus features work well
+ Lots of value
Against
– Detachable camera shutter feels cheap
– Laggy Software
Anker’s new $130 PowerConf C300 webcam is part of a new initiative from the charger company to break into productivity gear. Labeled under the Anker Work brand, this camera is clearly aimed at professionals looking to buy the best webcams for video conferences. That means it packs a detailed 1080p sensor with multiple field of view options including 78 degrees, 90 degrees and 115 degrees, plus plenty of advanced features like AI framing, HDR and 60 FPS recording.
That’s a level of customizability that’s usually reserved for more expensive, enthusiast shooters like the Razer Kiyo Pro. But while the Anker’s visual fidelity didn’t quite live up to those $200 Kiyo Pro’s, probably because it doesn’t have the Kiyo’s powerful sensor, its strong suite of features still make a strong argument for spending slightly more on it than you would on a more casual but proven camera like the Logitech C920.
Regarding those features, the Anker PowerConf C300 comes with 4 shooting modes, including Personal, Meeting, Streaming and Custom. Personal and Meeting modes both use a “flexible angle” that adjusts the field of view and image framing based on your head movement and placement, although the former tends to be more zoomed-in while the latter is more zoomed out. Streaming mode, meanwhile, locks the camera at a 90-degree field of view and turns on 60 fps recording, while custom mode lets you set your own field of view and frame rate combinations in addition to getting the option to toggle on the HDR and Anti-Flicker settings.
In practical use, I found that most Streaming mode and Meeting mode photos tended to look identical, so for the below tests, I stuck to taking photos in Personal and Meeting modes. I did not include Custom mode in my tests, as I do not have an HDR monitor to test with.
Well-Lit Room
Anker PowerConf C300 Personal Mode
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Anker PowerConf C300 Meeting Mode
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Logitech C920
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
In terms of image fidelity, the Anker PowerConf C300 was roughly on par in a well-lit room with the Logitech C920, which is our leading mid-range 1080p webcam. However, perhaps reflecting its slightly higher price and more extended feature set, the Anker PowerConf C300 was much more accurate when it came to colors.
While the Logitech tends to give me a cooler color temperature than in real life, color in photos taken with the Anker came across as far more neutral and natural. This also extended to background elements, which tend to get washed out when using the Logitech.
Low-Light Room
Anker PowerConf C300 Personal Mode
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Anker PowerConf C300 Meeting Mode
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Logitech C920
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
When I drew my curtain and turned off all light sources in my office except for my computer monitor, I found that the difference between the Anker and Logitech webcams was, well, night and day. While the Anker now portrayed me with a cooler but still accurate color tone, its fidelity remained largely unchanged.
Meanwhile, the Logitech C920 introduced significant grain to its photos, especially on background elements. The Logitech’s color temperature also got even cooler than before, which made me look sickly.
Overexposed Room
Anker PowerConf C300 Personal Mode
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Anker PowerConf C300 Meeting Mode
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Logitech C920
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
I also took shots with the Anker PowerConf C300 and Logitech C920 pointing towards my window, to test how they work in an overexposed environment. While this is an over exaggeration of most user setups, it can help shed light on how a webcam might work under heavy light saturation.
The Logitech was, unfortunately, mostly unusable. While it did catch a glimpse of the buildings outside my window, which is impressive given that many webcams instead render windows as pure sheets of white, my face is bathed in too much shadow for me to want to call anyone under these conditions.
The Anker, however, again retained most of its fidelity in these conditions. The edges of my head were tinged by light in shots I took with it, but none of my face was hidden by excessive shadow. And while photos did suffer from a “white sheet” effect, putting the emphasis on the face is the right choice here. Even background elements appeared without issue, arguably looking better than in more neutrally lit shots.
Build Quality of the Anker PowerConf C300
Build quality is where it feels like the Anker PowerConf C300 stumbles most, although its emphasis on versatility extends to its build as well. That means you can tilt it forward 180 degrees, plus swivel it a full 360 degrees. For placement, the monitor mount fits snugly and has the typical hole for connecting a tripod on the bottom. It also connects using a detachable USB-C cable and has an optional privacy cover, but it’s here that the camera starts to show its weaknesses.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The first, and less egregious, problem is that the webcam only includes a USB-C to USB-C cable in the box. If you want to connect over USB Type-A, you have to use a small adapter that you’re likely to lose. It’s a small price to pay for USB-C functionality and can be easily resolved with your own USB-C to USB-A cable, but small and easily lost parts are still worth bringing up. Which takes us to the removable privacy slider.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The privacy slider is a detachable and purely physical switch, which means there’s no hardware level shut-off here, and you get two in the box. While that sounds like a nice gesture, it’s a testament to how easy it is to make one of these unusable. That’s because the slider attaches using glue. This introduced a few problems, the most dramatic one being that you probably won’t want to take the slider on and off a lot. Doing so can weaken the adhesive, and it’s not like it’s easy to find a place to store the slider in the meantime without leaving the glue open to the air. While this doesn’t present a major issue if you plan to use it all the time, I personally think the slider’s kind of ugly, and wouldn’t want it on at all times. Additionally, if we’re not meant to remove it frequently, why make it detachable instead of building it into the device?
There’s also the question of whether the glue will leave residue on your device, although I haven’t found this to be the case with my unit. It can be tricky to pry the slider off, though, which I suppose makes me happy that I have long fingernails.
As for the slider itself, it does its job well when attached securely, although its thin plastic has me worried about the slide rail’s durability over time. I’m also worried that the glue could break down over time, although this didn’t happen to me in the few days I used this camera while writing this review.
There’s also no guiding marks for where the slider should go on the webcam, so it’s easy to make a mistake when installing it, and adjusting it could weaken the glue.
The Anker PowerConf C300’s cord measured a little over 59 inches when pulled fully taut, which was long enough to easily reach all of my desktop’s USB ports.Logitech says the C920 has having a nearly-identical 60-inch cord, but as you can see in the picture above, its cord is noticeably longer than the PowerConf C300’s. When I pulled it taut and measured it with some measuring tape, it hit 70 inches, making it nearly a foot longer.
The PowerConf C300 also has built-in dual microphones that produce loud audio but also tended to give my voice a somewhat warbly effect that hurt clarity.
Special Features on the Anker PowerConf C300
The Anker PowerConf C300’s guide gives you instructions for downloading the free AnkerWork app, which is how you’ll access the camera’s different preset recording modes, adjust settings like brightness and saturation and set up a custom recording mode with HDR, anti-flicker, and/or 60FPS support.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The user interface is simple and light, although it’s a bit annoying to me that I need to scroll down a long list to see all the different ways a recording preset will affect my shot. I would have preferred a layout that puts as much information on my screen at once as possible. But the biggest problem here is lag, which makes the image setting section (where you can adjust photo settings like brightness or sharpness) near unusable.
Every time you press a button or move a slider in the AnkerWork app, you’re going to need to wait at least a second while it applies your changes to the camera. This is obnoxious but not insurmountable when turning HDR or Anti-Flicker on or off. But for image settings, it makes it difficult for you to select a specific number, move by small increments, or test out different settings. That’s because the lag starts as soon as you click on the slider and move your mouse, and can last as long as 5 seconds. You won’t get to see where your slider ended up until after the lag ends. There’s buttons to move the slider by increments of 1 for fine tuning, which helps with this somewhat, but using them takes agonizingly long thanks to each button press triggering even more lag.
Compare this to the user interface and snappy response times for the software for the Razer Kiyo Pro, which also supports HDR and 60fps shots, and it’s easy to see there’s a lot of room for improvement here. A large firmware update and software pitch did hit as I was finishing this review, which helped reduce lag times in most instances, but they are still present and still make the image menu almost intolerable to use.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
As for the HDR and Anti-Flicker support, turning them on is as simple as flipping a toggle (and waiting for the lag), although the former is only available when recording at 30 fps. I wasn’t able to test HDR as I don’t have an HDR monitor, but turning it on even on my non-HDR setup still made images appear slightly brighter and richer.
As for 60 fps recording, it works smoothly once you click the toggle on. A 20 second video recorded at 60 fps also only took up 45.5 MB on my hard drive, which was only 0.5 MB larger than a 30 fps video of the same length. You can also stream at 60 fps, which I had no issue doing on a private YouTube stream.
Anker’s auto frame and solo frame options can be a little trickier to see the benefits of. While they automatically zoom in to put the focus on your face as soon as you turn them on, you really have to move a lot to see the frame actually adjust to follow you.
Bottom Line
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The Anker PowerConf C300 has consistent fidelity and enough premium features to more than justify its $130 price tag, even if the implementation for those features needs some work. Regardless of lighting conditions, it always had color accurate shots with no visible artifacting in my testing. And on top of that, its multiple fields of view and auto framing options made taking those shots in the best conditions possible easy.
60 FPS and HDR recording are also boons at this price point, as they’d usually require you to upgrade to something like the $199 Razer Kiyo Pro. They work well here, although the PowerConf C300’s picture quality doesn’t match those premium webcams and the software for accessing those features can frequently be unbearably laggy.
Still, if you want a webcam that can do more than your typical casual shooter but don’t need to go full premium, the Anker PowerConf C300 is an easy choice.
Corsair’s K70 RGB TKL is an unashamedly gaming-focused keyboard. For one thing, it’s only available with the kinds of switches people normally recommend for playing games, while other features like low input latency and a dedicated “tournament switch” for esports clearly have gamers in mind.
At a price of $139.99 (£139.99), these features are coming at a premium, and they’re overkill for anyone not planning on competing at the next Dota 2 International. But the K70 RGB TKL is a complete package with lots of quality-of-life features for non-gamers. It attaches to your PC with a detachable USB-C cable (a first for Corsair) and features customizable per-key RGB backlighting, dedicated media keys, and a roller wheel for volume control.
At this price, the result is a great gaming-focused keyboard but only a good general purpose keyboard.
In case the specs didn’t tip you off beforehand, just looking at the Corsair K70 RGB TKL should tell you everything you need to know about its target audience. The bold, squared-off font on its keycaps is peak gamer, and the case itself has a minimalist, angular design. The only branding you get is a small Corsair logo on the keyboard’s forehead, which illuminates along with the rest of the keyboard’s lighting.
Its design might not be for everyone, but construction quality is good here. The K70’s keycaps are made of hard-wearing PBT plastic, and their legends are double-shot, meaning they let each switch’s lighting shine through and will never rub off. Corsair uses a standard keyboard layout, so you shouldn’t have any problems finding replacement keycaps in the right sizes.
As its name implies, the K70 RGB TKL is a tenkeyless board (hence the “TKL” in its name), meaning you don’t get a numpad to the right of the arrow keys. This makes perfect sense on a gaming keyboard, where you’ll typically spend most of your time with your left hand on the WASD keys and your right hand on a mouse. Unless you really need it for data entry, a numpad just gets in the way. Available layouts include US ANSI, UK ISO (which I’m using), and other European layouts, but there are no Mac-specific keys available.
Although it’s not particularly wide, Corsair’s keyboard has a bit of a forehead to house its media keys and volume roller. I generally prefer this simple approach, rather than having to access media controls through a combination of keypresses, even if it adds a little more bulk to the board. Build quality is otherwise solid; the keyboard wouldn’t flex, no matter how much I tried to bend it.
The keyboard’s configuration options are aimed squarely at gamers. There’s no option for tactile Cherry MX Browns or clicky Cherry MX Blue switches here. Instead, your options are classic gamer Cherry MX Reds, competitive gamer Cherry MX Speed Silvers, or, if you’re in Korea, considerate gamer Cherry MX Silent Reds. My review board came equipped with standard Red switches. The switches aren’t hot-swappable, so you’re going to have to use desoldering tools and then a soldering iron if you want to try out any other switch types.
The nice thing about buying from an established company like Corsair is that its companion software for configuring the keyboard’s layout and lighting effects is slick and polished. iCue is available for Mac and Windows and offers a truly dizzying amount of control over the K70 RGB TKL. You can remap the keyboard’s keys however you like and get access to a plethora of additional lighting effects. The controls are granular and get complicated fast, so I ended up ignoring them and just controlled the keyboard’s lighting from the board itself.
You can control its lighting directly from the keyboard itself or via companion software.
As well as handling lighting controls, iCue can also handle key remapping if you want to swap the layout of your keyboard around. It’s not as necessary a feature on a TKL board as on a smaller board with a more limited selection of keys, but it’s a useful inclusion if you want to tinker.
All of these are useful features regardless of what you want to use the Corsair K70 RGB TKL for. But its more unique features are gaming-focused. First up is a “tournament switch” on the top of the board, which disables any custom macros you’ve set up and switches the backlighting to a single less-distracting color. (You can customize which color using iCue.) It’s the kind of feature I could see being helpful if you’re simultaneously big into online gaming and also use a ton of macros. That’s a pretty slim Venn diagram of users, but thankfully, the switch is completely out of the way otherwise.
The other gaming feature here is an advertised polling rate of 8,000Hz, which is eight times higher than the 1,000Hz rate used by most keyboards. In theory, this means the keyboard’s input lag or the time between you pressing a key and the signal being transmitted to your PC, is as minimal as possible, presumably making all the difference in a high-speed gaming situation. Corsair tells me this brings down median latency to under a quarter of a millisecond, compared to 2 milliseconds and up with a 1,000Hz keyboard. You enable the 8,000Hz polling rate from within Corsair’s software. It’ll warn you that the higher polling rate uses more system resources, but I didn’t notice any impact on performance on my Ryzen 5 3600-equipped gaming PC, and Corsair tells me this should be the same for anyone using a gaming machine built in the last three years.
We’ve seen a similar trend with gaming mice, and Linus Tech Tips did a great analysis of what that actually means for performance. But the real-world difference it makes is minor, and I struggled to feel any difference in responsiveness when switching between playing Overwatch on the Corsair K70 RGB TKL and a regular 1,000Hz Filco office keyboard when playing on a 100Hz monitor. I have no reason to doubt Corsair’s low latency claims, but I think it’s the kind of improvement that only a small number of players will actually be able to notice.
The Corsair K70 RGB TKL is being sold by a gaming-oriented brand as a gaming-oriented keyboard with gaming-oriented switches, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it doesn’t offer the best typing experience. The typing feel just doesn’t match the crispness of a board like the similarly priced Filco Majestouch 2. Instead, bottoming out each keypress feels slightly dulled or softened, and since this keyboard is only available with linear switches, you’re all but guaranteed to bottom out each keypress while you’re typing.
I’ll give credit to Corsair for the K70’s spacebar stabilizer (the mechanism installed under the larger keycap to stop it from wobbling). While this can sometimes sound rattly on other keyboards, there’s no such problem here. But if you listen to the typing sample above, you’ll hear that other stabilized keys like Backspace and Enter have more rattle. Ultimately, the overall typing experience on the K70 RGB TKL is only good, never great.
No numpads here.
At this point, Corsair knows what it’s doing when it comes to mechanical keyboards for gaming. The K70 RGB TKL comes equipped with all of the quality-of-life features that are expected out of a mainstream keyboard at this point: nice durable keycaps, media keys and volume dial, and a detachable USB-C cable. Some of its more gaming-focused features are borderline overkill, but they don’t get in the way.
At its core, though, the K70 RGB TKL is a keyboard designed for gamers, and there are better keyboards out there if you’re only an occasional gamer. You can get a better range of switches elsewhere, as well as a more satisfying typing experience overall. That makes the Corsair K70 RGB TKL a great option for a gaming keyboard, but only a good keyboard overall.
Resident Evil has been in a pretty good place of late. After reaching its possible creative nadir with Resident Evil 6, 2017’s Resident Evil 7 represented a welcome return to the series’ horror roots while reinventing itself with a first-person perspective. Since then, Capcom has put out a phenomenally good remake of Resident Evil 2, as well as a solid if less substantial take on its successor.
Now we have Resident Evil Village, which comes with a logo styled in a way to let you know that this is really Resident Evil 8, even if Capcom isn’t explicitly naming it as such. It’s a direct sequel to 7, with the same first-person perspective and bland protagonist Ethan Winters. But while 7 evoked the slow-burning housebound horror of the original game, Village is more like a first-person take on arguably the series’ highest point: Resident Evil 4.
Village picks up a few years after the events of Resident Evil 7. Ethan and his wife Mia have moved to Europe and are raising their baby, but things quickly go south following an intervention from series icon Chris Redfield. Ethan finds himself in a hostile village populated by savage werewolf-adjacent people and sets out to find his daughter.
While Village shares a camera angle and basic controls with 7, the tone is notably different right from the start. Instead of tentatively exploring a creepy, atmospheric environment that gradually reveals the horror within, you’re thrown right into the thick of the action and are left to fend for yourself against warped antagonists — which, you may remember, is exactly how Resident Evil 4 started out.
Village’s similarities to 4 go further than its breakneck opening and rural European setting. It’s a much more action-oriented game than 7, and you’ll often find yourself taking on several enemies at once. Capcom has also made a lot of quality-of-life tweaks that give the game a breezier feel, from a shortcut that lets you break boxes without equipping your knife to an overhauled inventory system that separates crafting materials from everything else, giving you more space and firepower.
I found Village’s shift in tone a little surprising after the broad success of Resident Evil 7. That game was widely lauded for its relatively grounded return to survival horror — at least, about as grounded as you can get when you’re making a game involving horrifically mutated monsters caused by shadowy bioweapon experiments. The setting — mostly centered on a disgusting, fetid house in a Louisiana bayou — was evocative and terrifying, marking the first time in a while that a Resident Evil game would genuinely make you fear what might be around the next corner.
Save for a couple of notable sequences, Village mostly throws that idea away. The village itself is a fairly open space that you explore in the daytime, solving environmental puzzles in order to unlock further areas. It can be a little confusing to navigate at first, but it’s not particularly large, and eventually its main function is to serve as a hub from which you set out to take down four lords in thrall to a mysterious figure known as Mother Miranda. The first and most striking of these locations is Castle Dimitrescu, home to the nine-foot-tall Lady Dimitrescu, who stalks you around the place in a similar fashion to prior Resident Evil villains like Nemesis.
Castle Dimitrescu is classic Resident Evil, and the game settles into a familiar rhythm of locked doors, light puzzles, and little-by-little progression as you uncover more of the map. This loop is as satisfying as it’s ever been, but unlike in Resident Evil 7, I rarely found it to be scary because of the greater focus on action. There’s only so much tension that can build up when you’re using your shotgun this often. And that holds for most of the rest of the game, as you travel to new areas that largely serve as theatrical preludes to showdowns with Miranda’s other followers.
Speaking of those showdowns, the boss fights in Village are one of the more notable improvements over its predecessor. Most of Resident Evil 7’s fights were frustrating and unsatisfying, but Capcom has embraced spectacle to great effect for Village’s biggest battles. They’re not necessarily titanic challenges or complex brain-teasers, but they’re at least memorable, and that’s a good start.
Village has its atmospheric moments, to be sure, but they’re not the main event. There are lengthy sections of the game that are structured more or less like a first-person shooter. The puzzles are mostly straightforward, and you’ll rarely find yourself without the means to fight back against enemies. There’s nothing quite as bombastic as the worst excesses of 5 or 6, and there’s one encounter in particular that leans hard into psychological horror, but Village sometimes feels more like something from the Metro series than any of its own predecessors.
Resident Evil 4 was controversial in its own time, of course, with some longtime series fans bemoaning its similar shift away from survival horror. Now it’s considered one of the most revolutionary action games of all time. But Village doesn’t have that going for it. While it takes heavy inspiration from 4, it’s still mostly an iteration on 7, and the result is just another remixed Resident Evil.
Resident Evil Village is a good game worth playing, and I think it’s very much a solid numbered entry in the series even if Capcom doesn’t want to call it one. But by transparently blending elements of 7 and 4, two of the most dramatic overhauls in series history, it feels less noteworthy than either. As such, the way you feel about it is likely to come down to how you feel about Resident Evil overall.
If you’re in it for the outlandish characters and labyrinthine level design, you’ll probably love Village. If you’d hoped 7 would spark a fresh new direction for the series, though, you might be disappointed.
Resident Evil Village launches on May 7th on the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Steam, and Stadia.
(Pocket-lint) – If there’s one thing you can’t accuse the Resident Evil series of, it’s taking itself too seriously. Resident Evil 7 might have grounded things in a grittier, scarier first-person journey than the action-packed stories that preceded it, but by the end things were still plenty explosive.
Now Ethan Winters’ story is continuing, dropped this time into a chilly, frightening Eastern-European locale (no one mention Transylvania!) – and he’s up against a gallery of horrific antagonists. It’s a great ride, and one that manages to happily switch up its tone throughout.
The Winters of our discontent
Poor old Ethan – his escape from Louisiana was hardly a clean one, as veterans of the previous game will remember (Resi 8 has a handy recap video in case you’re hazy on the details).
Reunited with his wife Mia and daughter Rose, he’s in witness protection in Europe when things go sideways. Mia is out of the picture and Rose is kidnapped by none other than Chris Redfield. Things take a worse turn when their convoy crashes and Ethan wakes up alone in a terrifying village (the source of Resi 8’s title, nonetheless).
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Players take control to guide Ethan through the Lycan-infested hovel, and eventually gain access to the nearby Castle Dimitrescu, home to a giant vampiress, Alcina Dimitrescu, and her horrific daughters. His hopes of recovering his own child safely don’t exactly seem heartening, it’s safe to say.
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The game has an almost episodic structure, in fact, as Ethan manages to get into to a succession of new locations branching off the village, but the Castle is a good summary of what each offers.
Capcom
It’s a gorgeously rendered environment that almost oozes detail, and feels initially labyrinthine before you begin to figure out its nooks and crannies. In practise only one other location later in the game feels similarly expansive, along with the village hub itself, and you’ll come to learn each of them by feel.
Resident Evil Village’s story is not shooting for the stars – it’s knowingly pulpy stuff that has twists aplenty and a near-constant smattering of gore and visual flair to crown its beats with.
Whether you’re uncovering the motivations of foul monsters, finding out more about Chris’s involvement, or simply discovering how you might be able to save Rose, Ethan’s straight-main distress is offset by gloriously campy acting from the rest of the cast.
It’s great fun, basically, and wends its way to an enjoyably bananas final act that’s as explosive as anything the series has ever offered. Yet this doesn’t take anything away from the far quieter and creepier parts of the game’s earlier portions. It’s an impressive balancing act.
So anyway, I started blasting
With a first-person perspective returning from the last game, so too do a lot of its mechanics. Once again, Ethan is a slow mover who needs careful control, and once again your arsenal of weapons starts off minimal and requires careful investment and map-scouring to grow.
Resident Evil Village has some standout sequences that are genuinely frightening, and these divide into two broad camps. Firstly, the common experience of sneaking around an area you haven’t yet cleared, often in near-darkness, never knowing when an enemy will jump you, or when you’re about to discover an entirely new type of foe to overcome.
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The other, rarer moments, see the game either strip you of your weaponry entirely, or throw so many nasties your way that running for your life, throwing cover behind you and looking for any way out, becomes the obvious choice. These sequences are thrilling – not least because a skilled player can choose to stand and fight if they really want to try – and visceral.
Capcom
It’s the former, quieter mood that’s the most consistent, though, even once you have a few more powerful guns to call upon – you’ll still be counting your ammo, juggling your inventory slots and holding off from crafting new equipment until you absolutely need it.
Eventually, though, you will have to start fighting, and the gunplay is a great blend between approachable and finnicky. Guns can be accurate when fired with rhythm and a bit of calm but, when enemies are shambling or jumping at you, it’s easy to lose your cool and miss – a lot.
That eats up ammo and, before you know it, you’ll find yourself breaking out the last of your crafting supplies to make more bullets, feeding an anxious loop of peril that brings out the very best in the game.
That’s slightly undermined by the fact that you can pause and check your inventory or the map any time you like, but Capcom presumably reasoned that taking away this safety blanket would be too traumatising for most players.
Capcom
Perhaps Resi 8’s best trick is how it manages to keep things varied, though. No environment outstays its welcome – even if you’re rooting out every last bit of optional hidden treasure – and each has its own mechanics and emphases for you to master.
A next-gen horror show
The landscapes, environments and enemies of Resident Evil Village are a treat to look at, for all the gore and rotten grossness of some of their actual appearances.
Capcom
This is a lavish game and it looks its very best on next-gen. We played through on a PlayStation 5 and enjoyed a mostly stable 60fps with ray tracing on (for lighting that’s dazzling at times), and pinpoint resolutions, which are mirrored on the Xbox Series X. Less powerful consoles will make concessions on both counts, but we’d recomend choosing the higher frame-rate options if you have a choice – you’ll need that smoothness!
It looks brilliant, regardless, particularly when Capcom deigns to let you enjoy a bit of light – whether it’s the beatiful, ornate state rooms of the castle, or the sun breaking through bare trees to light the village itself.
Capcom
The details on your weaponry, on statues and monuments, in costumes and architechture, are all first rate, and it comes together to make this slightly ridiculous and horror-infused world feel about as real as you could hope.
Oozing with extras
Once you finish the story for the first time, which will likely run you somewhere approaching 10 hours, you’ll be greeted with reams of information boxes all revealing the same broad truth – that there’s plenty more to sink your teeth into.
Capcom
Whether it’s harder difficulty modes – we think the regular difficulty could have been more testing as the game wore on – or specific challenges, there’s ample motivation to revisit the story.
You’ll have the option of taking on seemingly near-impossible demands like playing through with melee-only weaponry or seeking out every collectible and note possible, all to earn more extra content like concept art and detailed 3D models to view.
Plus, the game has brought back the fan-favourite Mercenaries mode for an even more substantive extra. It drops you in locations from the story to defeat set waves of enemies to time limits, with gameplay modifiers and control over your loadout.
Capcom
It’s great fun, especially as a palate-cleanser compared to the more challenging and ammo-scarce story, and there are once again plenty of challenges to complete and grades to earn.
It also crowns a selection of extra content that’s genuinely impressive and endearing, given that almost all of the little bonuses could probably have slipped off without anyone complaining too much.
Verdict
Any time you’re starting to feel confident and familiar in one of Resident Evil Village’s environments, the game plops you down in a new one, or asks you to play in a different way, making for a smorgasbord of fear, and it all builds to a crescendo that’s both thrilling and loony.
If you’re on the Resident Evil train, this is another tour de force; and if you’re not, it’s a surprisingly welcoming place to start. The game revels in its tone, delivering an Eastern European nightmare world that’s an absolute blast to play – whether creeping carefully or going guns-a-blazing.
Writing by Max Freeman-Mills. Editing by Mike Lowe.
Resident Evil Village is described by its makers as “a theme-park of horrors.” A sequel to RE 7: Biohazard, it sees a return our protagonist Ethan Winters, who finds himself in a European styled village of horrors in Transylvania, the de facto capital of western horror fiction. An arch-enemy has murdered his wife in cold blood, and abducted his infant daughter. In a bid to rescue her, Winters must now traverse the mysterious village ruled by four mutant lords–a vampire ruling over a large castle that calls back to the Count Dracula lore; an abandoned factory with werewolf-like creatures; a swamp with mermen; and a horror-house with dolls and puppets.
Resident Evil Village is played in a first-person RPG format, with gameplay mechanics similar to RE 7: Biohazard; but with the inventory system carried over from RE 4–a briefcase that can store weapons and loot, you can get more items from an in-game merchant called The Duke. You can also craft various buffs by exchanging ingredients here. The Village is a large open-world spread across the four zones, which rewards exploration with a secret area of the map.
Capcom developed Resident Evil Village on the latest iteration of its in-house RE Engine that also powers popular titles such as Devil May Cry 5, and the upcoming Monster Hunter Rise. The Resident Evil franchise owes much of its popularity to consoles, mainly PlayStations, and the developer appears to have built the game for consoles, porting it to the PC with certain quality tweaks. The engine supports real-time raytracing, variable-rate shading, and AMD FidelityFX. In this article we explore how the game plays on the PC, and whether there’s enough eye-candy to be had with raytracing turned on. We test performance and hardware requirements of Resident Evil Village on 18 graphics cards, at three resolutions, with raytracing on and off.
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