Resident Evil Village releases officially tomorrow, but the team at Digital Foundry has had their hands on all console versions of the game prior to release. The results seem to suggest the Xbox Series X version has some advantages over others, but the Xbox Series S suffers in some departments.

Right off the bat, the most impressive news is that the Xbox Series X version maintains near to 60FPS while ray tracing is enabled, despite the specifications stating that it would only reach 45FPS. According to Digital Foundry, the Xbox Series X holds a small performance lead in that regard. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the Xbox Series S version. The demo analysis highlighted some substantial frame drops, and the full game is said to still have "profound performance difficulties".

"All versions of the game target high frame-rates and run fully unlocked. PS5 and Series X spend most of the time at or near to 60fps even with RT enabled (with a small but noticeable performance lead on the Microsoft machine) but Series S has profound performance difficulties here, despite reducing resolution from a reconstructed 2160p down to 1440p. In terms of visual features, they're otherwise identical.

Turning off RT brings Series S much closer to a locked 60fps, while PS5 and Series X just power through the entire game with no frame-drops whatsoever - certainly not in our testing."

However, the PlayStation 5 seems to boast improved loading times. While the loading screens found in Resident Evil Village on Xbox Series X and S are "much shorter than Resident Evil 7 ever was", they're still there. On the other hand, the PlayStation 5 seems to have eliminated them entirely, giving Sony a lead over Xbox in that area.

"But of course, frame-rate is not the only performance measurement - RE Village also highlights a difference in loading. On Xbox Series X or Series S, when you load up a save, return to the menu or begin a Mercenaries match, you're met with a relatively short loading screen followed by a button prompt. It's much shorter than Resident Evil 7 ever was but it's there. On PlayStation 5, however, loading screens are completely eliminated, replaced with a short dip to black."

All in all, Digital Foundry says this is one of the closest comparisons they've ever seen. Even the Xbox Series S version, which suffers from some issues, is "pretty good too in terms of image quality and performance" - just make sure you disable ray tracing. While it may not be the best course of action to enable the shiny feature on Xbox Series S, it sounds like no matter which version you pick up, you're going to be in for a good time.

Happy with the performance of Resident Evil Village? Let us know in the comments below.

[source eurogamer.net, via youtube.com]