The Resident Evil 4 remake costs $60 for its iPhone 15 Pro port, as much as is charged for standard console editions.
There are ways to justify spending $60 in the App Store, where pre-orders for RE4 are currently live. You could call it spending $60 to play a great survival horror game on a tiny, but supposedly high-power console that also shows you TikToks. (The Pro has a five-core GPU and the “fastest mobile” six-core CPU, Apple says.) An iPhone can also show you the 50 texts you’ve yet to respond to. And, according to Tom’s Guide, the Pro has a battery life of just under 11 hours. Hm.
If you’re as skeptical as I am about playing an intense shooter on a handheld device that’s busy with a thousand other things, you could always download a free version of the game to see how it feels. According to the App Store listing, “Resident Evil 4 is free to download and play, or you can get the full version with a single [$60] in-app purchase and sync your game progress across [iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPads containing an M1 or later chip].”
“On iPhone and iPad,” the game’s App Store description continues, “you can adjust the size, intensity and display time of the buttons on your onscreen touch controller. Or if a physical game controller is more your style, you can play with one that’s compatible with iPhone or iPad.” The $999 iPhone 15 Pro has a USB-C port; Apple is selling $70 cables for it.
Many mobile games and ports are free, like the great Marvel Snap, or Fortnite. In this context, Resident Evil 4’s $60 price tag feels shocking. (Though the game’s microtransactions are nowhere near as ubiquitous as those in something like free-to-play Genshin Impact.)
However, it seems like Apple wants their latest devices to become everything to you—a black box for communication, entertainment, and more. In this sense, $60 makes sense, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see future iPhone ports, including the one for the forthcoming Assassin’s Creed Mirage, to be priced similarly. It’s a serious price for what Apple considers a serious console.
Read More: Apple Wants Its New iPhone To Be Your Next Gaming Device
Buy Resident Evil 4: Apple App Store
Developer Capcom’s 2021 mutant game Resident Evil Village will also arrive on iPhone and iPad later this year, on October 30. You can currently buy it for $30 on Mac. Or you can buy Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 on PlayStation 2 for $15, up to you.