In arguably a dazzling demonstration of the new Apple iPhone 15 Pro’s raw horsepower, the PS5 and PS4 console title Death Stranding Director’s Cut is coming natively to the device. No, that’s not a typing error: the entirety of Kojima Productions’ seminal hiking sim will be available to play in the palm of your hands – as will Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil Village, and Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Bonkers!

The tech titan explained: “Continuing Apple’s leadership in smartphone silicon, A17 Pro brings improvements to the entire chip, including the biggest GPU redesign in Apple’s history. The new CPU is up to 10 percent faster with microarchitectural and design improvements, and the Neural Engine is now up to 2x faster, powering features like autocorrect and Personal Voice in iOS 17.”

It added: “The pro-class GPU is up to 20 percent faster and unlocks entirely new experiences, featuring a new 6-core design that increases peak performance and energy efficiency. Now with hardware-accelerated ray tracing – which is 4x faster than software-based ray tracing – iPhone 15 Pro offers smoother graphics, as well as more immersive AR applications and gaming experiences. iPhone 15 Pro brings true-to-life gaming to the palm of users’ hands with console titles never before seen on a smartphone.”

Of course, as with all cutting-edge Apple products, it’ll cost you a small fortune to get involved. The iPhone 15 Pro will retail for £999/$999 at launch, and if you’d like to upgrade to a 6.7” screen, you’ll need to shell out £1,199/$1,199 for the Max model. You’ll also only get 128GB with the most basic option, so you’re probably going to need a lot more space if you’re planning to play Death Stranding on the move.

Nevertheless, it’s fascinating how the lines are now slowly getting blurred between standalone consoles and mobile games. The success of releases like Genshin Impact, a fully-fledged open world in its own right, has proven there’s a market for console-like experiences on the move – it’ll be interesting to see exactly how well the likes of Death Stranding perform on this latest crop of iPhones.

[source youtube.com]