iPhone 15 Pro somehow natively runs console games like Assassin’s Creed Mirage

Apple has made a bold claim during their recent reveal of the iPhone 15 series that could change the mobile gaming landscape. As part of the reveal, the iPhone manufacturer promised console games would run on the new devices.

Apple’s Wonderlust event had some major announcements but none bigger than the unveiling of the iPhone 15 range. After the leaks from the last few months, people were finally treated to some concrete information on the new devices.

While USB-C charging and ‘Action Buttons’ are all super exciting stuff, one thing has us more tentatively hyped than all that. According to Apple, the higher-end iPhone 15s will be able to run console games like Assassin’s Creed Mirage, with raytracing no less.

In one segment of a much larger presentation, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak broke it down. Apparently, the feat is made possible thanks to the miraculous A17 Pro bionic chip.

How does the iPhone 15 Pro run console games?

To clarify, Joswiak specifically said that these games would be “natively available” on iPhone 15 Pro devices. Cloud streaming wasn’t mentioned once during this segment of the presentation.

On top of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Resident Evil Village, the Resident Evil 4 Remake, and Death Stranding were all announced for the iPhone 15 Pro. “iPhone is the best mobile gaming platform in the world,” Joswiak said. “It’s amazing to think that those games are running on a device that fits in your pocket.”

Silicon Engineering Group Vice President Sribalan Santhanam broke down how the A17 Pro bionic chip would enable hardware-accelerated raytracing. “A17 Pro can run these graphics smoothly at much higher framerates than with software-based raytracing,” Santhanam explained.

The presentation showed footage of large-scale games running on the iPhone 15 Pro at 30 FPS. “With the fastest chip ever on any smartphone, we are excited for iPhone 15 Pro to change mobile gaming,” Santhanam concluded.

While the true performance of these kinds of games running natively on a mobile
device remains to be seen, the prospect is an exciting one. With Apple’s annual cycle of hardware releases, we could see this technology perfected on later devices.

Resident Evil Village, the Resident Evil 4 Remake, and Death Stranding have all been announced for iPhone 15 Pro in 2023. Assassin’s Creed Mirage will come later in 2024.