Resident Evil 4 Android received a native demonstration based on the GameCube version on September 25, 2026. Developer Ayano showed the project booting up on a 2014 Samsung Galaxy S5 LTE-A, loading the village, rendering textures, lighting, and HUD, and offering touch controls, all without an emulator or JIT.
The breakthrough is significant because, a day earlier, the project had been demonstrated mainly on Windows, with Android appearing only as a compilation target. Now there is a test on real hardware. However, the port is still far from being a ready-to-play version: the developer himself measured around 17 FPS in the menus and approximately 1.5 FPS in the village on that device.
Reference image of the original GameCube version of Resident Evil 4, which serves as the basis for the project. Image: The King of Grabs.
Resident Evil 4 Android already boots on real hardware
According to technical report published by the developer himself, the test was performed on a Galaxy S5 LTE-A with a Snapdragon 805, Adreno 420 GPU, and 32-bit Android 9. The application reaches the menus and enters the village area using the phone's own GPU.
This sets the project apart from running via Dolphin or a streaming layer. The approach uses static recompilation: the GameCube's PowerPC code is translated ahead-of-time into C++ and then compiled for the device's architecture. A runtime replaces functions that previously relied on the console's hardware, including graphics, audio, input, and disc data access.
The method approaches other recent recompilation projects. In Allves Games, for example, we have already shown the native recompilation of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd for Android and the Rayman Origins Recompiled running on the Galaxy A56The difference here lies in the GameCube origin and the still experimental stage.
Recompilation targets the GameCube edition of Resident Evil 4, rather than later PC versions. Image: reference material from the original edition.
Touch controls change depending on the situation
The developer also implemented a custom mobile interface. Instead of keeping all virtual buttons on screen all the time, the system changes the controls according to the game state. Walking, aiming, QTEs, menus, inventory, and cutscenes can display different commands.
During exploration, there is a floating analog stick, run, aim, knife, map, inventory, and quick turn. While aiming, some buttons change to fire and reload. During QTEs, the interface may ask for a tap, swipe gesture, or rapid presses. The goal is to prevent fingers from covering the original 4:3 image.
This work also reinforces that the Resident Evil 4 Android in question is not Capcom's old commercial mobile version. It is a technical adaptation of the GameCube version based on recompilation and a specific runtime.
Official screenshot of the GameCube edition used as visual reference; it is not a capture of the Android port. Image: Nintendo/Capcom.
Resident Evil 4 Android still runs at about 1.5 FPS in the village
The numbers published by the author make the current stage clear. On the Galaxy S5 LTE-A, the menus hover around 17 FPS, while the village drops to approximately 1.5 FPS. Therefore, the demonstration proves native execution on the device, but does not yet represent a playable experience.
The performance profile pointed to the game code as the main bottleneck. According to Ayano, the logic thread remains busy about 88% of the time, while the rendering thread stays close to 60%. The game code also runs approximately 15 times slower on the phone than on the PC used by the developer, despite the raw CPU difference being smaller.
Because of this, the next focus is optimization. The author cites fixes for slow mathematical operations on 32-bit ARM and hot paths that were still carrying debugging checks. The stated goal is to reach a stable 30 FPS on a recent phone, but there is still no benchmark confirming this objective.
https://youtu.be/VEe04r5b-iE?si=ExxEesE_2VSRt0RfARM64 build exists, but has not been tested yet
In addition to testing on 32-bit ARM, the project already generates an ARM64 APK. However, the developer states that they have not yet tested this compilation on a modern device. Therefore, it is not correct to extrapolate the performance of the Galaxy S5 to current phones.
The project also mentions iOS as a future target because recompilation does not depend on JIT. Even so, there is still no build for iPhone or iPad. The confirmed mobile stage, for now, is Android: 32-bit running on real hardware and ARM64 only compiling.
Another important point is availability. The project remains closed-source and the developer states that they do not intend to distribute game data, ISOs, or binaries derived from Capcom's content. The user must provide their own legitimate copy. This caution also appears in other preservation and recompilation projects we follow, such as native port of Super Mario Strikers.
What the breakthrough changes for the project
The material change in this update is simple: Android is no longer just a theoretical compilation and now runs the game on a real phone. At the same time, the results expose the work still needed in performance, full audio, cutscenes, and the save system.
Therefore, the Resident Evil 4 Android recompiled build should be treated as a technical prototype. It already proves booting, village rendering, HUD, and touch controls on a Galaxy S5 LTE-A, but it does not offer enough performance to play normally. Tests on modern ARM64 will be the next important indicator of viability.
Sources: Ayano's technical post on r/decomps; previous project report on Windows and the ARM64 build; official Resident Evil 4 GameCube page on Nintendo.
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