Immortals of Aveum PS5/Xbox Series X/S: Unreal Engine 5 is Pushed Hard - And Image Quality Suffers

Update (26/08/23): While both PS5 and Xbox Series X use the same native resolutions, it's worth noting there is a sharper end result on PS5 overall in comparisons. The base 720p image only plays one part here for each - and potentially we're looking at a different use of post processing. We'll update again once we have confirmation as to what the cause is.
A brand new Unreal Engine 5.1 title lands in immortals of Aveum - a debut project from Ascendant Studios who make the most of features like nanite and lumen. The turnout on a tech level is one of the most fascinating games we've seen on PS5, Series X and S to date. However there are technical shortcomings, with image quality in particular taking a hit in order to target 60 frames per second on each console.
Subscribe for more Digital Foundry: bit.ly/DFSubscribe
Join the DF Patreon to support the team more directly and to get access to everything we do via pristine quality downloads: bit.ly/3jEGjvx
Want some DF-branded tee-shirts, mugs, hoodies or pullovers? Check out our store: bit.ly/2BqRTt0
For commercial enquiries, please contact [e-mail]

[@navid617]

Did you get 60 fps? - Yes What did it cost? - Everything

[@ardasevmis7583]

They didn’t even get it

[@niks660097]

@@ardasevmis7583 lol exactly 40-50 is not 60fps..

[@griffgames9538]

Child Gamora weeps.

[@hypnobearcoup2505]

And 60fps isn't even impressive, it's just the bare minimum. I was hoping this was going to be 120fps.

[@griffgames9538]

@@hypnobearcoup2505 Well, in console territory, at least 60fps gets you the superior input response on controller. That improves the gameplay and control, at minimum. With high polling mouse and keyboard on PC, you can truly exploit the response benefits of 120hz and up.

[@antonkirilenko3116]

I feel like Series S version having a base resolution literally lower than a typical PS2 game is an incredible achievement.

[@mayen67]

well the PS5 and Xbox SX match a common Switch portable resolution 🥴

[@blues05]

​@@mayen67My phone can run Genshin Impact at 60fps while the Switch couldn't 🥴

[@MrInuhanyou123]

To be fair. Ps2 had specific issues with resolution unlike say Dreamcast due to Sony's focus on EDram bandwidth. So even if it could output to the tv at 480p a lot of the time it was much below that. Same way PS3 and 360 could output to 720p and 1080p but usually was not hitting that in normal gameplay in many games.

[@TheDomLouis]

The power of the Xbox team and their excellent hardware architecture team, obviously. Is my sarcasm showing?

[@martijnvanderwal3976]

"Xbox Series S: simply next gen" - Microsoft

[@Poptartsicles]

Running something as demanding as Lumen in a game world that is 99% static feels like a huge waste when they could've just offline rendered the Global Illumination and it would've looked 99% the same and ran twice as fast. It would've allowed them to run the game at a much higher resolution too, vastly improving image quality.

[@biglittleboy9827]

Too much work for those lazy devs. Now with UE5 they just want to press one button and BOOM work done.

[@PursuedByAMemory]

@@biglittleboy9827 These devs are not lazy, they made UE5 run at ~60fps. Game developers are making the wrong bets with this technology. UE5 is not the right fit for current gen gaming. Previously existing in-house tech was far more impressive.

[@Mcnooblet]

@@PursuedByAMemory I agree. It's become easy to just call devs lazy when your purchased hardware isn't very good. When you have a 4090 even being hit hard to run UE5 at high resolutions and frame rates, you know it's a very demanding engine. 4090 is much much more powerful than what's in the consoles.

[@PedroKing19]

​@Mcnooblet easy to call out the hardware as being insufficient. But the consoles have been out for 3 years already, and the devs are well aware of their limitations. This game's shortcomings are due to the dev's misplaced ambition.

[@Willie6785]

​@@PursuedByAMemory Yeah I agree. Feels like certain games wouldn't be possible without UE, Unity and such making creating games more accessible than ever, especially in the indie side of things. But when it comes to the AAA scene, that's the part of the industry that has the resources to push technology forward in-house instead of relying on more "generic" engines. Unfortunaly it's all backwards since we get things like Noita made by indies. 😅

[@TomNook.]

Lumen and Nanite looks absolutely gorgeous in 436p!

[@skontejonte]

😢😢🫨🤒

[@RickyBancroft]

Next Gen!

[@ingressplayer]

Better than on trash PC least consoles can hit 60 FPS unlike PC $1600 GPU 47FPS FTL...

[@rhapsodic9061]

Resolution scale 480p upscaled to whatever, yea it looks really good crisp texture no blurry visual, no exaggerated film grain, forced anti aliasing but why worry they have got a solution it's dlss with extra sharpness with shiny reflective objects rendered in real time. This is next level gaming folks.

[@David-ox2ij]

@@ingressplayer Are you sure that a PC $1600 can´t run 60 FPS with console settings and FSR Ultra Performance? My 280 Euro GPU actually can....

[@ljvm180]

if this is what we can expect from upcoming unreal engine 5 games on consoles and pc, round of applause for the studios using their own inhouse tech instead of UE5.

[@S_F_S]

nah, Remnant 2 on PS5 is Unreal Engine 5 and it's amazing

[@xtr.7662]

​@@S_F_Son the technical side quite the opposite

[@Frigobar_Ranamelonico]

​@@S_F_Sit's run like trash even on a 4090, so technically speaking not a lot

[@CaptToilet]

@@S_F_S I know the truth hurts but Remnant 2 is a shitshow as well technically

[@psionski]

On consoles, maybe, but on PC you can use whatever base resolution you want.

[@albert.]

This game is the definition of why studios should priorize good art style istead of just using the last technology.

[@timmyp6297]

This game's art style is dictated by the "last technology" since FSR2 erases small particles and transparencies.

[@albert.]

@@timmyp6297 did you saw returnal, that game uses UE4 and is miles ahead on particle effects

[@timmyp6297]

@@albert. It just has a lot of particle effects, they roughly havent changed in 20 years. Returnal is nothing special because its procedural generation.

[@timmyp6297]

​@@epoch151 It doesnt? TAA doesnt even come close to completely erasing them.

[@DerdOn0ner]

Priorize?

[@pronstorestiffi]

Cannot wait to get my hands on a 720p LG OLED, to really make this experience shine.

[@jsr734]

Do they exist? I want one too.

[@tekaefixe]

Ahahahah 😂

[@abhishekdhoriyani2312]

can get sony bravia 720p though !@@jsr734

[@nattila7713]

@@jsr734 yes. it's called: NINTENDO SWITCH :D

[@yc_030]

I remember in 2020 they were pushing 4k120 tvs for the new consoles....lol

[@joesterling4299]

We've feared that AI upscaling might replace actual high-resolution graphics. And here we are: our fears realized. The source resolution isn't even 1080p, and that's tragic. 720p graphics or less in the latest generation of hardware. Despite we knew this might come, it's still hard to believe it actually happened.

[@FooFighter477]

Unfortunately. DLSS\FSR were supposed to provide 4k output from 1440p, maybe 1080p. Or, at this point, a bump to aging GPUs like RTX 20 series. I could justify 720p upscaled if game looked beyond immersive and expanded boundaries of in-game graphics. But this one looks like a disjointed mess of assets burdened by demanding technologies.

[@pmmm712011]

DLSS works perfectly for 1080p to 4k. I've not been able to tell any visual differences from use, but the framerate differences are massive. Upscaling is a tool to reach 4k and 120 fps, not the tool to hit 1080p and 45 fps. If you can't hit basic performance requirements, DLSS can't save you. This game looks terrible, and will be a warning lesson to other studios trying to depend on upscalers.

[@Verpal]

I wish this is AI upscaling, at least with DLSS the image would be more presentable, this is plain old FSR 2, which just suck in low resolution.

[@DerdOn0ner]

Who is “we” exactly? AI upscaling is absolutely amazing when done right 😂

[@rolftheuber]

While I appreciate the technical ambition on display here, the image quality is a deal breaker for me. All the ray tracing in the world doesn't mean a thing if the end result looks like a blurry, artifact ridden low-bitrate mid-2000s streaming video.

[@Jokerzgaming412]

Yea I have the game but holding off on playing it because it’s hard to watch honestly

[@matthewponton5632]

​@cliffcager42 I refunded it after 40 minutes on Steam. I was really excited for this just to test out how the fidelity and graphics of unreal engine 5 would be. But I quickly discovered that the art decisions and model designs studios use make or break a game more than the engine being used. Nothing visualy wowed me while playing. It all just looked kind of bland and muted, especially since there is no hdr support too. Idk I was exepcting this game to be like a plague tale requiem, but it ended up just looking like anyother ps4/ps5 game. Really disappointed

[@secondchance6603]

There are times I find some games less enjoyable due to excess stuff going on, sometimes a little constraint is preferred.

[@nekov4ego]

Unfortunately, upscaling will be the default way out of optimisation going forward as they can still pretend and advertise to have a game running at 1080p or whatever, ignoring that the "native like" image quality is only retained convincingly at Quality level and 4K output.

[@mravg79]

@@nekov4ego This is just sad, optimization is an important part. And image reproduction has is obvious downsides. I would take native 1440p over the upscaled 720p, anytime.

[@LuchsYT]

What the hell is that image quality dude 😭 I wish devs started prioritising image quality over graphical features

[@orijimi]

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, yo.

[@wertywerrtyson5529]

Please look forward to games with 240p and massive amounts of raytracing.

[@JudeTheYoutubePoopersubscribe]

i am watching this at 4k on a 32 inch monitor and laughing at the image quality of the series s version, who thought that it was okay to ship the game looking that blurry on there?. it should have been 30fps.

[@andreasbone602]

​@@wertywerrtyson5529same here mate, and maybe running @24 fps too for that cinematic experience, and let's not forget undefeatable motion blur too.

[@pandazpaa]

Maybe just give us the option heh?

[@Davitron_87]

We’ve reached a point where consoles are now returning to PS2 levels of resolution. Impressive.

[@leruty]

PS3 resolution on PS5 and Xbox Series X PS2 resolution on Xbox Series S

[@corysnow7811]

​@@lerutybit odd since the sx runs better and looks the same as ps5? SS =PS2 PS5 = PS4 SX IS PS4 PRO😂

[@pancon5]

To be fair, the PS2 was a massive success. 😋😋

[@SakuraAvalon]

@@corysnow7811 'Better' is quite the word, when even the X is struggling to hit 720P 60FPS consistently.

[@corysnow7811]

@@SakuraAvalon but it's doing it better than the ps5? Okay 👌

[@EonKool]

Amazing how despite all the graphical flourishes, the game just looks okay.

[@charno_zhyem]

Yeah. Art design, art design, art design

[@overtherenowaitthere]

i mean it looks incredible, on pc at least, but man it chugs

[@Spewa-em8cm]

My thoughts exactly. Despite the fidelity of the assets and the Lumen lighting engine and the amount of particle effects on screen, this game looks kind of lifeless and bland.

[@zedsdeadbaby]

Yeah, their art design team is mediocre at best. It's too generic and brown. They are 10-15 years late to the party.

[@allansolano5587]

​@@overtherenowaitthereit looks better but i wouldnt say incredible there are way better looking titles that run 2 times better than this

[@eruannster]

Honestly, it has got to be some internal competition between studios at this point to try to get away with lowest internal resolution at this point. 1280x720 upscaled to 4K? Freaking 768x436 on Series S? Are these developers even playing these versions anymore? I just cannot believe they gathered around, pulled it up on a big screen all nodded and said "yes, this looks good, let's ship this, it looks great!" Also, for PC versions this becomes absurd in terms of system requirements when the "low" preset is a 2080 Ti. Who are they even selling this game to? Did they not live through the same pandemic GPU drought that we did?

[@GraveUypo]

exactly. when dlss / fsr came out, i was hoping it would be a tool to push old hardware to modern standards with minimal sacrifices, instead, it turns out they became a crutch to push render targets that the consoles aren't supposed to be able to handle like it was normal. i mean, this doesn't look terrible, but i think this game would look better without nanite but with a higher internal resolution. at least they made the right choice of frame rate. i'll take this over 1080p internal at 30fps anyday

[@TheUnrealPirate]

the artwork in this game is also quite good, but I'm not blown away by it given the requirements. DOOM is proof you can have great visuals at a fast framerate provided the game isn't massive in scope. Is tech like Nanite and Lumen really worth it if this is the result? DOOM looks great without it...

[@SAIIIURAI]

Just more and more laziness in optimizing! This extremely colourful, effect heavy game don't even has hdr! Tells me all i need to know about the "passion" for this project!

[@o_sagui6583]

​@@TheUnrealPiratereminder that both newer Doom titles run on switch NATIVELY

[@Vincornelis]

More developers need to look at Horizon: Forbidden West. No raytracing at all. Best looking game on the PS5 and a clear image. Well now anyway. On launch performance mode had tons of artifacting but the point stands. Amazing graphics, great performance and a clean image is possible if developers stop abusing image reconstruction so they can jerk off and boast about all the raytracing technologies that the hardware simply isn't ready for they've put in their games.

[@lexsanderz]

9x less pixels than output. What a setting.

[@joesterling4299]

Yeah, you can get 4K (2160p) out of a 3x3 720p-monitor video wall. 9X upscaling. What a joke.

[@etienne1062]

Todd Howard would be proud, we're getting close to the ''16x the details'', except we're going backwards, sort of 😂. Who knows Starfield may reach it 🤓.

[@johnclark926]

I’m heartbroken that we’ll never get to see what fresh hell the Gollum Switch port was going to be like, but I’m hopeful we’ll get a port for Immortals that will play at 144p, use SuperFX-quality models + textures, and will aim for 20fps but frequently dip down to 10.

[@freaksuyash]

I have been reading all the comments on this video, read about 50 of them last night, read some 50 more this morning. Yours wins!

[@plasmaoctopus1728]

Nah it'll be a cloud game on switch, but it'll still have the same cutbacks you mentioned due to whatever servers being used it can't handle the game.

[@gozutheDJ]

LMFAO there was gonna be a Gollum Switch port???? OH GOD

[@_mattbailey]

I’ve played (and completed) The Outer Worlds on Switch, so bring this on! 😅

[@theemulationportal]

720p upscaled to 4k using FSR is just abusing the tech it looks terrible. 1080p upscaled to 4k should be the bare minimum for image quality and preferably with FSR it should be 1200-1440p base res to actually look half decent in motion. What's the point of all these "high" end effects and ultra detailed models and textures if the resolution is so low everything becomes a blurry shimmering mess?

[@muhammadhabibzaman9448]

There should be law for FSR2 1440p-1080p internal resolution with 60 FPS for FSR2 For 30 FPS, use 1620p internal resolution

[@xtr.7662]

Exactly they should stop using rt, lumen, nanite for consoles since they cant even handle these at acceptable image quality and performance instead they should stick with games like hzfw, plague tale requiem which run quite good compared to how they look

[@omarcomming722]

​@@xtr.7662it's not just performance, those games look better than tech demo garbage like this because they have huge budgets and talented ppl working on them.

[@teddyholiday8038]

Ideally these consoles should be upscaling from no lower than 1440p. 1080p is the absolute lowest is should ever go

[@jedimindtrickonyou3692]

Indeed, we need some damn upscaling minimum resolution requirement laws implemented. You might think I'm joking, but I'm not. Maybe it's not that serious but it seems like they will abuse this tech given half the chance.

[@chalpua8802]

I feel like graphics are better than last gen but image quality is getting worse because of poor upscaling. Just slap on FSR or something else and say good enough.

[@FatfighterXD1]

image quality has been getting worse for years. Ever since deferred rendering and fxaa the image in a lot of games has been very muddy opposed to the cleaner graphics of older games that could support msaa

[@zywypl]

Upscaled resolution, fake frames, console gaming evolves, just backwards...

[@jimmyhopkins1]

​@@omarcomming722native is always better buddy

[@chalpua8802]

@@zywypl frame generation is fine if you are already getting a good amount of FPS. But yeah, latency isn’t perfect.

[@xtr.7662]

The problem is fsr sucks even xess amd checkerboard rendering manage to be better

[@respectfulremastersbymetal8336]

Doesn't matter how much cool-looking stuff you have flying around on the screen or how good your art is if the game is too blurry to see it.

[@baiihai1531]

The graphic is mid too

[@dlbutters7164]

UE5 turned these new generation consoles into 720p machines... That's brutal.

[@KneppaH]

And doesn't look good while doing it.

With no real improvements in visuals. Just makes things more demanding. For nothing.

[@Tommek461991]

@ wtf??? much more details and awesome effects - this game looks great

[@user-wp3zh9xy7g]

And it doesnt even have ray tracing.

[@vandammage1747]

UE5 is a joke at this point. Soon everyone will see through the hype and go back to UE4

[@stirfrysensei]

Yay! Another internally rendered 720p game! Looks great when you’re standing still!

[@lumirairazbyte9697]

That’s literally every post on Reddit showing screenshots like that.

[@WayStedYou]

This looks like a free EGS/PS Plus game in a few months

[@DroneCorpse]

Can’t wait to add it to my library and never install it 🔥

[@toma01001]

​@@DroneCorpseThus is the fate of an EGS game. Tomb Raider on EGS anyone?

[@themrubios]

In a few months you can add it to your library and then wait years for PS6 to come out so that the hardware can actually run it properly.

[@14supersonic]

It's funny cause I got the game for free after participating in an EA playtest of the game. I'm not sure if I would have ended up buying the game otherwise

[@asad-exo]

Well you weren't wrong

[@AdamH7]

Basically every AAA developer ditched their own engines for this 💀

[@thejimmichanga2913]

I remember buying my first 720p TV in 2008 for my xbox 360. Here we are in 2023, 15 years later, still getting games w/ a base resolution of 720p... Honestly, in terms of optimization quality, were in some of the worst times for gaming, period.

[@Dick_Valparaiso]

Those games looked really good on a 720p tv back then too. I remember being blown away by how good Ninja Gaiden 2 looked. And, that game was rendering at 540p. But, with solid aa, a near locked 60fps, and all around great art direction I never noticed the lower resolution. Almost all of the 360 games I played back then felt suitably hd imo. It's getting to the point of what's the good in having a 4K display if so many games look like smeary messes on them. My older brother has his SX hooked up to a decent 1080p tv and tbh sometimes depending on the game I don't even notice the difference. I'd bet that Immortals probably resolves cleaner (and maybe runs better) overall on his tv.

[@rainbowsweater]

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@joesterling4299]

Same here, almost--2007, a Samsung 23" IPS-equivalent LCD. With its VGA input along with every other analog standard known to man, it ended up as my everything monitor, AND as a TV. It even had a limited HDMI input, not suitable for PC, for some reason. (Worked with console HDMI output.) Died after 11 busy years. May it RIP. I still haven't figured out how to connect my Wii or my PS2 to the LG monitor I replaced it with. @Dick_Valparaiso - 4K is still a bridge too far, honestly. I'm sticking to fast-refresh VRR 1080p for now, for gaming.

[@nattila7713]

@@Dick_Valparaiso problem is, 720p TVs never existed. We had 1360x768 LCDs and even 720p looked like sh*t.

[@Dick_Valparaiso]

@@nattila7713 As ionnisstf1971 stated there were a few tv's that had native 1280x720 output. Regardless, my introduction to Xbox 360 720p gaming was on my friend's 27-inch 720p (rated) display. I wish I remembered the exact model. I'm fairly certain that it was a Samsung. My friend Steve usually researched all his purchases. A few years later he had the absolute best looking 1080p tv I've ever seen to this day. Idk if it was plasma or not. But, the black levels were phenominal even giving my LG C3 a run for it's money. ...Anyway, getting back on track, games (imo) looked great on the 720p rated panels I've played on. Back in 2011 I was low on cash and wanted a flatscreen for my 360. I ended up buying a Haier (official tv brand of the NBA back then, lol) 22-inch that actually had a vga input which I put to use as a second monitor when I upgraded a year or so later. It was a 1368x768 panel. I still thought that the games I played (lots of Dead Island and Dead Space 2) looked great. It wasn't until that I purchased a much larger 1080p tv that I started to notice the visual deficiencies of the 7th gen consoles.

[@GyroO7]

-PS5 title -PS4 Look -PS3 Performance (without fsr) -PS2 Base Resolution

[@animon9819]

UE5 seems more like a convenient engine than an efficient engine at this point.

[@PrussianBlu3]

UE has always been a bear on consoles dating back to the ps2 and Xbox. I've NEVER liked the engine. 343 is gonna sink Halo with that nasty engine.

[@markjacobs1086]

​@@PrussianBlu3UE2 was good. Splinter Cell ran well & had neat visuals.

[@mr.ilikespam6081]

it depends of who uses it

[@alaa341g]

@@mr.ilikespam6081 the engine was very good till few years back , in the last 3 years we didn't have any well working games on UE4 and now the 5 , i think UE have lot of problems that no DEVs are capable of avoidiing them , that engine eat CPU power like sweets ,

[@DaxterKing]

Really wanna link this and all the other subpar UE5 games to all the Halo fans who think UE5 will magically solve all of Infinite's problems. Watching this video made more retroactively impressed with Infinite. At least it runs natively and has a clear image@@PrussianBlu3

[@teddyholiday8038]

This is why I push back on “just get used to mandatory upscaling” When you upscale from sub 720p, it looks blurry as hell

[@muhammadhabibzaman9448]

It's fine to upscale But last gen checkerboard rendering have higher base resolution than this

[@teddyholiday8038]

@@muhammadhabibzaman9448 Read what I wrote again and try again

[@AL2009man]

this is what happens when you aim for Graphical Fidelity & 60fps *at all cost* .

[@BrotherO4]

@@AL2009man aim for 60 fps at all cost... but agree with graphical fidelity. wait... that name

[@ColorblindMonk]

It makes sense for when you fall just short of native res, but yeah, upscaling from 33% native res clearly doesn't work.

[@user-yj8sg2we9t]

720p/420p, nice to see gaming expirience back to it's roots..

[@jsr734]

Now Digital Foundry has to make a video showing the Series S version pluged to a crt running in native resolution. I think that would be interesting/funny. And try to get a native 720p screen for the Series X and Ps5 version to compare the native res picture quality without upscaling.

[@No-mq5lw]

If this is the direction the UE5 base ultimately heads, my writing skills cannot convey how disappointed and pessimistic I am about the next 6-ish years of gaming, as UE has pretty much swallowed up the entire industry. It just tries so hard to look good and flashy that the parts where it's the weakest ultimately breaks the immersion. Environment doesn't even look that impressive IMO.

[@Keyecomposer]

Its not the game engines fault, its how its utilized.

[@alaa341g]

at least the game that runs on inhouse engines have less problems

[@flushit.]

@@Keyecomposer Yeah sure, literally every new UE game looks (and runs like) shit, tech demos aside. Is it always because of the devs, or what?

[@dyelon13]

Unreal Engine 4 wasn't great until like 4.8. it's early early days for both UE5 (and this game didn't ship with it's latest release 5.2) and the current gen consoles. There are going to be stumbles while the tech matures, but at least this is a 60fps title and no one seems to think the PS3/ 360 era 20 fps acceptable anymore

[@ChrisClemmons]

We'll just have to wait for The Coalition to get their game out... then we can judge the engine vs devs properly.

[@Lolkork]

I really wonder what the devs were thinking here. It doesn't matter how good the lighting is when the entire screen is a smear.

[@budthecyborg4575]

"AAA" game studios are game developers in name only. The developers here never played the game, they don't play games in general, and calling these people "game developers" is like calling a MacDonald's hamburger flipper a "Chef".

[@Deliveredmean42]

These devs aren't AAA devs? This was a game from the EA Original line-up which is known to be in the AA range. And yet, they went with 70 dollars, yikes.@@budthecyborg4575

[@Prohass]

@@budthecyborg4575they’re a smaller team, they were working with what they could in the budget. It’s not some conspiracy

[@biglittleboy9827]

@@Prohass So why calling your game a AAA game if you are small team with low budget ? Stop this toxic positivity and give yourself some self respect okay ?

[@brightbluesmurf]

436p is going to look wonderful on a 77" OLED.

[@lindseymarable8756]

This seems to me like a classic example of a game being developed more as a reviewer-friendly "first-to-market" tech showcase (in this instance for UE5) than a gamer-friendly showcase of development prowess specifically optimized for the consoles it supports. Once again, I bring up the example of Gears of War 5. It was developed specifically for X1X with a target of 60fps right from the jump. It met that goal WHILE also managing to become one of the most beautiful games of last-gen in the process. It was then ported to X1S after customizations and optimizations were made specifically for X1S hardware. Forza Horizon 5 is another example. The devs had a stated goal of delivering as consistent a gaming experience as they could considering their support for each XBOX console, so they set up an environment where they could view each console version of the game separately and tweak and optimize as they felt necessary. The result was a high level of consistency with minimal sacrifices even on the lowest-spec hardware. This trend of developing for MIDDLEWARE and throwing it on whichever console supports that middleware without much customization is sad and disappointing. As a gamer, I grew up during the time period where SEGA, Rareware, Nintendo, Factor 5, Squaresoft, and other devs had no choice but to push the envelope on a per-console basis if they wanted their games to stand out. Console wars actually meant something because hardware restrictions tended to result in differences noticable to average gamers (Genesis vs. SNES color palette anyone?). In today's times where hardware restrictions largely don't exist because current AND last gen hardware is capable of fully realizing any dev's vision in some form means there's no excuse for resolutions falling below GAMECUBE/PS2 (and even N64) levels. In the case of the current XBOX consoles, gimmicky stuff like ray-tracing and several types and kinds of graphical compression are baked into the hardware of XSX and XSS, so that stuff shouldn't even have much of an effect on gaming performance. Reviewers also don't help the cause for per-console optimization when they constantly frame technical issues in terms of "hardware limits" as opposed to lack of dev prowess. Better compression methods, microcode, compatible game design and just good old-fashioned clever and creative programming were all techniques used in prior console generations to make games stand out above the rest. Leaving things up to the middleware to the game's and by default the gamer's detriment is ridiculous.

[@mrdoruya]

A shame indeed. I remenber SC Chaos Theory on the OG Xbox. Takes full advantage of the console capabilities compare to the ps2 version

[@FooFighter477]

This game is a perfect example how demanding does not equal good visuals. I would easily believe that this is a PS4 era game. And another proof that we're at the point where art design has much bigger impact than technicalities.

[@dave10293874]

It actually looks incredible if you’ve seen enough native 4K content where you can determine what it would look like if not upscaled from 720. Really impressive looking game. But that doesn’t matter if the res is gunna be this low.

[@themrubios]

>I would easily believe that this is a PS4 era game I would easily believe this is a PS3 era game, given the resolution it runs at.

[@Chocapic_13]

The art design is pretty decent and original imo. The issue is more in the technical part, Lumen GI and reflections feels almost absent because its likely scaled down by a lot, as well as the stupidly low render resolution. I do have to say that Nanite is very well used and is allowing the artists to push impressive landscapes, the Niagara particle system does look very good as well and is perfect for the magic shooter style

[@Digdugduggie101]

Lmao, anyone who is saying this looks like a PS4 game needs to get their eyes checked.

[@oo--7714]

Obviously, the game has a lot more going on. Half of the effexts in the gams and the backdrops wouldn't run without major sacrifices. Not to mention the better lighting The performance isn't good though.

[@hj-hv6rt]

436p. PS2 resolutions are back on the menu

[@markjacobs1086]

Ironically it's even below that 😂 PS2 had plenty of games with a 480P mode.

[@TANuclear]

I love that we have come so far to behold the beauty of HD-ready resolutions. It looks so clean compared to SD. Maybe the rumored PS5Pro could take that a step further and we could even see what Full HD looks like. Can’t imagine how that will look, very exciting years ahead

[@juju7462]

Nah PS5pro will just be 720p stable 60fps. PS6 may support 900p 🥰

[@tkraft1442]

Be ready for scalping and overpriced 😅 And it won't come out till like late 2024 or around 2025. There's no confirmed date.

[@YourPalHDee]

😂

[@XDLugia]

I eagerly await The Coalition's next project in Unreal 5. Those people are wizards with UE and if any developer can optimise this heavy stuff, then it would be them. Gears of War 5 runs at 4k60 on Xbox One X and it looks absolutely stunning even today.

[@dr.loomis4221]

Gears 5 has screen tearing on Xbox One X. The Series X smooths it out though.

[@ionseven]

These "automagical" visuals absolutely do not justify the perf hit. I've been playing older, amazing looking games, then I see this and I'm thinking devs need to dial things back and revisit more mature methods from the masters.

[@luissss81]

Exactly. Older games look as good as this one

[@kubev]

Eh, I'm kind of torn on this. I think some of these Unreal 5 features are too early for console use in many cases, because yeah, some devs clearly don't have the willpower to pick and choose responsibly. That said, I could see this sort of stuff being brute-forced on future consoles. That doesn't make things okay now, of course, but isn't the idea behind Nanite that there IS at the very least a geometry ceiling based on resolution (since no one pixel needs to represent more than a single polygon in theory) that devs shouldn't have to bypass, thereby allowing everything else to fall into place given enough resource overhead?

[@Chaos744_]

So confusing. UE5 was pushed as being revolutionary for the new consoles and PCs, but developers just focus on upscaling for each release now. It seems like we are moving backwards.

[@omarcomming722]

We are. We're getting more technically advanced lighting techniques at massive costs to performance. That's why image quality, the most important element, goes to hell and the end result is trash. Idk how Microsoft approved a 430p game on the store lmao.

[@kennypowers1945]

@@omarcomming722because it’s series s lol. Ps5 has plenty of 480p games and it’s strong 🤣

[@oriongear2499]

My solution: Drop the Xbox Series S…at least for the more big-name and high-end releases.

[@atlien1988]

Greed and laziness. Not really blaming the developers per se because they're not the ones making the decisions, but this is ridiculous.

[@gabor-toth]

Consoles are simply unfit for UE5, it's just too much, too heavy. This will be a catastrophe in the coming years.

[@wordsovsean8905]

It would appear developers have decided to skip this generation. They're leaving the cross gen phase, which was apparantly not utilising the power of the current gen consoles and moving onto a generation that the current consoles can't appear to handle. So what is current gen performance exactly?

[@freaksuyash]

Thats exactly what I was thinking! I blame UE5, there is something wrong with that engine. I have not heard of one game made on it which has good performance.

[@smittyvanjagermanjenson182]

​@freaksuyash ue5 offers a lot more options for fine tuning than ue4 did. The reason a lot of early ue5 games ran poorly is because the the devs had to figure out what works on the new system and learn all the new engines features, while simultaneously building the same game for last gen consoles. So, of course it's been a mess the past few years. The good thing about this game is its built for the current consoles, It's running 60fps, and there isn't any last gen copy. Now if the can scale back some settings so it wouldn't have to run FSR on ultra performance, but still achieve 60fps then we're going to see some good things coming up.

[@rizzo-films]

⁠@@freaksuyashbecause UE5 is still relatively new and is still being updated. However, games take several years to make. Sounds like this game started being developed years before a production ready version of UE5 was even made available to the public. So, these more recent UE5 releases weren’t being made on an updated version of the engine. Give it a couple more years, then we can judge it better. Something that makes me skeptical though is that Jedi Survivor has all of these same issues and it was built on UE4, which has been available since 2014. So… we’ll see.

[@jacklawsen6390]

Seems like they should have waited a few more years and released new consoles that were actually capable of using next-gen graphic features. We already had the PS4 Pro and XBox One X, so the games didn't look bad on 4K displays.

[@roundduckkira]

The truth was it was too early for another generation to exist. Yeah the PS5 and XSX are massive jumps in performance and are monsters, but the kind of computation needed to meaningfully improve on the best of the 8th gen console graphics is like trying to max out RDR 2 on PC, it ends up being too costly for so little gained. The main big innovation is ray tracing, which is way too intense still, and otherwise stuff like Nanite are just optimizations on LOD tech to allow better scaling of detail, but it’s possibly just way too much detail for its own good when 4GB textures in 2017-2019 games looked good enough to most people. It’s basically like Apple’s tactic to brand screens Retina vs “bigger number better” that other companies do all over again, there is a good enough and to go beyond the good enough will quickly lead to an Icarus flying too close to the sun kind of situation just to squeeze out the 10% of improvement left in a technology. Basically these consoles should just never had next gen games and at most featured limited ray tracing, and otherwise just kept to 8th gen console graphics but at native 4K at 144hz or 60hz at least. That would be a massive upgrade in itself and would be 90% native, but we have to improve our graphix!!!!!!!!! Gotta win Gamers(tm)! But then again, early UE 3 games on the Xbox 360 and PS3 performed badly too and optimization can improve things, but the diff is the PS5 and XSX are meant to target 1440p-4K at 60 fps, not 720p or even 1080p at 30 fps. The 360 and PS3 targeted 720p to 1080p but mostly the former. The kind of situation we are in would be like if a PS3 game had to render at 320p to run at 30 fps. It’s that bad, and it may be hard for devs to fix this technical problem without also sacrificing frame rates and bringing back fears of 30 fps all over again.

[@ssarkisian]

The developer mindset earlier: We have budget for RAM, CPU and GPU. We need to build our game around that budget and be sure that every scene is under budget. Developers mindset now: We will build highly detailed open world from bought unoptimized assets and put some easily enabled engine features to enhance the picture quality. Then our game will have garbage performance on any hardware and we just scale down the render resolution/shadows/light/grass until it’ll start showing barely acceptable performance and look like blurry mess.

[@niloyck2540]

This is exactly what they are doing, game full of unoptimized assets and expecting Nanite to do all the work.

[@MaxIronsThird]

40fps at 720p, then people don't know why so many of us complained about the move to UE5 from so many studios.

[@Deliveredmean42]

An actual dedicated 40fps (and 30fps) mode would have been nice. Weird this game doesn't have it.

[@Fallen608]

Just wait until the next DF direct where they have the bizzare take that you're wrong and new features like this are good for reasons.

[@nattila7713]

@@Deliveredmean42 for FSR 60fps is a must. imagine this game in 900p30. happy?

[@Deliveredmean42]

Actually. Given the problem with the game, If it was 30/40fps instead of 60, it can run closer to 1080p or 1440p without the weird visual ghosting (or better yet, they could also used TSR that comes with Unreal Engine given FSR 2 seems to have visual problems at the moment). There is always a draw back trying to balance that out, but you also shouldn't eliminate the option for others to try 60 or 30/40fps.@@nattila7713

[@aerogenin7144]

This looks like a 2018 game with 2028 system requirements.

[@esotilin32z]

PS3/Xbox 360 era games look way better than this

[@itsalwaysdarkestbeforethes1198]

No lol too far

[@seanmartin355]

​@@esotilin32zno they don't lol

[@esotilin32z]

@@seanmartin355 They do in fact

[@TheMrNukeman]

I understand Decima engine is limited, but good lord does it blow UE5 out of the water in terms of graphical performance right now.

[@vandammage1747]

Pretty much every engine blows UE5 at this point. RE, UE4 all look better even on last gen hardware

[@jarde1989]

Bro UE3 is beating out UE5 right now lol

[@danieL2kto3k]

The lack of HDR, which is unfortunately not mentioned here, is the hardest bummer for me…

[@Aristowi]

This is exactly what I dreaded for this generation, the time when visuals get pushed beyond the limits of the hardware and games start to look bad as a result while also having to make a lot of sacrifices in resolution and performance. That's why cross gen wasn't that bad, PS5 and XSX were capable of enhancing older games delivering sharp high resolutions at full 60 fps while the older consoles were the ones that suffer, and newer games like Horizon FW and GOW Ragnarok, while not pushing the technology to the max, were two of the most beautiful games this generation has seen and at the same time they looked sharp and performed like a charm. It would seem that it's time to upgrade a GPU and leave consoles behind but the PC also suffers with this trend. I hope devs start to push back for the sake of a good gaming experience.

[@gman7497]

yeah i think we need to take a pause and let hardware catch up. with that said i think UE5 is a great engine in and of itself but devs arent utilizing it in a smart way.

[@Pointman11111]

But you're foegetting that this is not a veteran studio This is their first game Let's see how a AAA studio is handling UE5 And f.e. Rocksteadys Suicide squad kill the justice league is even running on UE4 as well as WBMs Gotham knights and guess which one looks better Or just look at Batman arkham knight which was made in UE3

[@zybch]

Its always the same at the start of a gen, and yes, this is just the start. Compare the stuff on early ps3 compared to the end of that gen and the differe3nces are amazing on the same hardware.

[@fullmotivatedgamer8612]

This has been happening since ps3 era. Devs have just given up on optimizing their games.

[@Pointman11111]

@@zybch mgs 4 launched not even 2 yrs into the ps3 and still looks pretty good on the faces But again, a AAA game

[@dougr8646]

Bro the lack of hdr is unforgivable

[@1985NEVETS]

I wonder why devs refuse to implement it in these games. Games that would benefit greatly from it. Is it too costly, time consuming or technical?

[@budthecyborg4575]

This is getting too ridiculous. Sony and Microsoft need to establish a QA fail condition for low render resolution. Anything rendering below 1080p should be barred from release.

[@daniloazhar5454]

It's the developer not being able to optimise it properly

[@budthecyborg4575]

@@daniloazhar5454 In which case the game is broken and should have been barred from release.

[@crest6704]

I remember the days when I played The Last Of Us on the PS3 and having a blast and dropping my jaw at literally every scene for how good it looked. The video on this game has the same effect on me. Similar graphics to the PS3 Last Of Us at times, but no the jaw dropping, intead face palms.

[@HelveticaBold1]

The native resolution is a disappointment but for me not supporting HDR is even worse. This could be a real HDR showcase.

[@PrussianBlu3]

Games not supporting HDR is a sin.

[@Kdkjdjewerdnxa]

HDR should literally be a requirement for publishing a double or triple a game on modern consoles.

[@envoyofrot7046]

I refuse to play without HDR these days, how do you even release a game without it?

[@TheFirstRealChewy]

This was really a tech demo masquerading as a game. It's clear that devs can't use all the UE5 features at the same time on consoles without some sacrifice. Let's see how well my comment age when The Coalition show off Gears 6 next year.😅

[@mash2481]

@@TheFirstRealChewy well, this was Ascendant’s first game, also first game using Unreal Engine 5. The Coalition is a completely different animal. Like comparing a chicken to a wolf.

[@DrRhubarb]

If this was supposed to be a showcase for UE5 and seeing how many devs will use it going forward....we are fkd haha

[@robohorseWOT]

I never cease to be amazed at the talent of some people to make things worse and worse every time. Heck, even a UE4 in the hands of a professional will be able to show a better picture with much better performance! No technology will save you if you don't know how to use it.

[@phazonlord0098]

Heck, even UE3 in the hands of a professional could look breathtaking. Just look at what Roscksteady did with it in the Arkham games, it didn't look out of place at all in the previous generation.

[@gozutheDJ]

@@phazonlord0098 good looking games but still delusional comment

[@piotrmazek540]

@@phazonlord0098 Remember Me also looked amazing on UE3

[@M_CFV]

​@@gozutheDJhow is it delusional when we have games rendering at below ps2 resolutions and look worse than ue4 games?

[@kurtwells711]

Unfortunately, poor image quality has become the hallmark of FSR because of over ambitious upscaling. 720p to 4k is almost 10 the native pixels that it’s being asked to output. Thanks for the great video, as always, Tom!

[@justacollegestudent5147]

Yeah it’s not good. I think fsr 2.1 qualify which would be 1440p ends with amazing results indistinguishable and often better than native and should be what developers strive for. I understand that’s not always feasible but I appreciate the attempt to make the output 4k because trust me tv upscalers suck. I’m hoping this gen we get around 1800p output and around 1300p internal 60fps for most games.

[@jcdenton8750]

By the time consoles can run UE5 engine games with ease it will be the PS6. The only problem is that when PS6 is out we'll have UE6 which will run poorly on PS6, so the cycle will repeat with only PS7 being capable of running UE6 games with ease.

[@RyuShinkuuHadoken]

Fortnite UE5 runs with ease on PS5 and it looks amazing.

[@Fervent._]

Look at Texas Chainsaw Massacre it looks awesome , yea a few bugs but that’ll soon be fixed and getting more cosmetics / ppl on it to play as . You just be talking sh^t to-talk lol . Another small story interactive - Thriller , Scifi game came out with UNreal Engine 5.2 and it looks amazing which is Fort Solis .

[@jesusbarrera6916]

@@RyuShinkuuHadoken the makers of the Unreal Engine made their game with Unreal Engine run good? oh my god that is unheard of....

[@abibirawa4119]

@@Fervent._ Fort solis also runs like shit, same story with this game

[@lordspalse0062]

Planned obsolescence on a gigantic industrial scale. Clap for the ultra smart Sony and Microsoft

[@nomercy8989]

Wasn't LOD pop-in meant to be eliminated with nanite?

[@nikkopt]

Only for static geometry. Not shadows and stuff..

[@sean7332]

​@@nikkopthopefully they can make a way for all.. I know they have stopped it for things like foliage since UE5 think it's 5.2

[@branchprediction9923]

Sure, but some stuff, for example: grass and bushes, will still need to be culled at a distance for performance. But for sure pop in is massivell reduced with the right settings.

[@zakixbox]

​@@nikkoptShadows are also concerned because ninite has its own shadow system, the virtual shadow maps.

[@nikkopt]

@@zakixbox but I don't think they are used in this game. I can be wrong tho

[@Orevuar]

Even RTX 4090 can't run this game in native 4K with stable 60fps without upscaling, so the console's results aren't that bad. However, this doesn't change the fact that developers started saving on optimization at the expense of upscalers.

[@genb4374]

Tell me you're joking there's no fucking way 💀

[@gameguy301]

They should have a mode with no upscaling that targets native 4K, for that authentic LICHDOM BATTLEMAGE experience.

[@lennylennington]

I'll say it: there is NO reason for UE5 to be this demanding, games don't look much better these days than they used to 5 years ago.

[@kuyakoiaguilar7767]

the reason it looks this bad is because consols are not ready for UE5. they need to dial down setting to the lowest settings then add up scaling. there is no way consol can set this to medium and run 60 fps 4k. a High setting UE4 can beat a low Setting UE5 game. currently playing it using a 4090 and you can tell graphics is next gen.

[@antonkirilenko3116]

5 years ago? Just launch the original Crysis from 2007 at max settings and see if it really looks that much worse than this, outside of those shiny particles.

[@SublustrisAvis]

There is. It's just that this game have no reason to use real-time lightening that Lumen provides instead of prebaked and probe global illumination.

[@lennylennington]

@@kuyakoiaguilar7767 I have a 4070Ti, which in most games is about twice as powerful as a PS5. Can’t run this game well. Any other argument?

[@lennylennington]

@@SublustrisAvis there isn’t. I can show you two 4K screenshots of RDR2 running at 4K60 everything Maxed out compared to 60fps on Immortals of aveum at 4K. You’d become depressed.

[@nikkopt]

This is one example of a game that could have been made in UE 4 and have almost the same look. Lumen and nanite are awesome but super heavy. If your game isn't going to take advantage of them (in terms of looks), there is no reason to use them (apart from being easier to develop in a way). Newer tech doesn't always mean better results. This game is pretty average looking (compared to other recent games)

[@Mereo110]

You're right. In fact, this game started with UE 4 before switching to UE 5.

[@Chicky_Lumps]

Exactly, I find it bizarre they used Nanite here yet still have so much pop-in, it literally defeats most of the purpose.

[@CorporalDanLives]

At this point, if you are targeting 60 FPS and image quality in terms of a lot of pixel output, it's best to turn off nanite and lumen from the get-go.

[@user-qt6qe2vd1q]

You are wrong, this game is bad looking, terrible pixel mess. Well, hope that they will fail and others will try to avoid to do same shit

[@lennylennington]

I’d go further and say it looks garbage

[@PerfectCode]

UE5 in games has so far seemed pretty taxing and for not particularly great results.

[@Liesday]

Since the Matrix demo on consoles, even on PC, I feel that many things were lost, the Matrix demo at 1440p resolution looked like a movie, the "infinite" resolution of textures that you could always see them in high fidelity, the draw distance in which each object it was visible until you lost it just by far distance, no pop-ups, nanite was next level detailed, water physics, smart animations, collision with stage, ect.

[@aftereight9143]

Looks like an early gen PS4 game with PS3-tier resolution. Impressive.

[@Drenn23]

😂😂😂

[@dinurazvan2006]

Ps2 tier resolution.

[@Omar-kl3xp]

For the series s is even lower resolution then the ps2 which it is impressive that t they accomplished that lol

[@melxb]

unreal 5/nanite for u

[@Jsameds]

What early gen PS4 game does this look like?

[@hihihi1q23]

According to Steam's hardware survey, the overwhelming majority of PC gamers have older mid-tier/entry level GPUs. Very few people have the high-end stuff and even fewer have the 4070ti/4080/4090. All these horribly optimized games make no sense. Are they only making games for the 0.67% of gamers that have 4090s?

[@gaborsalamon3629]

The 4090 has problem running this game, it's more like they're making games for 5090 or 6090 graphics cards.

[@atlien1988]

Nah, they're just doing the bare minimum & relying on software to do the rest of the heavy lifting instead of properly optimizing these games before release. Even the 4090 struggles to run this game flawlessly without concessions. They should be ashamed for releasing this garbage.

[@crescentmoon256]

​@@atlien1988can u show me a video where 4090 struggles to run this game?

[@lennylennington]

@@atlien1988 exactly. Most things are cash grabs these days, 0 focus on quality, just instant profit. Sad.

[@hmello3250]

​@@gaborsalamon3629that is a very good point

[@ergohash2517]

742 players all time peak on steam, 400 players average on day 5. They literally high spec-ed themselves out of the PC market on top of making a mid game

[@Galo994]

To be fair that's the average PC audience for newer games these days, unless its a rare gem like Baldur's Gate 3

[@Krisztian5HUN]

Good

[@gozutheDJ]

it's on EA Play Pro, so I doubt steam numbers are relevant, much like Jedi Survivor.

[@williamcrms]

I usually like Alex's commentary and it's great that he got to speak to the devs of this game, but I really don't know why he was optimistic about it in the DF direct. The fact that it dips into the 40s with an internal resolution of 720p is tragic and I think it's mostly a problem with UE5. Metro Exodus Enhanced manages 1080p-2160p internally with ray traced global illumination and a fairly firm lock on 60fp on XSX/PS5. Likewise Ratchet and Clank uses hardware ray traced reflections (more intense than Lumen's software RT reflections) and manages 1080p-1440p at 60fps on PS5. There are other examples, but clearly UE5 and/or this studio can't deliver RT features at 60fps with decent image quality and it was probably a bad move for so many studios to switch over.

[@gozutheDJ]

Alex was talkinga bout the PC version tho right?

[@CassidyListon]

If you're playing the Series S version, you can just pretend that Jak left his pair of glasses at home. Extra immersion.

[@flanflanjp_]

Give devs an easy button and they'll press it. Clearly their optimization team was out to lunch or laid off by management. "Let nanite do it" "we can FSR it to 60 fps". What a PR disaster for UE5 this is

[@vissaf]

Plus on the PC side of things, the min system requirements for this to run on low graphics settings (1080p, FSR 2 Quality) requires an RTX 2080! Now that is insane imo! This supposedly requires a $3000 rig just to look decent. Who are they targeting this game with? Its a shame

[@dougbfresh]

How many people do you think are tracking performance of this game beyond us in the comments lol. This won't change anything about UE5, devs are still gonna use it and gamers will still buy em.

[@flanflanjp_]

It doesn't look good on PC, still crusty like they let the tools do all the work. @@dougbfresh

[@TheNickmelchiori]

their optimization team never existed.

[@dougbfresh]

@@flanflanjp_ I'm sure but this wasn't some kind of anticipated UE5 showpiece. For me hellblade 2 likely be a pretty good example from the early stuff we've gotten.

[@Jacob_24]

Can't wait to experience more UE5 games in future at 4K upscaled from 240p

[@eugkra33]

This game has 300 reviews on Steam, which means it's sold only around 20,000 copies on that platform. That doesn't take into consideration how many people returned the game! You got to feel bad for the developers and artists that spend years building this.

[@repinsvizios]

I remember DOS games running higher than 436p... Yes, I know that with FSR it looks much better, but still, we seem to be regressing.

[@markjacobs1086]

Should've done a pixel art version for Series S 😂

[@memedealer1052]

I've watched some footage of this game, and I see nothing in those graphics to justify that kind of performance and resolution. Look at Doom Eternal - it'll even run on a toaster, and looks no worse than this game.

[@oo--7714]

Do eternal looks worse tbh, I don't get the cope.

[@b130610]

The fact that there is visible pop in on the series S even though one of the big selling points of ue5 is nanite is hilarious to me.

[@vandammage1747]

Did you forget the part that PS5/XSX weren't supposed to be 720p consoles?

[@forrandomsites3336]

This is probably the best looking okay-looking game I have ever seen. It's definitely one of the most games of all time.

[@LuchsYT]

I wonder if it's called Unreal Engine because the image quality is unrealistically bad?

[@offspringfan89]

The only "Unreal" thing in this engine is the stutter.

[@oo--7714]

@offspringfan89 they were able to get rid of the stutter in this game

[@offspringfan89]

@@oo--7714 On PC version? While developers can optimize shader compilation process on Unreal Engine 4/5 games to prevent or reduce stuttering, most developers, and I mean almost all, won't bother. UE is the worst thing that has happened to PC gaming, and the fact that more and more games are using is just depressing.

[@RenegadePandaZ]

This game looks really good for a game that doesn't look that good. Maybe it's just me, but if the main thing that we're pushing for now is six billion rainbow vomit particles per second, I'm out. It's impressive, I guess, but it also makes trying to figure how what the hell is happening on screen damn near impossible sometimes. And as 'improved' as the characters are, something about the eye movement and general animations feels incredibly uncanny to me when paired with the rest of the character model.

[@Chicky_Lumps]

The art direction is extremely lackluster, it looks like a bunch of stylistically mishmashed or uninspired assets thrown together, and overcompensated for with intense single-color lighting (purple, orange, etc. everywhere). Lots of expensive effects even with good resolution wouldn't fix the art direction being an eyesore.

[@JoseFArias-lt4uv]

720p in 2023 should be ilegal

[@Arthur_url]

It seems that ever since FSR and DLSS were invented, companies started using them as a crutch/excuse to not optimize games properly (instead of, you know, them being technologies that would extend the longevity of older GPUs and help the consumer). Unreal Engine 5 has also been a mess as far as performance goes, most of the games released on it so far require extremely high end machines just to run properly (take Remnant 2 for example, even on a 4090 the game can't maintain 60fps without DLSS). Companies will keep doing this until we stop buying broken products like this. Spend your money elsewhere, gamers.

[@g7lethal]

its funny how the more powerful the hardware gets the actual games get worse performance wise

[@gv2212]

And look worse in top of that god of war 2018 looks so much better than this on ps4.

[@clark2109]

I'm coming from playing this on PC on 4080 and the only way im getting 4k 60fps on ultra is with DLSS ultra performance. There was no way this was going to look good on consoles.

[@ArchieBunker11]

Ultra performance DLSS my ass, i’m decently above 60 at all times with DLSS balanced at 4k.

[@clark2109]

@@ArchieBunker11 Good for you. I'm hovering around 45 on balanced. Might be CPU, I've only got a Ryzen 7

[@ArchieBunker11]

@@clark2109 why not say that in your post then? There are ample benchmarks that contradict what you said about the 4080. Just at face value you think the 4080 needs to render at console resolution to have the same-ish performance? That didnt make you suspect something else might be the problem? Lol

[@crescentmoon256]

​@@clark2109this game is not cpu boynd, it hammers gpu even at lower resolutuons, u simply lied

[@niks660097]

i have 4080, it easily does 60-68 FPS at 1440p without up-scaling at highest(very high) setting, only at native 4k it goes sometimes below 30fps..

[@RivaZA1]

The difference between the Series X and S is so massive that it goes beyond the usual resolution and shadow detail that you get in most other games. Like its this game from 12 years ago running on the Series S and the remaster running on the Series X.

[@goldensperm7182]

Yeah I bet some of the people from the Microsoft team regret making series s lol

[@kevincampbell989]

Yea what happened to that parity clause lol

[@chrisb7161]

@@goldensperm7182it’s not even funny at this point bc series S is going to hold back gaming so much over the next 8 years it’s a shame. Devs will be pressured to keep parity which just sucks. 4 tflops is trash nowadays and Sony releasing a ps5 pro rumored to be 23 tflops. The Sony exclusives are going to be insane 😂

[@grtcara8386]

@@chrisb7161Series X had a 20% Delta over the PS5 in this and Remnant 2. Next gen engines are putting the PS5 to the sword and the lack of creativity from PS 1st party studios is destroying the brand

[@muchacamara]

Series Shame

[@davidbanner9001]

I know it's early days for UE5 days. But some of those base resolutions are scary low.

[@Kubose]

720p from a console with the 8K logo on the box is a real knee slapper.

[@uselence]

at first i thought my video quality was set kinda low, but no, this is how the game actually looks...

[@SE-fq4gf]

I thought this, watched it on my OLED and thought the video had defaulted to a low resolution lol.

[@wickedcaitsith]

Now we need John to use the Retro Tink 4k to upscale PS5 1080p output to 4k and compare it to PS5's actual 4k output.

[@Test-yy2up]

This sort of game makes me wish they just offered a straight 720p mode without fsr 2. I think lower resolution without fsr 2 artifacting looks better, because it’s more consistent and you don’t get that in and out fizzle when you move. It would even help a bit with performance.

[@piotrmazek540]

We all know that if they hadn't added FSR, they would have forced TAA, which would make the game look like a smeary mess. It definitely wouldn't look better.

[@nattila7713]

wouldn't make a huge difference... they should have used baked lighting, 1080p-FSR-1440p ... even a 30fps mode was impossible, since FSR needs 60fps as an absolute minimum!

[@comradeeighteightseven6775]

And here we got our long awaited Next Gen with Lumen and Nanite. And heavy loads of FSR also...

[@nattila7713]

the perfect all in one package :D :D

[@inflatedbaton1854]

I don't want to pretend that I know what DF are thinking, but it really feels like they either are being intentionally light-handed about criticism. Or they are ignoring the setbacks of the current iterations of these new technologies. If all you heard was the final remarks of this video, you'd think this games technical side wasn't too bad.

[@LINAKblack123]

honestly the shilling is unbearable on this one

[@themrubios]

It's been like that for a while now.

[@amokana]

You guys got used to the outrage and the over the top reactions type of content ... 80% of the video is criticism and showing in detail the shortcomings of this game / engine but because they’re not screaming cursing and making silly faces you think they’re being too nice

[@inflatedbaton1854]

@@amokana thanks for putting words in my mouth. I don’t watch that type of content. I exclusively watch DF for these technical reviews. Also, I feel like I was trying to be respectful and you just seem upset. I have my opinion and you yours pertaining to the video, and I don’t see why that’s not allowed. I still like DF ya know.

[@joesterling4299]

How so? The video makes it perfectly clear that in order to meet performance targets, the game devs have sacrificed resolution outrageously and used AI upscaling as a crutch. (And the game didn't even meet the performance target consistently.) DF just did it without hyperbole, without drama. Maybe that's why you have a problem with it.

[@galactic1776]

I hate how prevalent upscaling has become in games, especially since I’ve seen plenty of games that can run fine without it. I don’t care how pretty a game looks in theory if there’s a ton of artifacting in the image

[@potmej1]

It's great to have all those 'next gen' consoles running in 720p :) Oh, the march of progress...

[@Jsameds]

It’s not “in 720p” tho

[@Eincrou]

This could be phrased more accurately. The next gen console runs at 4K, but the problem is this game renders at only 720p. That was the target for "HD gaming" 15 years ago in the PS3/XBOX 360 era.

[@dmytrosoboliev935]

I just can't see how this looks any better than, for example, God of war. Which came out in 2018 for PS4 and can run on something like rx 580.

[@Soonjai]

What could be interesting to see is how running the console at 1080p Output and then through the Retrotink 4K would end up looking. I bet it would result in a much cleaner image than just leaving these console at 4K output.

[@Beaut_Beau]

Here we are in 2023, back at the 720p resolution of the 360/PS3 era games from 2005/2006...

[@Charles8777-od4kj]

PS3/Xbox 360 games ran at 1024x600p,1152x640p/20fps If you think games ran at 720p/30fps on 7th gen, then you're wrong.

[@lay10vids]

“It’s about the quality of the pixels, _not_ the quantity.”

[@gv2212]

🥒🥜

[@Faction.Paradox]

Immortals of Aveum sounds like a movie from The Asylum

[@BIaziken2]

I feel like devs are leaning way too hard on upscaling tech these days, I don't know if the hardware we have is actually ready for all these visual effects and we're just using upscaling to bruteforce it.

[@akinigiri]

Great video! Keep up the great work. It looks good despite being upscaled significantly. And why is XS still a thing?

[@Rizzler9912]

And to think there are people saying that we don't need a mid gen refresh pro version of the consoles.

[@chinogambino9375]

Its barely going to help and it really doesn't help while Series S and Base Consoles are 80% of the userbase at the end of the gen.

[@xtr.7662]

If you want that just buy a pc majority of console players are not gonna have a pro

[@jesusbarrera6916]

we don't.... we just need less incompetent developers

[@znubionek]

we just need stutter engine 5 to die

[@Chicky_Lumps]

Telltale Studios needs a midgen refresh pro version of their team.

[@sabakunovedo]

I seem to remember DF being quite excited about UE5 games as if it was the second coming. This is pretty bad though.

[@divinitymode9364]

Couple of corrections, Tom. UE5 is now on version 5.3 so this is using quite an old version. Also, Remnant 2 is UE5 and was launched before this.

[@smeghead250]

I'm really enjoying Immortals on PS5 despite the frame drops, it really does help that its dropping from 60 and not from 30. It is noticeable, but mostly not distracting. The fizzing pixels is extremely distracting though. It sucks that reconstruction is likely going to be the norm from now on instead of just... making a game that the hardware can run?

[@FoxJupi]

There’s no way the consoles are that pathetic, this is just horrible optimization.

[@Spewa-em8cm]

Yeah, UE5 is a horribly unoptimized mess on anything that isnt a $2000+ PC.

[@arjitmishra100]

​@Prabhjot676it never is for incompetent people. Just wait for Spiderman 2 or The Coalition's next UE5 game.

[@Allyouknow5820]

Like just choosing to have Series S output to 4K ??? Just REDUCE THE RESOLUTION TO 1080p FOR STARTERS ??? I don't even know WHY they would even TRY that ??? On PS5/Series X reduce the graphical features to medium or something like that and have it run on 1080p upscaled to 4K not from GOD DAMN 720p ??? This entire mediocre game doesn't make sense on ANY platform

[@gavinderulo12]

​@@Allyouknow5820the upscaling on series s has no performance impact. Upscaling from 480p to 1080p instead of 4k doesn't make a difference in term of performance (besides maybe 1 frame here or there).

[@jesusbarrera6916]

the min requirements on PC are a RTX2080SUPER.... the developers are just incompetent