From a technical standpoint, Injustice 2 has to be one of most graphically intensive games developed by NetherRealm Studios. Running on a highly modified Unreal Engine 3 (quite the irony given that the mobile version utilizes Unreal Engine 4), Injustice 2 plays and feel absolutely incredible.

We recently got our hands on the PS4 and Xbox One version of Injustice 2 and decided to compare them against each other. To begin with, Injustice 2 runs at a full 1920 X 1080p resolution on the PS4 whereas on the Xbox One, the game runs at 1600 X 900p resolution. Due to the lower resolution on the Xbox One, the game looks a bit softer on Microsoft which in turn results into some distant objects looking a bit blurrier. Other than this, the two versions are pretty similar and we found no other differences between them. On the PS4 Pro build, the game manages to render at 2560 X 1440p resolution when running on a 4K TV. However, that is not all, the game also benefits from highly resolution textures, a better-quality motion blur effect and ambient occlusion, and sharper shadows.

On the performance front, both versions employ a locked 60 frames per second buffer. However, story cutscenes and transition to super moves are all locked to 30 frames per second. Unfortunately, whenever these kick in, the effect could be quite jarring. Why this happens is unknown at this point but this issue isn’t exactly new to fighting games, which to be honest is kind of unfortunate.  But other than this minor quirk, performance is almost locked at silky smooth 60 frames per second.

One area where NetherRealm Studios have totally outdone themselves is the animation department. The cutscenes are beautifully crafted with intricately detailed character models and animations that are almost life like. Although, animations are superb across the board, one character that stood out for us was Harley Quinn. Her facial animations are so good that they almost approach the uncanny valley. Injustice 2’s facial animations raise the industry bar and it’s by far the best we have seen in a video game since L.A. Noire.

So, overall, Injustice 2 uses each platform’s strengths pretty well. There is no PC version this time around, so the game is best played on the PS4 Pro provided you have a 4K TV. This is followed by the PS4 version which benefits from higher resolution and finally we have the Xbox One version which isn’t exactly bad provided you are okay with a lower operating image buffer.

Arkane Studios’ Prey is an interesting case to analyze, especially given how the PC version of Dishonored 2 turned out last year. Prey runs on an altogether different engine compared to Dishonored 2…Arkane have utilized Crytek’s CryEngine as oppose to id Tech 5 this time around. This marks the second time this year that a major release is using the CryEngine, the first one being Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 which was somewhat of a mix bag.

However, Arkane have implemented the features of CryEngine in such a way that you won’t even realize this is running on Crytek’s framework. The art style, the physics involved, the character models and stylish environments will all remind you of the Dishonored series. So, unless you missed out on the CryEngine/Crytek logo during the intro, you will most likely assume that Prey is running on the Dishonored engine. ‘

Back to the topic at hand, how does the game fare on the PC and PS4 Pro? For this comparison, we decided to stack up the PC version against the PS4 Pro build. In order to remove potential bottlenecks on the PC build, we decided to use a GTX 1080Ti, 16GB of DDR4 memory and a Ryzen 7 1700 processor. This build will ensure that the game will run at highest graphical setting possible at 1080p resolution. The PC version comes along with a decent number of graphical settings which includes Object Detail, Shadow Quality, Textue Quality, Anisotropic Filtering, Anti-aliasing, Screen Space Directional Occlusion and Screen Space Reflections Quality.

Comparing them side by side and it’s not hard to see that the PC version benefits from higher quality shadows and better anisotropic filtering. In contrast, the PS4 Pro version suffers from lower filtering quality. Object detail and texture quality are also better on the PC…so overall, not a big surprise that the game looks better on PC. However, this is a welcome change from the various technical issues Dishonored 2 faced on the PC. The PC build also excels in providing a 60fps experience which is a game changer compared to the 30fps frame buffer on the PS4 Pro. Given that this is a first-person shooter where swift action is needed almost every time, Prey on the PC feels like a totally different game due to its higher frame rate support.

However, the PS4 Pro version feels like barebones version of the base PS4. There doesn’t seem to be any improvements and no Pro specific modes are implemented. In short, you will get the same 1080p/30fps experience regardless on which PS4 you decide to play the game on. This is extremely disappointing because Arkane have made next to no effort in providing some benefit for Pro owners…heck, they could have at the very least scaled the resolution to 1440p. Even the load times are quite bad on the PS4 Pro. It takes anywhere from 40 to 50 seconds to load a level…simply unacceptable in this generation of gaming.

Prey’s non-existent Pro implementation and its long loading times seems similar to Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, wherein the latter also did not have Pro specific modes or improvements and suffered from horrendous loading times. Is this a problem within the CryEngine then? We are not sure but there is a trend here and it will be interesting to analyze future CryEngine games on the PS4 Pro.

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 is a tactical open world shooter from CI games. The game runs on the CryEngine, Crytek’s proprietary set of framework and tools which has powered some of the best-looking games in the past. However, Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 is a different story all together. Though the game utilizes some of CryEngine’s complex parameters such as dynamic lighting and detailed screen space reflections, Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 looks quite last gen in some places. This is perhaps down to the game’s lower resolution textures and some shoddy NPC animations; however, this is not to say that Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 is a bad looking game but it’s not a title that is pushing the hardware it’s running on nor the CryEngine.

We recently got our hands on the PC and PS4 Pro versions of Sniper Ghost Warrior so we decided to compare how the two stack up against each other. Note that we are using a pretty high end PC which includes a GTX 1080Ti, 16GB of DDR4 memory and a Ryzen 7 1700 processor. So, in a way, we have ensured that the game faces no bottlenecks at all and is running at its highest possible graphical setting at 1080p.

The PC version of Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 doesn’t feature a ton of graphical settings. You can play around with parameters such as In-Game Effects, Particles, Object Detail, Physics, Post Processing, Shader Quality, Shading and Shadow Quality. However, the game does not come with any options for Anti-Aliasing…a glaring omission if you are looking try out different AA options., although the game is possibly using SMAA by default.

So how does the PC build compare against the PS4 Pro version? To begin with, the PC version allows the game to run at well above 60 frames per second. Being a first person shooter, many players will prefer to play the game at this frame rate and should you have the hardware, you shouldn’t face any problems achieving the same. On the other hand, the PS4 Pro version is quite bare bones. The game has no specific Pro mode, no resolution benefit and neither a performance mode for better frame rates. Although, we haven’t tried this game out on the PS4, we doubt the Pro features any significant improvements in other graphical assets over the PS4. In short, Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 is a disappointing affair on the PS4 Pro. The game simply runs at 1080p and 30 frames per second with settings seemingly equivalent to the PC’s high setting.

The PC version, as expected, benefits from improved object detail, better drawn distance and faster assets streaming specially on those objects which are far from the player’s view. Shadow Quality and screen space reflections are also higher on the PC, so overall PC is the best place to play Sniper Ghost Warrior 3.

Also, it’s impossible to conclude this technical review without mentioning the game’s loading times. It’s atrocious…sitting 5 minutes as the next level loads is unacceptable in this generation. Granted there is a fantastic musical score going on in the background when the loading kicks in but waiting so many minutes doing absolutely nothing is disappointing. On the PC version, the wait is a bit less compared to the PS4 Pro but again not so less that it becomes an acceptable feature.

Personally speaking, Deck13 Interactive’s The Surge has to be one of the surprises of 2017. After playing it for more than 20 hours, I was convinced that despite taking several cues from the Souls series, The Surge had enough variety to keep a Souls fan like myself hooked up. Powered by the developer’s Fledge Engine, the game manages to successfully implement some fantastic lighting and post processing effects. The Surge may not be the best-looking game of 2017, but it certainly manages to create an eerie and uncomfortable atmosphere due to its smart use of intriguing art style and the sci-fi setting. In my opinion, this is as close as we’re going to get to a Dark Souls game set in a sci-fi setting unless, you know, From Software decides to make a new IP in a similar setting, Now wouldn’t that be amazing?

Enough of the wishful thinking and coming back to the topic at hand, The Surge has managed to surprise us with its graphical fidelity and some exceptional support on both the PS4 Pro and the PC versions. One look at the PC graphical settings, and you won’t even realize that this is AA game…a game that should ideally be lacking resources to implement a massive number of graphical settings. There is everything here…Resolution Scale, Texture Quality, Shadow Quality, Volumetric Lighting Quality, Motion Blur Quality, Anti-Aliasing modes which includes FXAA and SMAA, Ambient Occlusion, Subsurface Scattering, Lens Flare Intensity and Chroma Shift. Seriously, AAA developers who deliver barebones PC version have a lot to learn from Deck 13.

If you think Deck 13 only cares about the PC version, then you are awfully wrong. The PS4 Pro version is also packed with a number of graphical settings. First of all, the Pro version comes with two modes: Quality and Performance. As the names suggest, quality mode allows the game to run at a higher resolution while the performance mode will ensure a higher frame rate. Playing on a 4K TV, The Surge runs almost flawlessly at 30fps at a dynamic 4K resolution. The Fledge Engine manages to render the game in dynamic 4K with the image buffer mostly running at 2900 X 1680p resolution. But it’s the performance mode that will delight PS4 Pro players. The Surge runs at a full 1080p resolution with an almost locked 60fps frame rate buffer.  And that is not all. The PS4 Pro version also allows you to tweak motion blur and lens flare quality along with a number of UI parameters that can be changed to your liking. Given how disappointing PS4 Pro support has been in previous games such as Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 and Prey, it’s refreshing to see the console’s power being put to some good use in The Surge.

The PC version, as expected, looks and feels better than the PS4 Pro build. With better quality screen space reflections, anti-aliasing, texture filtering and shadow quality and the ability to scale resolution, The Surge on the PC is a better deal overall. However, other parameters such as object detail and texture quality look pretty much the same across both versions. Load times too are remarkably fast on The Surge which is surprise given that once you die the engine needs to recalculate all enemy and character states…essentially load the entire level all over again. This is something that similar games like Bloodborne struggled to do initially resulting into long load times, though it was fixed later.

From a technical perspective, The Surge seems like a AAA game built with AA resources. Deck 13 have totally outdone themselves here. The game features arguably one of the best PS4 Pro features, a fantastic PC build and intriguing gameplay mechanics.

PC build: GTX 1080Ti, 16GB of DDR4 memory and a Ryzen 7 1700 processor.

PS4 footage seen in video above is from PS4 Pro.

Update: Due to a technical issue at our end, the draft headline was published as the final headline. We have rectified this issue.

Original story:

A couple of weeks ago, Brad Wardell, the CEO of Stardock Studios had some interesting comments to share about the Xbox Scorpio. According to Wardell, the 12GB of memory present in the Scorpio will not impose any technical limit for games development in the future and that it will take a couple of years for developers to full realize the potential of the new hardware.

We decided to folloup with Wardell about these comments and asked him a couple of questions regarding the Scorpio. It’s well known by now that Scorpio has a ton of memory on board (12GB in total and 8GB of that is available for games). So does this mean that high-end PC game developers such as Stardock Studios, will now be setting their  PC memory requirements even higher in the future due to Scorpio offering even higher memory allocations? Wardell confirmed to GamingBolt that they will be indeed doing so.

This is certainly interesting because current gen-games on PC target anywhere from 8-16 GB on a modern gaming PC, and much of that shift to higher memory has been driven by the PS4 and Xbox One. Given that both PS4 and Xbox One had 8GB of memory, it ensured that most game developers can set even higher requirements for their games on PC and with the Scorpio the trend is only going to continue.

The Scorpio has undergone minor but noticeable improvements on the CPU front but Microsoft’s push for DirectX12 for GPU seems to have done a lot of good for the console’s GPU. In light of this statement, we asked whether the somewhat mediocre improvement in CPU will hold back the Scorpio? Wardell stated that this won’t be the case since this is where DirectX12 will come into the picture. While confirming the CPU won’t hold back the Scorpio, Wardell stated that, “DX12 takes the burden off the CPU.”

The Xbox Scorpio doesn’t have a price or a release date yet. Heck, it doesn’t even have an official name! But all of that will most likely be revealed at this year’s E3. But in the meantime, what are your thought’s on Wardell’s comments? Let us know below.

The original trilogy ran on the Unreal Engine so Andromeda is the first ever game in the series to run on DICE’s popular framework. We have already seen what the engine is capable in last year’s Battlefield 1 which was undoubtedly one of best looking games of this generation. But with each game, requirements change, the way different developers use the same engine may differ, heck this isn’t even Bioware’s engine to begin with so they probably never even got the chance to master it completely compared to say someone like DICE who actually developed the engine. After playing through the first hour or so, we were repeatedly questioning ourselves – why did Bioware had to change the engine when the Unreal Engine 4 could have worked just fine for them?

Epic Games have been doing some amazing work in the past couple of years and last year’s Gears of War 4 on the Xbox One is arguably the best looking game on that console. So why try to fix something that has been working quite well? Perhaps the answer lies in EA’s strategy to bring all their games under one framework. It makes game development rather easy and there is no need to pay anything extra since using Unreal Engine will require licensing fees. In our playthrough we did not found the level of visual fidelity that we found in FrostBite’s other offerings such as Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefield 1.  What is done is done now but in our opinion, FrostBite doesn’t seem to be quite ready to embrace the open world genre yet.

If there is anything that Frostbite engine really does well is the various post processing, alpha and volumetric effects. Mass Effect is a sci-fi series and these three effects are the core pillars of the graphical fidelity these titles aim for. The amazing lighting effects as you navigate Ryder through the Nexus or the dust floating around when you first land on the planet of Eos or the dazzling effects players encounter in the vaults…all of this comes together to create a really amazing experience at times. The game utilizes temporal anti-aliasing solution on both the PC and PS4 which may result into ghosting artifacts at times but does a way better job than the FXAA option provided in the PC version’s graphical settings. HBAO is also implemented on both the versions resulting into smoother and softer shadows and edges.

As if there was any surprise, Andromeda is best played on the PC. Bioware has provided players with a decent number of options which include Ambient Occlusion, Anti-Aliasing, Chromatic Aberration, Effects Quality, Film Grain, Lighting Quality, Mesh Quality, Post-Process Effect Quality, Resolution Scaling, Shader Quality, Shadow Quality, Terrain Quality, Texture Filtering Quality, Texture Quality, and Vegetation Quality. All of these can be toggled from the Low to the Ultra settings. The game can also auto-detect the best setting for an optimum 1080p/60fps experience based on your PC’s hardware. For example, while using a AMD FX 8350 configuration along with an R290x 4GB GPU card and 8GB of memory the game auto-selects the High settings with frame rates reaching up to 60. Dial it up all the way to Ultra using a GTX 1080, i7-7700k and 16GB of Memory and you should have no problems at all running at a consistent 60 frames per second.

On the console side, we found the PS4 Pro to be an interesting proposition. It doesn’t render a native 4K resolution which to be honest is expected but Bioware have managed to use a checkerboard solution to render a 1800p image buffer. Note that this is not native 1800p resolution but according to DICE the checkerboard approach helped them to save a lot of rendering budget across various parameters such as G-buffer, shadows and lighting. There is a slight softer look to the final image quality but it looks very close to a native 1800p image quality. Unlike the PC version, the Pro version is capped to 30 frames per second and for the most part it’s a rather stable experience. However, we witnessed drops during the vehicular sections in the game’s open world.

It seems that the PC version is using bokeh depth of field compared to the Pro’s use of a slightly inferior effect. The Pro version also does a number of compromises in terms of shadows quality, screen space reflections quality and draw distances. If you are playing on a 1080p TV and the PS4 Pro, you can expect a supersampled image resulting into slightly better looking game. It seems that assets, textures and lighting wise, the Pro version and the PC at Ultra settings are pretty close.

Overall, there is a lot to like about Mass Effect: Andromeda from a graphics perspective. The game has some really great art style in some of its worlds, a really vibrant color pallete and a superb PC port that runs quite well provided you have the hardware. The Pro version, surprisingly provides an experience that comes somewhere between the High and Ultra setting of the PC version, with the frame rate capped at 30fps.

But honestly, when we look back we can’t help but wonder…would it really hurt Bioware and EA that much if they would have put in a couple of months’ effort more into Andromeda? Granted that it has been five long years since the last game came out and some players may be getting impatient but the Mass Effect brand name would have made them profit regardless. With a bit of polish in the animations department and the reduction in bugs and glitches would have gone a long way in ensuring a far better product then it’s now from a visual perspective.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is Ubisoft’s most ambitious game till date. Despite its somewhat mixed gameplay mechanics, Wildlands features one of the biggest open worlds this generation which is perhaps a testament to the company’s AnvilEngine. Another standout feature of the game is its dynamic lighting technology which directly impacts the game’s weather system and day/night cycle. The game’s use of screen space lighting during night time and world streaming logic are all pretty impressive. Furthermore, the world is dense with foliage so it’s not your average barren world…Ubisoft have at the very least ensured that it’s brimming with a lot of trees and grass.

Despite the amazing world streaming tech on offer, the game suffers from a number of other shortcomings. First off, the character models look really off at times. The main characters, the NPCs…they look kind of bland. The animation system seems to have undergone little improvement from the original Advanced Warfighter games. Both the PS4 and PS4 Pro versions also suffer from low texture quality work at several places but as we noted in our review, this is perhaps a compromise for loading and streaming the vast open world quickly.

Wildlands presents an interesting case for PS4 Pro owners with a number of benefits. From an image quality point of view, Wildlands runs at 1440p on the PS4 Pro while playing on a 4K TV whereas the PS4 version runs at a native 1080p resolution. The Pro version also renders a supersampled 1080p image buffer on an HDTV so the image quality is better compared to the same setting on the PS4.

The Pro version also manages to perform better than the PS4 version with a more stable 30fps experience. However we did witnessed some major drops on the Pro version but these were extremely rare. The funny thing about these drops is that they occurred during a totally random situation. We were just merely driving a vehicle and took a sharp turn and the game slowed down. But as we said, these instances were quite rare and may not be experienced by every player. The Pro version also benefits from faster loading of world assets which means pop-ins are drastically reduced along with better texture filtering and shadow effects.

In the end Wildlands seems like a game with a lot of potential and it will be interesting to see what Ubisoft does with it in the future but from a technological standpoint,  its open world asset streaming solution has us excited and it will be interesting to see how Ubisoft uses it in future games such as the next Assassin’s Creed.

Nier Automata marks a return to form for PlatinumGames. After a series of disappointing games, the Japan based developer has finally found its touch. Nier Automata is an interesting title to analyze because at first glance it doesn’t seem to employ intensive graphical techniques. This is true to an extent but it makes up for it by depending on a unique but dull brownish/yellowish color palette and fantastic art style. There is a certain dark feel to the game which goes perfectly well with the post apocalyptic setting.

This is not to say that the game doesn’t rely on other colors. Later in the game you will come across colorful bosses and an amusement park. However, the highlight of Nier Automata’s engine is its ability to switch between different genres on the fly. The game often switches from being a side-scroller to a top down shooter, from the usual third perspective to a 3D plane shooter. The camera work is brilliantly implemented as the transition from one style to another is extremely smooth.

Automata’s lighting work is also superb in some places along with fantastic alpha and volumetric effects. The particle effects that are emitted whenever the player strikes the enemy to the various machines exploding, all of it looks pretty damn good. Add to that the amazing animation system (which isn’t a surprise considering this is coming from the developers of Metal Gear Rising Revengenace and Bayonetta) and you have what is perhaps one of the best action games on the PS4.

On the PS4, the game renders at 900p while the Pro manages to deliver a full 1080p resolution. Both consoles target a 60 frames per second cap which is a must given the game-style PlatinumGames are targeting for. However performance seems to be largely a mix bag on both versions. We witnessed various frame rate issues on both versions and these drops affect the combat. This is not to say that they happen every single time and for the most part we do get a stable performance but given that Automata is a game that relies so much on a fast controller input, a major drop could impact gameplay experience. We are hopeful that these performance issues will be fixed in a future patch but there is no official word on that yet. Other than the higher rendering resolution, the PS4 Pro version also benefits from better quality motion blur, anisotropic filtering and slightly better looking shadows.

Despite its performance issues, Nier Automata is an exceptionally good game. Its clever mix of several genres, deep RPG system, awesome boss battles and PlatinumGames’ crazy mix of over the top and action based combat make it one of the best action games on the PS4.

Although this generation has seen its fair share of amazing looking open world games like Konami’s Metal Gear Solid 5 or Massive Entertainment’s The Division, none of them comes even close to achieving the perfect combination of high end graphics technologies, minimum bugs and a largely great performance as we have witnessed in Horizon Zero Dawn.

As a first party PlayStation title, Horizon Zero Dawn comes with PlayStation 4 Pro support. We highly recommend playing the game with the latest patch installed as it adds a number of graphical enhancements and improvements. Please note that if you don’t play the game with this patch, the engine will suffer from serious pop-in issues and adds no graphical options and improvements whatsoever for PS4 Pro owners. So, if you want to save yourself from those annoying pop-ins and experience a better game overall, download it! It’s just around 250MB in size after all. Once you have installed the patch, the game will provide you with two modes on the Pro. One mode provides better resolution and other with better graphical effects and performance. The game also supports supersampling on 1080p TV sets if you are playing on the PS4 Pro and the image quality definitely benefits if you are on a full HD display.

Graphics comparison begins at 2:33.

In terms of image quality the PlayStation 4 Pro versions run at checkerboard 2160p resolution and when played on a 4K TV the image quality looks absolutely amazing. The base PS4 version runs at a native 1080p resolution but the 4K image buffer on the Pro really makes the game stand out from its competition. Aliasing is kept to a minimum thanks to a super post processing solution and the use of a decent texture filtering solution, parallax occlusion and photogrammetric techniques in some places really impacts the final rendered image in a positive manner.

Then there is HDR support which really makes Horizon Zero Dawn a must buy game if you have an HDR capable TV. The game benefits from brighter and deeper colors, more contrast and a sense of vibrancy that you won’t find in other games that don’t have HDR support. We once believed Final Fantasy 15 had the best HDR support out there but Horizon Zero Dawn takes that crown. Perhaps what makes the game so much better on HDR other than its great implementation is that the game heavily relies on colors that are pleasing to the eyes. It’s by far one of the most colorful games you will play this year and the brilliant alpha and volumetric effects such as fire, water, wind and other elements add to the game’s several graphical offerings.

The art design is also fantastic. Although the game’s world is largely barren, there are still remnants of the old age here and there. The remaining survivors have formed their own cities which are densely populated and this is where we see the other side of the coin of Guerrilla Games’ wizardry. Yes, we are talking about the game’s phenomenal art style which is a fantastic mix of the now extinct modern era and the present tribal era and all of this gel so well in this lush, post-post-apocalyptic open world in which humanity is no longer the dominant species.

Another thing that we wanted to mention is the attention to detail in this game. From Aloy’s bouncing hair to the  individual leaves and branches swaying in the wind, or from Aloy’s realistic armor clothing simulation to the superbly design behavior that is unique to each and every machine, really shows the amount of effort the developer has put into this game.

The PS4 Pro version further improves on screen graphical effects by rendering high quality shadow maps, better anisotropic filtering, detailed textures especially on Aloy’s armor and environments. The draw distance in this game is pretty detailed as you get lost into the game’s scope, scale and splendor.

On the performance front, we are looking at a 30 frames per second cap. Performance is mostly rock solid with only minimal drops during the most intense of situations. But really, the frame rate drops are quite rare and far and few in between.

Horizon Zero Dawn runs on the Decima Engine which has powered games like Killzone Shadowfall and Until Dawn. Honestly speaking, this is by far one of the best looking open world games we have ever played this generation. Yes, games like The Witcher 3 looks great on the PS4, but Horizon especially on the PS4 Pro looks rather stunning. Perhaps the star of the show is Decima’s engine support for a fully physical based rendering pipeline and fantastic volumetric lighting support. Furthermore, we haven’t played a game that is so dense with flora and fauna…really, the game just nails the look and feel of the environments.

The machines and the way they behave have been intricately designed as well. One of the highlights of the game is the machine’s AI, especially when they are looking out for you. Furthermore, their animation is superb and some of the chase sequences with the Sabertooth feel like they have been taken out from an action packed Hollywood movie. But do you know what is the best thing about these moments? They are totally non-scripted and happen dynamically based on the player’s actions.

The game also features dynamic weather and the good news here is that it’s a completely fully fledged feature. Rain, dust storms, overcast conditions…you name it and this game has it. Horizon Zero Dawn has perhaps one of the best weather systems in video games. However, we are slightly disappointed with the NPC animations…not all of them though, but we often came across instances where NPCs look out of place and their lip syncing was laughable.

So, overall, we are pretty pleased with Horizon Zero Dawn. It looks pretty damn good, performs well and most importantly has amazing gameplay mechanics. It’s one of the few games that made us stop for a few minutes and then made us glare into the distance and wonder where graphics technology will be heading in the next ten years.

Horizon Zero Dawn is truly a landmark title for video game graphics and technology, a true benchmark for open world games.

Yes, it’s that beautiful.

At first glance, Nioh doesn’t look like a title that is pushing the boundaries of modern graphics technology. And to an extent that is true but Nioh excels in what other modern AAA games fail at achieving. It provides its end consumers with several graphical options regardless of whatever their choice of platform is. Team Ninja have provided three graphical settings for the base PS4 as well as for the PlayStation 4 Pro. The three modes are Action mode, Movie mode and the Variable mode.

As the names indicate, the movie mode prioritizes resolution over frame rate, the action mode provides a higher frame rate experience at the expense of image quality and finally the variable mode finds the middle ground between movie and action modes. While playing on the base PlayStation 4 in Movie mode, the game runs at a native 1920 X 1080 resolution while locking the game’s frame buffer at 30. Slight frame rate drops were observed during this mode but in return you get a much cleaner and crisper image representation compared to the Variable and Action modes. On the PlayStation 4 Pro, the Movie mode allows the game run to at a dynamic resolution up to a full 4K image buffer. The dynamic resolution is in place so that the game’s engine can maintain the frame rate at 30 in this mode.

The Variable mode is perhaps the one that won’t be selected by many players. The game runs at an unlocked frame rate and a dynamic resolution buffer is in place so that a best mix of resolution and performance can be achieved. As noted before, Nioh is an extremely fast paced game and a variable frame rate is the last thing you would need in a challenging title like this. Higher frame rates are achieved in this mode but they aren’t stable, increasing the chances of you getting killed by an enemy.

So it goes without saying that most players will prefer to play Nioh in action mode. Both the PS4 and PS4 Pro run the game at 60 frames per second in this mode. Once again a dynamic resolution is in place here but performance is prioritized over image quality. Nioh’s action mode is pretty similar to what we have seen in last year’s Titanfall 2. Achieving 60 frames per second was the priority for Titanfall 2 and although the resolution dropped down to sub-HD levels, performance never took a hit. Team Ninja, a developer known for developing 60fps games like Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden have taken the same approach in Nioh’s action mode. On the base PS4, sub HD resolutions are achieved but in return players receive rock solid 60 frames per second experience with minimal drops. The PlayStation 4 Pro is able to run the game even better and at a higher resolution due to its better GPU.

We also found that players who have a PS4 Pro and a 1080p TV can enjoy a supersampled image quality. This results into a much sharper and crisper 1080p representation on the PS4 Pro compared to the base PS4. So overall, it seems that Team Ninja have covered every type of PS4 owner out there. An impressive job indeed!

On the graphical front, Nioh uses a decent post processing anti-aliasing solution that smoothens out the edges however it’s not perfect. Aliasing is observed at times and it kind of hits the game’s representation at times. However it makes up for it with some outstanding eastern art style, intricate enemy design and some impressive alpha and particle effects. Nioh uses a limited physical based renderer which means that certain objects will react according to the source of the lightening. So weather effects and volumetric effects such as rain and wind look and feel pretty decent, nearby objects and materials react accordingly to the lightening source.

In the end, Nioh is a great example of how a console game should be developed. Given that Team Ninja had to effectively work on just one platform, it might have been a tad bit easier to include so many graphical options in Nioh. Regardless, Nioh gives choice to the player. Players can dictate how they want to play it, what system they want to play it and what display set they want to play it on. In many ways, Nioh eased our itch for a 60fps Bloodborne experience. Now only if Sony and From Software can care enough to release that 60fps Bloodborne PS4 Pro patch. Is it happening or are we in denial?!

Anyways, this will be it for this video. What are your thoughts on Nioh and its various graphical parameters? Let us know in the comments below and if you like what we are doing, go ahead and subscribe to our channel for daily video content. I will see you next time.