Forza Horizon 6 looks and feels as good as the cars you’re going to be driving, and its take on Japan is probably as close to the real thing as you can find in a modern video game. It’s going to be quite hard not to sound like a fanboy when we’re writing this one, and that’s simply because this title is a beast for visual fidelity in the racing sim genre.

So, what’s got us this enthusiastic about the visuals on display in this latest addition to the Forza franchise? We’re delighted to tell you. Let’s get right to it.

A Deep Dive Into ForzaTech

Forza Horizon 6’s visual splendor is going to be evident from the very first minute you spend in the game as you make your way through three different races designed to give you a taste of what’s to come, both on the track and off of it. Let’s begin with Japan itself. There’s an astounding amount of environmental detail to see as you make your way across winding roads, coastal highways, city streets, back alleys, and so much more.

The foliage on trees stands out as well as individual blades of grass, while specks of dust or perhaps purple flowers fly up around your car as you tear across the road. Drops of water are pushed across your camera lens when they fall on it, just as they would move if they were on a glass surface that was moving at some very high speeds in the real world.

The draw distance is especially eye-catching, and you’re going to see the road and scenery in the distance, all of it rendered so beautifully that it lends Japan a sort of ethereal quality and a subtle beauty that makes you feel like you’re right there, speeding along the road to your next race.

The level of detail in the environment is equally present on the cars you drive, with each material being reproduced so darn well that your ride can look good even without a fancy paint job to make it stand out in a crowd. Roll into a city, and there’s such a seamless shift into a more urban vibe.

We do think that cities like Tokyo felt weirdly empty, with only minimal traffic on its roads and activity on the pavement. It’s almost as if news of the Festival had most people either choosing to stay in or leave early to find a great spot in the stands of whatever event you’re driving to on empty streets. Does it help sustain smooth performance and make exploring feel easier instead of being forced to navigate traffic? Sure. But it does break the spell a little bit if you’re not willing to suspend your disbelief.

Thankfully, the ray tracing and global illumination make light such a lovely part of Forza Horizon 6’s visual design that we were able to move past our previous complaint quite quickly. Sunlight bathes the roads and open fields in a warm glow, creeping through thick forest cover to light up patches of the ground so well.

Glossy paint jobs on cars reflect the world around them so darn well, and that’s irrespective of whether they’re in motion or standing parked in the sun. The car models are fantastic, as are the character models for the humans who drive and otherwise interact with them. The animations on characters are top-notch and make the entire experience very believable and immersive.

Material quality is brilliant across the board, while shadows work as well as reflections to create very authentic effects when the light interacts with either you or your ride. The weather system and the effect it has on the visual presentation are probably our favorite bits about the game’s graphics.

While this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Japan transformed into different versions of itself based on the seasons, this is definitely the first time that it’s come as close to what the country is likely to look like if we were to visit it today. Our pick was probably when the Wisteria flowers were in full bloom, but each season has something to offer based on where you’re at when you experience it.

It’s all so realistic and works well with excellent texture quality and streaming to really sell the experience on offer. Streaming stayed stable even at higher speeds, making this one a graphically strong offering with well-implemented physics.

Each car felt distinct and unique to handle, making you adjust your handling of it to coax every bit of performance you could get out of it. The collision physics are spot on, while damage is clearly visible and quite believable in the event of a fender bender. Each engine, and the environmental sound design as a whole, is done very well, and a good set of speakers can make this one all the more immersive for it.

Of course, it goes without saying that all of this beauty has been so good to behold thanks to some stable performance across the board.

An Evolution From Forza Horizon 5

Before we talk about how well this one runs on all available platforms, we thought it would be a good idea to comment on how the latest Forza flagship has made meaningful upgrades over its predecessor’s take on Mexico. The shift between urban and rural settings is a big one, and it’s much better in the new game. Tokyo’s scale makes that easier, of course, but its density and the way in which it seamlessly jumps between different settings showcase how exploration through curiosity is baked into its design, and that’s a serious upgrade over Mexico in Horizon 5.

When you’re in urban environments, there’s verticality in the form of elevated highways, which contrasts well with street-level industrial docks, tunnels, and alleys. Of course, Tokyo is the star of the show as the largest urban area in the Horizon Festival’s history so far, and its neon-heavy vibe is the perfect showcase of the game’s visuals. Of course, the weather system throws in another layer of nuance into the mix, and the way in which it makes even familiar roads feel fresh is something that the previous game doesn’t really come close to.

The lighting and the way it all interacts with car models are another highlight. Horizon 5 might have done pretty well to make things look and feel real, but being current-gen only allows the new title to take things up a notch, and it shows. No matter the scene, you’re going to find both objects and environments reacting so well to the game’s lighting, with reflections and shadows so well-implemented that they make this one a phenomenal showcase of what ray tracing done well looks like.

Aside from these three main highlights, the engine audio and steering animations are all noticeably better in the new game, and it’s a true evolution of what the Forza franchise can achieve in a new game.

PC Performance

Playing Forza Horizon 6 with all of its graphical settings maxed out (with only environmental geometry quality and shadows set to Ultra), and the quality on reflections and global illumination set to low, along with balanced DLSS on our PC, was nothing short of breathtaking.

It helps that it manages a consistent 50-60 fps on our system, which includes an RTX 3080 Ti, 32GB RAM, and an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. It did annoy us that cutscenes are locked at 30 fps across platforms, but that’s something we can live with since the gameplay remains buttery smooth.

It’s definitely a great game to play with all of its bells and whistles toggled on, or at least tuned to higher settings, as watching it in action is about as current-gen as it can get today. Forza Horizon 6 looks, sounds, and performs so well that you’re going to find yourself marvelling at how well it all comes together.

Xbox Series X Performance

On our Series X, we got to pick between Quality and Performance modes, with the former bringing Native 4K capped at 30fps, prioritizing greater details in environments, along with a better draw distance and higher quality shadows. The latter brings the resolution down to a dynamic 4K with a locked 60 fps to give you smooth and responsive gameplay, an important detail in an experience like this one.

Performance was flawless between both modes, and we didn’t encounter any noticeable issues, although we’d suggest going with Quality for the visual bump on this one.

PC Vs Xbox Series X Comparison

Of course, the PC version comes with advantages over its console counterparts, with support for ray-traced reflections on cars and RTGI support. But how much of a difference does that make to the experience? Quite a bit, actually. It’s a world of difference when you compare details like neon lights, sunrises or sunsets, the quality of car models, and the way different materials respond organically to a scene’s lighting, environmental detail, and so much more.

Car model quality is largely the same across PC and Xbox, with paint, glass, carbon fiber, interiors, headlights, and tail lights all holding up well on both versions, so the cars themselves do not show any major visual gap. The bigger difference comes from the world around them, where PC takes the lead.

Tokyo’s buildings, rural roads, docks, tunnels, mountain routes, road textures, signs, walls, foliage, and interior textures all look cleaner and sharper, while pop-in is also better handled, especially at high speeds through the city and across highways. World streaming, however, remains largely similar. A good PC setup can feel slightly cleaner in motion, but the Xbox version still keeps up well during fast driving and does a solid job of holding the world together.

The superior visual capabilities of our PC made a pronounced difference between the two versions, and that isn’t too surprising. The load times were blazingly fast across the board, and we didn’t see any drastic differences between platforms.

Conclusion

But irrespective of what you’re playing this one, as far as its graphical fidelity and performance go, Forza Horizon 6 is a masterclass and a great title to show off what your PC or console can do. It’s replaced its predecessor as a new benchmark for graphical fidelity among racing sims, and is definitely the one to beat on that front.

But what has made us so impressed with this bullet hell action title from Housemarque? How has it built upon what was so magical about Returnal? Join us and find out more about everything we’ve been seeing during our time with this upcoming title, and how it manages to make the most of the PS5 and PS5 Pro’s spec sheets.

An Evolution That Makes Sense

Before we get into how the game looks and performs, it’s important to look at how Saros has built on Returnal’s gameplay loop, and how those changes have impacted its approach to presentation. For starters, where Returnal was akin to an obstacle course in which you were aiming to avoid taking damage from enemy gunfire, Saros presents bullets as a resource that you can use to turn the tide in your favor. That’s thanks to the Soltari Shield, which you deploy tactically while facing off against enemies, collecting the energy from their gunfire and sending it back at them for extra damage.

That mechanic works very well with what Hosemarque is calling a “bullet ballet” style of combat, and a revamped approach to VFX that makes its battles feel denser and more stylized. There’s also the fact that Saros takes a more character-driven approach to its story that lays an emphasis on cinematic presentation, a factor that we’re going to dive into when we examine its cutscene quality. And finally, it’s important to remember that the game features procedurally generated side paths that vary every time you visit a biome, allowing for a more dynamic gameplay loop even as the main path through an area still feels authored.

From a graphics perspective, Returnal handled its characters with purpose more than depth, relying on Selene to anchor the emotional core while the broader experience drew its strength from Atropos, the oppressive atmosphere, stark darkness, and eerie enemy designs. In contrast, Saros seems to shift the spotlight firmly onto its characters, prioritizing expressive performances, a stronger ensemble dynamic, and more cinematic presentation. Housemarque is clearly leaning into this direction, emphasizing the realism of its cast and the meticulous process of translating each character from written concept into a fully realized on-screen presence.

A similar progression shows up in the game’s environments and effects. Returnal defined itself through a darker, more restrained aesthetic, bioluminescent lifeforms, writhing tentacle tech, and overwhelming bursts of projectiles that made Atropos feel both threatening and mesmerizing. Saros, on the other hand, looks to retain that signature Housemarque clarity and visual intensity while pushing things further. Its setting, Carcosa, appears more intricate and fluid, with greater environmental diversity, cleaner image fidelity, and more advanced rendering overall, especially evident in its PS5 Pro upgrades and the added focus on higher-end character detail, lighting, and post-processing during narrative sequences.

All of these are relevant to how the game performs, as they are all evolutions of what Returnal brought to the table in some form, especially in terms of design and rendering. How, you ask? That’s exactly where we’re going next.

The Image Quality

This is an easy one. Saros is a stunner, whether you’re playing it on a base PS5 or the PS5 Pro. It runs at a solid 60 fps on the PS5 while the image holds up even when you try to pinpoint any compromises. If you don’t have a Pro on your hands, you’re going to be fine.

But with the game coming with PS5 Pro Enhanced features at launch, it’s important to look at what the mid-gen beast brings to the table. Firstly, Saros supports PSSR 2, delivering a sharper image that’s quite close to native 4K. That gives the game a clean image source for its higher base render resolution prior to upscaling, which is important because it means that you’re getting an image that’s both sharper and cleaner while sustaining the base version’s consistent framerates.

Of course, there are differences in reflections and overall quality, making the PS5 Pro version more than just a resolution leap. The cinematic cutscenes run at 30 fps with the aim of a better quality that places an emphasis on characters, lighting, and post-processing, and the PS5 Pro does have an edge over its base variant. On both consoles, you get great texture readability, object stability in motion, sharp edges, and well-designed geometry, making the game quite pleasing to the eye.

The PS5 version of Saros has set a strong baseline with a focus on performance-led presentation, while the Pro builds on that core experience with cleaner reconstruction, sharper output from scene to scene, and a boost in quality of reflections and cinematics. There’s also reduced shimmering and breakup on the Pro, but they aren’t going to be too noticeable on the base PS5 unless you’re really looking out for them.

But how good an image can get is only one part of the equation. It’s time to dive into how those images translate to a solid experience.

The Graphics

Spoiler alert: it’s all good news for both the PS5 and the Pro. Beginning with the art style around Carcosa’s environments and their atmospheres, things are quite good. We’re going to stick to the two biomes you’ve probably already seen in the interest of letting you experience the other ones for yourself, but we were quite impressed with how Shattered Rise and the Ancient Depths felt distinctly varied from each other, the cliffs on the former allowing for more open, spacious areas that immediately turn into cramped spaces in the Ancient Depths, which felt downright claustrophobic in comparison.

The way environments are presented in Saros blends geometry and atmospheric factors like lighting and haze quite well. Color grading is applied in a way that makes each new area you explore feel authentic and immersive, while enabling the Eclipse to immediately transform the area in a way that makes the added danger feel palpable thanks to how it transforms the scene before it. That’s thanks to the effective use of overlays that extend to enemy projectiles as well.

It’s here that the new combat mechanics shine through, with the game supporting its ambitions with excellent projectile density and readability, energy absorption effects on your Shield, excellent discharge effects, and, of course, your own weapons and their bullets. It’s all a part of the game’s charm and spectacle, woven into the core gameplay loop in a way that keeps it all readable at 60 fps even in the busiest of battles on both the PS5 and the Pro.

The lighting is a major part of that allure, and it works very well to make everything you see quite believable during both gameplay and the cinematics, lending the game’s horror aesthetic a superb balance between darkness and visual stylization. Contrast and volumetrics are applied well enough to lend each scene a layer of authenticity, while shadow falloff adds to it. You see it in reflections, which are markedly better on the PS5 Pro. Wet surfaces and water throw reflections back at you, while metallic surfaces glow with the light of projectiles around them in battles.

Indoor scenes are similarly well implemented, the soft glow from screens or other sources of light in darker places making everything so immersive that it can get challenging to actually pay attention to what’s unfolding in front of you. That’s because Arjun’s character model, and those of the NPCs you meet along the way, are all well-detailed in both gameplay and cutscenes across the board. It also applies to enemy models and animations, with combat being very readable even in the most intense fights, of which there were plenty for us to test out.

Every dodge, parry, Shield blast (that’s what we’re calling the ability to disperse your stored Shield energy), and weapon transition was animated very well, and it’s all melded in so well with the Dualsense’s haptics and adaptive triggers, which we’re going to comment on shortly. Saros is a graphical treat on the PS5 and Pro, no doubt about it. But how do its atmospherics hold up under the spotlight?

The Core Of The Evolution

Of course, Saros is an experience that sets itself apart from Returnal thanks to an emphasis on setting a grim mood over the spectacle of Selene’s time on Atropos. Carcosa is a planet that isn’t just about what you see, but about what you hear and what you feel while you navigate its biomes. The easiest way to test out how the game handles its atmospherics was to engage with the Eclipse System, which makes everything more dangerous but also more rewarding to overcome.

That’s on the gameplay side of things, but on the visual front, it’s quite a shift with the world getting a sinister red hue while the soundscape also changes once it’s active. That immediately sells the idea that you might be in over your head, but with the gameplay being as technically balanced as it is, tackling those new dangers feels more like a challenge and less like a way to just squeeze out more rewards from a run.

Of course, it’s all supported very well by the effective use of the PlayStation 5’s unique features like Tempest 3D Audio (we recommend a good pair of headphones with this one) and the DualSense’s features. Your weapons and Shield are immediately noticeable areas where the adaptive triggers work with you, giving tactile differentiation to each tool in your arsenal, while the haptics are a definite step up from their implementation in Returnal, as they feature in a larger chunk of the experience in Saros.

Additionally, we definitely did appreciate the blazing-fast load times on both consoles, and getting back into the fight after you die feels almost instantaneous. Triggering an eclipse is similarly well-handled, and you’re not going to do any doom-scrolling on your phone while you wait for the game to get you into Carcosa.

With all that’s been said, you’ve probably guessed that our time with Saros has been quite impressive on the technical front. It’s a refinement of Housemarque’s penchant for sensory immersion and clarity, while it remains uncompromising on the urgency of its gameplay loop that made Returnal so memorable. It’s a game where all of its systems come together so seamlessly you can’t help but want to pause the action just to marvel at it all before you dive back in.

While the base PS5 does a solid job of presenting that core experience, the PS5 Pro does get an edge thanks to a better baseline image quality and an improved upscaled output, along with better reflections in gameplay and cutscenes. But irrespective of the console you’re going to play this one on, Saros is certainly a title that justifies investing in a PlayStation 5. As a showcase of what the console can do, it’s right up there with the best of what the past few years have had to offer, and it’s a lot of fun to play too!

Of course, by now, it should be obvious that Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced succeeds in that regard. It makes significant changes from top to bottom in almost every respect, bringing it to the level of fidelity you would expect in 2026. However, the result is still unmistakably that of the original, down to the atmosphere and traits of its unforgettable cast.

Built from the ground up on the latest version of Anvil Engine, what are some of the most noticeable graphical leaps that we observed from Resynced’s reveal? Let’s go over them, though, keep in mind that this is just an initial impression. With the remake out on July 9th, expect far more details on aspects like performance, loading times, and more. But without further ado, let’s start with…

Environmental Overhaul

Set in the Caribbean, Black Flag’s story unfolds across several locations, from Havana to Nassau, where the pirate republic ultimately stations its headquarters. Between the fortress, the various thatch rooftops and more modern-style buildings with moss filling their tiles, the former offers a pretty eclectic variety of sights.

So right off the bat, Resynced improves foliage quality in almost every respect, whether it’s the trees and how much more naturally they flow with the breeze or more prominent leaves growing on buildings, lending a more obvious weathered look and feel. More NPCs can be seen roaming the streets, and it feels like the environment is more to scale with how it would be in the real world, as strange as that sounds.

Regardless, it reinforces something that you’ll see in pretty much every aspect of the remake. The development team is not looking to change the plot and characters, or even the parkour playgrounds that you’ve known and love, so much as take them to the next level in terms of graphical realism and immersion. Of course, it’s also an incredible showcase of the high-resolution textures and lighting improvements, the latter feeling more dynamic. However, it’s just fascinating to pick out all the different additions to each environment.

Which also applies to the one place where you’ll arguably spend the most amount of time: The ocean. When Black Flag was first released, it received extensive praise for its water, be it in physics, motion, texture quality, and so on. But Resynced, as you’ve probably guessed, is on a whole other level. The reflection quality, the waves – even when the water crashes against the rocks, the foam looks so much more natural and realistic. It’s something that should stand out as prominently in naval combat, especially with cannons ringing out and shards of your ship intermixing with the waves or when exploring underwater, and simply admiring the serene flora and fauna – until you’re fighting for your life against a shark, of course.

All in all, Resynced could have easily called it a day with the improved lighting and high-resolution textures, but the development team went the extra mile in detail. We can’t wait to see how the rest of the world has changed, especially given the dynamic weather and how much more realistic rain and other phenomena, including hurricanes, look. A note on the latter: They’re far more foreboding than before, so steer clear.

Character Models and Cutscene Improvements

This is another core aspect of any remake. You don’t want to mess with the looks of iconic characters too much, and given the developer’s focus on immersion and realism, that’s very much a possibility. Yes, some faces will look decidedly more different than others, but I have to say: Edward Kenway and his crew aboard the Jackdaw have never looked better.

Leaving aside the more emotive eyes and facial animations – which took a fair amount of hand-crafting to rebuild – there’s far more realistic-looking hair and facial stubble. Clothing elements like fabric and leather look so much better, the former sporting subtle folds and wrinkles, while the latter can have varying degrees of polish and cracks. The lighting changes highlight this all the more – Edward Thatch has never looked better, especially when it comes to the various details on his embroidered coat.

Then there are the cutscenes, which appear to have undergone adjustments in cinematography and background scenery. But the real star in these instances is the animation, which has undergone numerous tweaks, both subtle and otherwise, to further lean into the realism.

Combat and Parkour Animations

And it would be incredibly remiss not to mention how much that animation work translates into combat and parkour, vastly improving both in numerous ways. Edward is far quicker in a fight, but the transitions between moves flow much better. For example, shooting someone at a distance and then quickly parrying an oncoming blow – what could have been janky instead looks smooth and natural. The same applies when you’re moving from one target to another, taking them down in style, or tossing opponents into barrels, which realistically shatter into pieces. Heck, enemies are even jerked forward more realistically with the grapple.

As for parkour, between the new free jumps, back ejects and side ejects, it would be easy for Resynced to feel too much like the more recent Assassin’s Creed titles. However, the development team was adamant about retaining Edward’s moves – the key is that parkour feels more natural, helping maintain that flow as you navigate past awnings, walkways, rooftops and more in your impromptu routes.

It should be stated again, however, that we don’t know nearly enough about the performance, especially in larger battles (both on land and sea). I’m also keen to see much more extensive footage of combat and parkour, especially during full-fledged missions. Nevertheless, from the clips shown thus far, Resynced manages that near-impossible feat of channeling the original while also looking far better in the process.

Early Verdict

And that’s what it really comes down to: Sticking to the original vision and its design pillars while bringing it forward into the modern day. There’s still so much that I’m keen to witness, like how the lighting improvements impact stealth, especially since you can freely crouch when sneaking around. How detailed can the ship destruction be? Will NPCs have more detailed animation cycles to further enhance realism? Just how violently can a shark maul you?

I’m still a bit divided on the decision to not include the DLC – multiplayer is a different issue, but at the very least, stories like Freedom Cry would have been wonderful to experience in this updated style. Nevertheless, if that means the development team focused more resources on what truly matters – that is, the journey of Edward and his crew, from riches to tragedy – then I’d say the results are worth it. Now all we have to do is wait and see how each platform will handle it.

That’s exactly what we’re here to talk about, so let’s dive right in, beginning with…

Our Setup And Performance

Let’s start with our testing rig so you can better match what we’re about to tell you to your own setup and think about what settings you can adjust to ensure you get the most out of the game when you play it. We ran Crimson Desert on an AMD Ryzen 5950x processor, a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU, and 32 GB of RAM, making this build sit somewhere in between the High and Ultra recommendations from the developer.

Most of the testing was conducted during daytime in-game, as nighttime generally delivers better performance and is less demanding on system resources. Playing at night was an almost invariable boost to performance thanks to fewer NPCs and, by extension, lesser activity in the open world. We had DLSS 4.5 on while we had to turn off Ray Reconstruction as we found it tanked performance. Everything else was switched to Cinematic, which is the game’s maximum graphical setting.

On that setup, we found that Quality mode gave us anything between 35-42 fps, and Balanced churned out about 40-45 fps. Performance mode managed to bring that up to 48-52 fps, while Ultra Performance, which we highly recommend, gave us 64-68 fps. Obviously, it should be noted that the more aggressive the scaler we selected, the more noticeable image dithering became (although at an acceptable level.)

A Massive Open World

It was evident that Crimson Desert was going for an experience that was trying to present a fantasy adventure on an unprecedented scale from the game’s first few hours. It was evident from the moment we were let loose into the open world that this was a game that aimed for a blend of realistic fantasy with stylized spectacle thrown in at moments where it would have the most impact. We’re happy to say that the game’s look is quite unique, carried by both its art direction and effective use of modern rendering technologies to make the entire experience feel cohesive. Its systems work together quite well to present Pywell as a living, breathing world that’s just waiting to show you what it can do.

If we were to pick from various factors that could visually define a game such as Crimson Desert, we’d have to say that the sheer scale of the world it presents, along with its rich animations, are the stars of the show. However, that doesn’t mean that its weather, world density, and the spectacle it presents when blades are drawn are lacking. You simply uncover those facets of the experience only after you spend a little time with it.

We’re going to be honest. This one’s quite a photogenic game. The terrain quality, for instance, has every surface in the game looking so meticulously detailed that it automatically catches your eye. Individual pebbles, blades of grass, leaves, flowers, and other important parts of the world stand out well enough to make you feel like Pywel’s biomes are thriving.

Rock formations look authentic, reflecting the years of weathering that helped them form. The foliage peppering the world you move through stands out too, responding quite convincingly to the weather.

And don’t get us started on the draw distance. It’s absolutely jaw-dropping. Pywel is a sprawling world with so much to see that it almost makes you feel like discovering everything it has to offer is daunting. The sheer scope of the world you see is excellent, and dropping down from the Abyss to glide over the land below you is certainly a sight to see. Countless times, I found myself standing at the edge of a cliff, simply taking in the beauty on offer. At times, it felt almost unreal.

It’s easy to spot individual settlements and points of interest from the sky, and with so many places to visit, picking a landing spot can be surprisingly difficult. Being able to see all of it from up high never got old for us, and it probably never will.

It’s also impressive from a gameplay perspective, because gliding down is an exciting way to set off into the unknown. The draw distance and terrain quality hold up remarkably well even from afar, as you hurtle toward the ground. We often found ourselves changing direction mid-flight to investigate an interesting ruin or a camp full of enemies. Swooping down on them from above was always fun, and it also made for a great way to open combat against larger groups.

In settlements, you have a lot of crowds to make each place you visit feel like it’s lived in. NPCs had their own routines for the most part, while object clutter in such areas was always believable and implemented quite well. Unfortunately, noticeable pop-in was a frequent distraction. We observed numerous instances where objects abruptly loaded into the field of view, resulting in a jarring experience. But overall, prop quality and the general way assets respond to your inputs showcase a world that’s quite immersive for the most part.

All in all, the game’s geometry works really well and is even quite woven into gameplay elements like puzzles, where you use your powers to reassemble crumbled objectives to achieve your objectives. It works well with the environmental detail to sell Crimson Desert’s fantasy setting quite strongly. The sheer scale of the world makes this feel like a true next-gen title, but it’s what you discover within it that really draws you into the adventure across its vast lands.

Lighting Up The World

Speaking to our decision to stick to the daylight for a bigger part of our testing, we must admit that it was a pleasure. But there is an important factor about the game’s implementation of nighttime environments that we must discuss.

Going chronologically, the game’s lighting during the day is excellent. It’s almost as if the land and its people are soaking in the sun, basking in its warm glow even as they go about their daily lives, Kliff included. The sun’s rays bounce gently off of every surface you see, the game’s path tracing working very well to ensure that even indirect light feels quite authentic.

Enter a building and the game adapts quite well on the fly, ensuring that its lighting systems make that transition along with you. Dusk, for instance, bathes the world in a soft glow as the sun sets, while your shadows deepen appropriately, growing darker and more defined.

Your shadows, and those of people and objects around you, constantly react to rays of light in a way that feels very real. At night, the world’s colors get suitably muted, and while you might find it a tad too dark in certain locations, it’s quite immersive for the most part.

The glow from torches and lanterns becomes more pronounced as the darkness creeps up, but we didn’t feel the need to whip out Kliff’s lantern unless we were at some of the darkest locations possible, like a dungeon, for instance. The lighting is dynamic on all fronts, working well to bring the scenes it’s illuminating to life.

Most importantly, the lighting works in tandem with the game’s environmental detail to truly make this one feel like a next-gen open-world title. The best in the genre often rely on how well their various systems come together, and Crimson Desert has done very well to remember that.

An Immersive Atmosphere

Working in tandem with the lighting and detailing are the game’s volumetrics, atmosphere, and weather systems. The fog quality is quite good in the places you encounter it, while mists in valleys and forests almost feel like you could reach out and touch them. They work very well to set a gloomy mood in places where you find them.

But in bright, sunny weather, the clouds above are rendered quite well, and move very believably as you tear across the ground. A gentle breeze is almost always throwing up leaves and dust as you make your way through the game’s various biomes, and it picks up quite well in the event of rain or storms, gaining an appropriate boost to its velocity.

The rain is highly visible as it falls, and when combined with the wind and the way bad weather transforms the world’s atmosphere, it creates an effect that’s easy to appreciate. That becomes even more apparent in story cutscenes, where shifts in the weather can instantly set the mood and enhance the impact of a scene.

It also does the same for when you’re travelling around the world, working to present a strong contrast with the bright and cheery scenes where the game’s lighting systems are playing to their strengths. These atmospheric systems highlight the game’s impressive low-light rendering, sometimes even more effectively than a clear night sky.

Flowing Rivers and Streams

The water physics in Crimson Desert are quite impressive. We didn’t see a water body that felt static, with rivers, shorelines, puddles, and waterfalls all reacting to what was happening around them, be it in their terrain interactions or environmental simulations. The waterfalls, in particular, were spellbinding and are great places to take a minute and process all that you’ve encountered since you last left camp.

Still waters are equally enthralling, reflecting the world around them while gentle ripples from the breeze move those reflections around so well they could become a very welcome distraction. Waves come in very believably before crashing onto the shore, the sea breeze making Klyff’s cape flow very dynamically in the direction it chooses.

Your footsteps on puddles and still ponds create realistic splashes, and your footprints on damp grounds are also a highlight when you get to see it all in action. In all of it, the water is a part of the simulation that works very well to make Pywell a land that’s equally suited for quiet, contemplative moments as well as one in which your emotions run high.

It’s a good thing, then, that the character models are as good as they are.

Character Models

Kliff stands out as the game’s protagonist thanks to the developers’ strong attention to detail when it comes to his character, and it seems that the rest of Pywell’s people are also quite pleasing to the eye. Irrespective of whether the person you’re looking at is a friend or a foe, the character models are a very immersive part of Crimson Desert’s fantasy setting.

The quality of faces in cutscenes is passable, with emotions coming across effectively enough to have you invested in the events unfolding in front of you. The impressive material rendering of the armor will frequently motivate you to equip Kliff and your Greymane companions with gear that is both effective and visually stunning.

Cloth simulation is excellent, with capes behaving very realistically and interacting with any gear slotted onto your back very well. The hair movement on both your characters and NPCs is done really well, which is especially pronounced thanks to the fantasy setting where long, impressive beards on warriors give them a distinct identity.

The lip-sync and general flow of animations in conversations are acceptable for the most part, although a few NPCs could stand to show a little more expression. It felt they were a tad too slow to put some emotion on their faces, and it’s something that stood out enough for us to notice.

As far as combat animations are concerned, the character models do a great job of reinforcing a clear visual distinction whenever you switch between playable characters, though the game is at its best when a boss is on screen. We loved the variety of bosses throughout our time with the game, especially the quality of their visual rendering, whether in the detailed armor of human foes or the fur of monstrous enemies. Each one feels visually impressive and distinct, with attacks that flow naturally from one move to the next, while your own animations carry a satisfying sense of weight in response.

Motion blur is implemented quite well, helping with the cinematic side of things along with screen shake and excellent destruction cues that make each fight intense and even daunting at times. Boss introductions are handled well, and give them an imposing flavor before we even draw our blades. When they’re in action, the game does well to communicate elemental attacks well enough to give you the right amount of time to respond, another factor that helps the game sustain a smooth flow of combat. It’s a strong part of the experience, and it certainly helps that the fights themselves are just as enjoyable.

The Spectacle of Great Combat

Kliff’s moves are a sight to behold, with each new one you unlock coming with particle effects that add a very realistic touch of fantasy to the experience. There are cool effects and animations that accompany them that make for fights that are very nice to look at. That’s also in operation when you glide around, but it’s combat where they truly shine, considering just how much is happening on-screen.

Use a move that’s supposed to slam the ground, and you see stone crumble at the weight of your attack, and it’s likewise for enemies. Debris flies up from such destruction, and the world reacts quite well to your actions to make things stand out even in the heat of battle. That holds for other moves whose effects interact with the world around you, or enemies.

There are a few animations with effects that can prove distracting enough to break the flow of combat, but it’s quite easy to get back into a rhythm once you start to anticipate them and react accordingly. It’s still worth mentioning and is an area where the graphics could work against you, at least in the game’s early hours.

It’s a factor in our opinion that the game favors cinematic chaos a tad too much at the cost of gameplay readability, although it’s not imbalanced enough to be a problem. Aside from combat, we think that the game’s ray-tracing systems deserve some attention.

Reflections And Rays

Crimson Desert’s ray tracing and reflections are quite impressive for the most part, which made it all the more frustrating that we had to disable ray reconstruction because of its impact on performance.

Even with that setting turned off, though, ray tracing still added a noticeable layer of polish to the world as a whole. As we’ve already noted, shadows are highly dynamic, while light interacting with water produces convincing, accurate reflections. Metallic surfaces are handled just as well, and overall, ray tracing does make the game world feel more believable.

That said, on our system at least, the visual boost didn’t quite justify the performance cost. Your experience may vary depending on the hardware you’re running, so this is one of those settings that’s worth experimenting with to find the right balance. Given how quickly the game can become demanding, maintaining stable performance should be a priority. Fortunately, even when things get hectic, image quality remains consistently solid.

A Clean, Stable Image Quality

This one’s always a major talking point for PC players, and we’re glad to say that the game’s image quality holds up quite well across the various upscaling modes we tested. The anti-aliasing worked well in both gameplay and cutscenes to make it feel polished; although noticeable dithering was present, it wasn’t very aggressive.

A stable image quality was maintained, irrespective of whether we were riding, sprinting, or gliding. There wasn’t any input latency either, and things were largely stable across the board.

For a game that’s as big as this one, that’s definitely a compliment. But that doesn’t mean that things were all perfect, an impossibility thanks to that very size.

A Few Shortcomings To Consider

We did encounter a bit of stutter on rare occasions, along with instances of low-res textures. The former ironed themselves out but lingered long enough to catch our eye. We were also annoyed to find a few glitches where our character got stuck while he was out and about, but we appreciate the in-game system that helped resolve the problem fairly easily. The loading times were too long for our liking.

Conclusion

As an open-world experience clearly aiming to stand alongside the best the genre has to offer, Crimson Desert puts up an impressive fight. Its world is strikingly ambitious in both size and scope, and in some respects feels comparable to something like Horizon Forbidden West, particularly in terms of its visual style and lighting.

Its physics and animations also come close to matching some of the genre’s heavy hitters, including Elden Ring, though they are not quite as precise, likely in service of making combat more accessible to a wider audience.

When it comes to the world itself and the way it reacts to the player while continuing to function independently, Red Dead Redemption 2 still remains the benchmark, but Crimson Desert makes a remarkably strong case for itself.

Ultimately, Crimson Desert feels like a hugely ambitious project that aimed incredibly high and came close enough to fully realizing that vision to earn a place among our favorite open worlds. Much of that comes down to how well its various systems intersect, creating a world that feels reactive, dynamic, and constantly ready to respond in ways that are both believable and visually impressive.

It’s a world we don’t see ourselves leaving anytime soon, and that’s perhaps the best compliment you can pay to a game with ambitions this grand.

Still, imagine sitting at the foot of that hill – complex, as yet unmade tools and a colossal open world to scale. In-house game engines are rare in modern AAA development due to cost and complexity. But in creating their own platform, the developer has been able to tailor technology around their vision which might not have been possible if they were using Decima, Unity, Unreal Engine, or another.

Crimson Desert’s specific goal appears to be a large, medieval-fantasy world where physics, animations, lighting, weather systems, and more coalesce to reshape the look, feel, and atmosphere of any given scene. From realistic water and volumetric fog, to raytraced lighting and motion capture animation, the breadth of technology that their proprietary BlackSpace engine is capable of is impressive. But, what’s also interesting here isn’t just its graphical horsepower, but in how its systems combine to transform the mood, tone, and physicality of a space beyond presenting it in fine detail.

Individually, are these systems revolutionary? No. Will Crimson Desert’s realism be unparalleled? Depends on your definition. Is it a prime example of how technology and ambition can combine to fully realise artistic vision? Almost certainly, yes.

This feature will unpack what’s beneath BlackSpace’s hood but we’ll keep the tech jargon light. Don’t worry if you don’t know your shaders from your GPUs. This is a game to feel as much as it is to see, after all.

So, custom-building an engine, principally, has given the developer the opportunity to create a large-scale open world with seamless exploration. Pywel’s numerous biomes, from cobbled cities to dense forests, chilling mountain passes, and scorched desert landscapes each render without noticeable interruptions. The game feels fully-loaded from the get go, with consistent high fidelity on distant objects at framerates purported to be smooth and reliable.

On a related note, Digital Foundry was provided with footage which was captured on a high-end PC with a Ryzen 9 7900X3D and Radeon RX 7900 XTX, graphics set to ultra, running at native 4K resolution targeting 60fps. We’ll get to why this is worth pointing out in a moment. First, one small caveat: these recordings were provided by the developer themselves. On one hand, it demonstrates the studio’s confidence in the performance of their game. On the other hand, they’re only going to show what they want to be seen.

We wanted to highlight the hardware though, because the GPU used isn’t current generation, and ultra settings aren’t the most powerful the game offers. However, take this footage at face value and what you’ll see is a game that is optimised for strong performance. This is one of the self-developed engine’s major advantages: it gives ample opportunity to coordinate development with the myriad gameplay systems. If the game needs a specific feature – a physical interaction, destructible item, or weather behaviour, for instance – then the engine team can build a solution right into the software to feed back to the designers.

This streamlining may be how the developer has crafted a world which appears unusually reactive. Lighting, for instance, is one of Crimson Desert’s most notable highlights. The game uses raytraced global illumination for exterior and inside space alike, with the game engine calculating how light reflects, bounces, and scatters to produce indirect natural shading and contrast.

Stoneclad interiors look especially impressive, where marble floors reflect both light and architecture while firelit rooms gain deeper shadows and warmer tones, transforming their emotional resonance. And this is the unexpected takeaway: enabling raytracing doesn’t just introduce more natural-looking light, but renovates these rooms – especially the dark, candlelit ones – into contemplative, intimate, atmospheric spaces.

Likewise, Pywel’s climate goes beyond simulating rain or shine. The BlackSpace engine is able to calculate lighting in real-time to produce weather patterns, volumetric fog, and other atmospherics that shift dynamically throughout the day. In a three-day timelapse demonstration shared by the developer, we see morning mist clinging to the valley floor, only for it to burn away under afternoon sunlight. Bright sunlight communicates the vastness of the landscape, exuding heat not through visual haze but in the real-time effect it has.

Similarly, volumetric fog is capable of communicating a distinct mood. It folds, wraps, and reacts to your movements with precision. Dispersible yet totally enveloping, fog and its fluid simulation feels eerie and mysterious, showing that Crimson Desert’s atmospheric conditions can be vital for worldbuilding.

Water rendering is another technical focus, with the BlackSpace engine using FFT Ocean and Shallow Water Simulation to model surface behaviours more realistically. In practice, this means naturally flowing rivers, cascading waves, and rippling shorelines. The developer demonstrate themselves the effect FFT has on aquatic settings; without the simulation engaged, water looks flat and calm. It’s nice, tranquil almost, but not especially interesting. With FFT simulation enabled, whitewater forms, currents appear lively, and the ocean undulates. Suddenly the water looks less inviting to swimmers. Raytraced water reflections appear here too, most notably on standing pools and lakes, underpinning water’s role in Crimson Desert as a core pillar of the landscape, not simple, static setdressing.

BlackSpace also places heavy emphasis on physical interactions between weather conditions and objects present in the environment, both scattered items and your player-character. Trees and grass sway in the wind and hanging cloth flutters naturally, while hair and clothing react to the breeze and your movements alike.

Clothing, body parts, environmental detritus, and more, each reacts in isolation due to volumetric masking which has allowed the developers to distinguish environmental effects to the minutiae. It’s the same technique which ensures only your horse’s hooves get wet, and stay noticeably wet for a set duration afterward, when you wade across a river on horseback.

When combined with extensive motion capture, the developer has created character and animal models which not only react according to atmospheric conditions but move realistically through the scene too. The studio has invested heavily in performance capture, with reportedly hundreds of high-performance cameras recording actor movements with sixteen megapixel precision, capturing everything from full body motion to subtle finger gestures. And, because capture data was linked to the game engine during recording, developers and actors could immediately see how the performance translates to in-game characters and make real-time adjustments for the next take.

The studio also used a large 3D scanning facility to convert real-world objects into digital assets. Again, hundreds of cameras supported this process, this time arranged in a cylindrical fashion to capture armour, weapons, props, even natural objects like rocks and branches, from multiple angles, turning them into high resolution data that can be quickly placed in-world.

Facial scans capture minute expressions too, with lip tremors, eyelines, and muscle movements bringing detail and tension to characters. Whilst there seems no limit to the developer’s attention to detail, and some of their effort will undoubtedly go unnoticed during regular playthroughs, their intention was to push Crimson Desert’s presentation close to film-level realism. Put simply, they had the vision, and access to the tools to realise that vision.

BlackSpace’s technology impresses on a visual level, yes, but the combination of all its technological features and micro-adjustment potential has given Crimson Desert an open world which feels alive. And, crucially, the manner of that life is shown to constantly shift, both physically and dynamically through something as changeable as the sun setting to the current’s flow around a pile of riverstones. What’s more, the developer’s in-house engine is pledging smooth performance throughout thanks to a streamlined process for optimisation.

Arguably, performance is the most crucial thing. If the developer can deliver this level of fidelity while maintaining strong performance across all platforms then Crimson Desert’s technical ambition might just prove revolutionary after all.

But aside from the people behind great titles like Monster Hunter Wilds, Resident Evil Requiem, Dragon’s Dogma 2, and so many more, there’s an unsung hero that has worked behind the scenes to ensure that each game has brought the vision behind it to life with both substance and style. And it’s managed to do that across varying design philosophies, achieving differing goals each time without requiring a rebuild of the studio’s pipeline with each one.

How has it managed to do so? That’s what we’re here to explore, as we dive into how it has powered some of modern gaming’s best titles in ways that matter.

The Beating Heart Of Some of the Best Titles

It’s a good idea to define the engine itself at this point, and the best way to do that is to look at it as more than just a graphics filter that produces incredible visuals (although it’s gotten quite good at that over the years). It’s a production ecosystem that brings shared tools, talents, and better iteration of key gameplay elements across different teams.

When you look at it as a toolset that builds assets, materials, lighting, animations, and physics while handling streaming all of those elements in real-time as you play any game it powers, you begin to see its potential, and why it deserves its time in the spotlight. What’s more, it scales those systems according to very different performance targets, with each game that it powers bringing different design pillars to the table.

For instance, Resident Evil Biohazard’s focus on setting a very claustrophobic mood via tight spaces and high-fidelity graphics was quite different from the need to showcase scale and run complex systems in games like Monster Hunter Wilds and Dragon’s Dogma 2. Alternatively, Street Fighter 6 needed a more performance-focused approach thanks to the need for slick, responsive gameplay.

It can be tricky for a single engine to sustain a high level of quality across such vastly different experiences, but that’s just what the RE Engine has done, time and time again. But how has it managed to do so over the many years it’s been around?

A Story As Interesting As The Games It Has Powered

Looking at the different phases of how the RE Engine evolved over the years is an interesting look at how it managed to evolve with each title. From 2017 up to 2019, it was utilized in Biohazard, where it operated in controlled spaces with high material fidelity and worked to create lighting control in the environments we explored as Ethan. It did well, but that was simply the beginning of its evolution into what it is today.

2021’s Resident Evil Village expanded its capabilities to include wider environments and differing camera styles whilst sustaining the level of quality it had brought to Ethan’s previous outing. Simultaneously, it also got woven into 2023’s Street Fighter 6, a title in which animations and tight gameplay would become a standard part of the RE Engine’s toolkit. It was quite the level up, and the engine proved more than capable of handling the extra demands being placed on it.

And then came Dragon’s Dogma 2 (2024) and Monster Hunter Wilds (2025). While it had previously handled open environments, the engine would need to power an entire world this time around, while also handling the added load of complex systems that were constantly interacting with each other to present a more dynamic map for its players. That might have been a challenge, but the RE Engine sailed through with flying colors.

Which brings us to Resident Evil Requiem, where the results of its evolution over the years are there for all to see. It has brought a very extensive lighting system in that one, and some very fine details on its characters and environments to bring an almost ethereal layer of cinematic quality to the whole thing, making Grace and Leon’s adventure feel more real than any of the titles in the franchise’s illustrious history.

But how does it manage to achieve all of this with so much style? We’re glad you asked.

Bringing The Magic To Life

Any tool is only as good as the input you feed into it, and the RE Engine is no different. Its excellence begins with providing real-world references of the materials and environments it’s meant to reproduce, a process that involves capturing textures, programming photogrammetry, and accurately representing imperfections on surfaces. That might seem like a lot of effort, but giving the engine believable inputs helps it create similarly realistic outputs.

The next step is to create assets with a suitably high level of detail. High-poly sculpts, lots of compressing high-resolution meshes into lower polygon models with their geometry still intact, integrating UVs, and baking, which is pre-computing complex details like lighting and shadows in order to reduce the load on streaming in real-time. All of these help the engine make efficient use of available resources while sustaining the best possible level of quality across the board. There are also details like collisions and streaming splits to consider, all of which run in the background while you interact with your game. Great examples of this phase in action are the open worlds in Wilds and DD2, where long drawn distances with a lot of dynamically interacting objects make having an effective strategy toward the level of detail on display paramount. But it’s equally important in experiences like Biohazard, where there are fewer objects, but the closer camera perspective puts more scrutiny on each one.

The next step is where realism is born, as Physically Based Rendering (PBR) is done on assets to ensure that they interact with light and present a realistic simulation of how each object would behave in the real world. It’s where objects are programmed to interact with light based on physical traits such as roughness, metallic surfaces, dirt, wetness, decals, and other crucial parameters.

Look at the streets in Requiem, for instance. It’s quite easy to see how a street in normal weather looks and feels different from the same one once it’s had a bit of rain to add a layer of moisture to the environment, with light glancing off wet surfaces to present a more realistic reflection on not just roads, but cars and windows. It’s a sort of emphasis on microdetails and realistic reproductions of real-world scenarios.

Next, the environments make way for animations, with rigging, blending, and motion capture being crucial in presenting readability of player and enemy movements, camera behaviour in intense situations, and hit reactions across the board. This is a crucial step in games like SF6 and Monster Hunter Rise, where smooth framerates, frame clarity, effect discipline, and animation timing readability all play a role in giving players smooth, responsive combat systems that allow a game to feel as immersive and engaging as it can be.

Lighting and rendering are another big step, with direct and indirect light having to work in tandem to give scenes a proper mood while accurate shadows keep it grounded. There are also volumetrics and fog to consider, and they are important factors in crafting the right atmosphere for any given in-game event, while reflections via ray tracing make it all come together. A great example of this would be Village, where there were a ton of different environments, each with complex setups, similar to Requiem, where lighting paths were an important part of the experience.

Next, there are details like exposure, tone mapping, Lookup Tables (LUTs), which act as a sort of automated translator that applies color schemes to scenes, bloom, depth of field, and motion blur, which must all be woven in to give games that cinematic feel without taking things too far. Restraint is an important sentiment in this step, as overdoing it ruins all of the engine’s hard work. Village, for instance, handled this very well with varying scenarios exhibiting an excellently consistent cinematic quality.

All of these steps help the RE Engine achieve the results it managed in the titles it has powered. Its ability to optimize and scale according to a game’s needs as opposed to the game being needed to be molded to fit within its framework is a superpower of sorts, allowing it to be a versatile tool that has handled a bunch of varying requirements. It was able to handle different hardware targets in Rise, while also handling the systemic load from Wilds and the CPU-heavy world simulation in DD2.

Versatility Across Genres

This is our favorite part, as we get to see just how the RE Engine has managed to make itself a crucial part of the success its games have enjoyed, and the reason it has managed to be an engine that works across genres.

Resident Evil has been a great showcase of how it can present tight, high-fidelity environments with aplomb, with very realistic close-ups of differing materials, nuanced lighting, and very moody atmospheres that sell the fear and tension that the franchise is known for very well. Once again, looking at even a few minutes of Requiem’s gameplay or cutscenes is enough to prove its chops.

When it comes to massive worlds with a lot going on in them, the engine has once again risen to the occasion. It handles the worlds in Monster Hunter and DD2 with style, balancing a multitude of factors like streaming assets, sustaining LODs and traversal speed, simulating systems, and handling memory pressure across platforms with a fairly consistent experience across the board for all players.

In SF6, where a performance-first approach dictated the entirety of its gameplay loop, the engine maintained stable framerates while allowing for excellent animation and effect clarity, factors that were tantamount to presenting the explosive action that the game needed to stand out.

Heck, it also proved quite good for remasters, with Dead Rising Deluxe and Ghost Trick being fine examples of how it can bring older games to life. But Requiem is probably its magnum opus, with an astounding sharpness to its microdetails that stay intact even in motion-intensive situations, stable lighting responses across surfaces, excellent geometry and hair physics, and clean reflections with accurate shadows that really sell the scenes where they operate.

It can be easy to just say it’s insanely good at powering the best of what the developer offers, but that would be doing it an injustice.

What Does The RE Engine Mean For Modern Gaming?

Aside from what it manages to do in-game, it’s also what it manages to do behind the scenes that makes this one so relevant to a generation of games that are constantly getting more ambitious.

As an engine built from the ground up, its assets, tools, technical know-how, optimizations, and workflows allow for both consistency and compounding benefits to the studio with every successive release. It isn’t an engine that just puts out pretty graphics easily, but is now a benchmark in game production.

As the worlds in our games get bigger and lighting gets more ambitious, engines that scale well become the competitive edge. And the RE Engine is one that’s doing a hell of a good job on that front. We can’t wait to see where it shows up next, but you can bet that we’re going to be diving in with a smile on our faces, secure in the knowledge that this is an engine that’s capable of making great games even better.

You see it in the very first moment you have Grace walk along a busy street on the way to her objective. You see it in the first shot of Raccoon City, a gaping crater that was once a place full of activity and life. You see it in the close-ups of Leon and Grace, their expressions coming across so clearly thanks to excellent character models and facial animations.

Every frame of the game looks like it was pre-rendered in motion, lending the entire experience a level of photorealistic quality that goes beyond just looking good in an experience that comes together quite well to make your skin crawl and hair stand on end.

But before that, a quick disclaimer about the footage you’re currently seeing might be in order. There could be a bit of sharpening, some crushed blacks, and a slightly lower level of detail thanks to captured footage being compressed. But rest assured, that isn’t the case with the actual game on the PS5 Pro. Requiem scores well on several parameters like lighting, material realism, natural depth, and image stability, even in its most demanding moments.

A Sublime Lighting System

The game’s promotional materials all pointed to the excellent use of light and its crucial role in stealth sections involving Grace. But it’s more than just that. Every scenario in the game, from a busy street to a desolate corner of the Rhodes Hill Care Center are all brought to life in a way that catches the eye from the minute you load in.

There’s a frankly astounding level of detail on display, and the lighting does well to highlight it in dark spaces where your flashlight or lighter is your only source of illumination. Their beams move tangibly differently, lighting up your surroundings based on how those beams would reflect off surfaces in the real world.

A conversation between two characters with a flaming building as its backdrop has you seeing shadows that flicker with the flames, their warm glow contrasting with the harrowed expressions on the faces they light up. In darker spaces, the inky blacks that come at you almost feel suffocating, a facet of the experience that’s underlined whenever the Stalker is in play.

The light becomes all the more important when it’s in short supply, making a well-lit room feel so very safe thanks to the stark contrast it presents to the darkness you were navigating just moments ago. Light and shadows interact so well, with a believable spill of rays around corners, lamps, and candles casting dynamic shadows that move with their subjects, while your characters are reflected back at you on glass surfaces that you look at.

Raccoon City looks ridiculously detailed in its ruined state, and the lighting does so much of the mood work. With the advanced AO in play, the destruction reads as dense and tangible, but there’s also this intentionally dulled, lifeless tone over everything. Even the RPD feels sad now, like a place that’s already lost. It honestly makes me wonder what the game would feel like if the developer ever went full open-world with it.

The first-person camera is definitely our choice when it comes to admiring the game’s lighting, and it’s of such a cinematic quality that it’s genuinely hard to tell the difference between in-game moments and cutscenes. But lighting alone doesn’t make for great visuals.

Graphical Parameters That Stand Out

All the light in the world would not have helped sell the experience that Requiem is trying to present if the environments, people, and objects being lit up were not up to scratch. That’s clearly not the case in Requiem, and when you’re treated to a close-up on any character, you’re going to see why.

Individual hairs on Grace and Leon’s heads swing gently in the breeze, while beads of sweat glisten on Grace’s face and arms when she’s in a particularly bothersome situation, even as Leon’s temples remain blissfully dry, his calm demeanour being reflected in his appearance. At some point, a short swim in a vat of what suspiciously looks like blood continues to leave the character involved with a red hue on their hands as they navigate the rest of that level.

The facial animations could have you believing that there are real actors on your screen, and not animated models that have been prepared to make things look as real as they can get. Grace’s abject terror at the ordeal she’s being forced to endure shines through in almost every frame that focuses on her face, her fear being reflected in her eyes. Her concern for a new character is also quite evident, as is her anger at another point in the story. Every close-up shot or camera stare showcases emotion as well as expression, helping sell the game’s CG-like realism quite well.

Leon and Gideon are also highlights, each character’s personality being conveyed through their frowns, smirks, and a generally high quality of lip syncing that helps the voice acting match the gravitas of a grim situation. And there are a lot of those in the game thanks to a bevy of enemy designs that are absolutely horrific, as they should be.

You can see the pained expressions on the faces of zombies, a somber reminder of the people they used to be before their transformation. The Stalkers and other bigger threats are just grotesque, and the manner in which their bodies respond to your bullets or other weapons is incredibly detailed and well implemented. Chunks of flesh are ripped off their bodies in real-time, the trajectory of your bullets being reflected so well with each new shot.

Their faces contort in pain, every hit they take being conveyed back to you in excruciating detail, just as it is when you take some damage of your own. It all takes place so seamlessly that bringing up a pause menu can feel quite disconcerting in the heat of the moment, jerking you out of moments that are so engaging you forget the borders of your screen even exist.

Blood behaves so realistically, you might even find yourself diving out of the way of it in the event your character meets their death at the hands of an enemy. The death animations for both your characters and enemies are absolutely brutal, made all the more satisfying by the game’s incredible approach to its material realism.

A Tailored Approach to Visual Fidelity

It could have been easy to oversell the photorealism of it all, but Requiem cleverly avoids that trap, using its volumetrics and elements very well to present environments that feel as they should. Faraway shots of Rhodes Hill showcase a creeping fog that interacts so well with the objects around it that it looks very natural.

In another shot, Leon’s Porsche speeds down a busy street, its sleek paint reflecting the lights around it while the road looks ever so well-detailed, glistening with a slight sheen of rain on its surface. None of these details looks too overdone, but work so well to present an immersive experience that they stand out nonetheless.

It helps that the PS5 Pro is able to sustain a clear, sharp image with very few instances of jagged edges or shimmer that we could see during our time with the game. That’s as true for intense moments in the gameplay as it is for cutscenes, the console’s image upscaling capabilities doing a good job of making sure things stay as smooth as they can be.

It’s also probably good that there’s more headroom for ray tracing, and for streaming textures and sustaining a level of detail that lends Requiem its filmy quality. That’s especially true in the game’s second half, when all of its systems come together to present moments where the story fires on all cylinders.

There are views from familiar buildings, sweeping shots of locations that can have you smiling to yourself, a chase sequence that we’re still not fully recovered from, and level designs that are just outstanding with the way verticality is used to present specific moments.

You get reminded that you’re in a video game when you see an NPC walk slightly more stiffly than they would in real life, or when the occasional shimmer around a character’s hair or some volumetric noise pops up. A few texture streaming hiccups around elevators or during fast turns were also a way to remind ourselves that this was still a video game. But in one that’s as terrifying as Requiem, we’re going to say we were grateful for those reminders.

Cinematic Cohesion

Requiem’s near-cinematic level of quality comes not just from the effective use of several pillars of good CG design, but in the way they’ve all been lovingly made to work in tandem with each other, which lends the experience a layer of immersion that’s going to be the RE Engine’s best one yet.

That it’s able to blend its lighting, detail, and animations so well while also sustaining a stable image is a benchmark of what it’s capable of, made even better by the PS5 Pro’s ability to bring games such as this one to life so well.

We can’t wait for you to join us on what is a Resident Evil game that both looks and performs so well, it’s sure to bring a smile to both franchise veterans and newcomers alike.

It used to be easy to slap a fresh coat of paint on a racing franchise and call it progress. But the best racers lately have pushed forward with meaningful upgrades that elevate the experience.

Milestone is clearly taking the second route in RIDE 6, which is now very close to its early access debut ahead of its final release. It’s been promoted as the best one yet from the studio and that claim might not be too far away from the mark. RIDE 6 looks brilliant, and is going to feel just as good to play once it becomes available to its audiences.

Wondering why we think so? Join us and find out as we dive into how things are looking for a motorcycle racing simulator that’s aiming for very lofty heights in a franchise that’s already managed to achieve so much over the years.

It’s more than just the improved visuals although they’re genuinely impressive to see. RIDE 6 works well thanks to how its systems come together to render the action, the shift to Unreal Engine 5 allowing the game to blur the lines between a simulation and reality in ways that bode well for its success once it hits the shelves.

Let’s take a look at the factors the game needs to nail down in order to achieve its photorealistic quality. The game needs to account for lighting, particles on the track, surfaces, physics, weather systems, audio, crowd rendering, and streaming, all in real time. That’s definitely a lot for any racer, but RIDE 6 is clearly up to the challenge based on our time with the review build, delivering a seamless racing experience that’s quite striking from the minute you’re on the track.

From the moment you take to the track, it’s obvious that RIDE 6 is a very impressive title that’s built around a major visual and systems upgrade. The sunlight bounces gently off the ground, flooding the screen with carefully curated, ray-traced light that makes you feel like you’re actually at the track you’re looking at. It glances off surfaces, glints off the metal on your bike, and bathes your racing uniform in a warm glow.

But at night, that same light is now produced by artificial lamps that light up the track, their reach being far more limited. Pass one, and everything we’ve been talking about happens, but it’s restricted to those few moments when you’re in range of a light, the shadows taking over as soon as you pass one. You’re constantly left wondering how the game is managing to keep up considering you’re speeding along on a machine that accelerates brutally quick off the line.

The bikes themselves are another showcase of how brilliant the game’s lighting system is, and are made all the more magnificent because of it. Paint jobs showcase subtle variations with glossy finishes contrasting well with the matte ones. The rubber on the tyres does well to showcase wear and tear, your tire tracks shining through with incredible detail. On the track, you see them interacting with the road based on your braking, leaving visible marks where nearly every pebble looks distinct, giving the impression that each track you race on has been painstakingly created to reflect real-life accuracy.

The key is in the details, and Milestone has clearly paid attention. Even visors on helmets reflect the world around them, the track streaking past as riders tear corners at speed. Take a look at one of the roads in the newly introduced dirt bike races, and you see the tires throwing up a trail as they go by, their tracks a reflection of the precise lines that their riders take in their effort to get past their opponents.

On a rainy day, the conditions come across as so natural we wouldn’t blame you for trying to wipe droplets of water off of your face in your gaming room. The roads glisten with a wet sheen while the game’s physics account for wet conditions, and it’s looking like you’re going to have to pay attention if you want to stay on the track.

Turn your attention to the bikes when they’re doing what they do best, and the motion blur takes over, accurately conveying your speed when you accelerate, and tapering off remarkably smoothly when you brake. It’s quite surreal to look at and is so immersive we were tempted to forget about the race just to keep watching it in action.

The camera angles in cutscenes are suitably cinematic, and the level of detail is as astounding as it is when you’re in control. The crowds that are out to watch you race, however, feel a little too similar in our opinion.

At the moment, the crowds do look like they’re not going to stand out, with most of Milestone’s focus being on rendering the riders and tracks as realistically as possible. However, what’s on offer is definitely serviceable and does add to the impression that you’re at a racing event, a facet of the experience helped along by great audio synchronization.

The visual state of the world matches the simulation so seamlessly it’s hard to find gaps where the illusion can drop, dragging you back to the reality that you’re not really piloting a machine that’s capable of speeds you couldn’t dream of achieving out on the streets no matter how experienced or skilled with motorcycles you are.

That attention to authenticity carries over when you’re in control, the game’s physics working in real-time to handle weight transfer convincingly as you brake into corners and drive out of them. Make a mistake and you’re going to lose your racing lines, just like you would in the real world.

The collision physics work well, too, with grip loss communicated quite well as, and losing control of your vehicle looks and feels nasty. Coming into contact with a fellow racer is something we’re not going to do in a hurry. Seriously, it hurt even though it wasn’t us who crashed.

Your rider’s body language is another area where we believe RIDE 6 has done a stellar job. They aren’t static, not in the slightest, and lean into turns as you take them, immediately straightening out to account for their own weight and the role it plays in guiding their bike along. Their hands and feet interact with their pedals, and there’s even a setting to alter how your rider holds their brakes, alternating between two and four fingers.

The game’s audio is quite easy to gauge and it’s decent. Every rev of your engine comes through with a satisfying punch, and your acceleration and braking are communicated so well as you tear down tracks. It syncs up very well with the player’s actions, and along with the roar of the crowds, it’s quite immersive and really helps the simulation maintain its spell over you.

The game’s UI takes a minimalist approach when you’re on the tracks although it doesn’t hold back from giving you options to tweak the experience to your liking once you hang up your helmets for some well-earned rest and relaxation after a long day on the tracks.

Customization brings the same level of quality that the rest of the game has sold us so far. You can expect distinct looks to each paint finish and your decals to react to the curves of your chosen vehicle, along with some excellent details on your uniforms based on their materials and the like.

All in all, it looks like RIDE 6 is making the best of its tech, its visuals popping out with near-perfect accuracy to convey the mood, weather, and time of day at the track you’re on. Its physics simulations look like they’re spot-on so consistently, we were just itching to swing our leg over one of the many bikes it has to offer. From its surfaces to its weather systems, this is a game that isn’t afraid to show off a level of polish that its teams have surely worked very hard on.

Ride 6 is a showcase of what focused tech direction can achieve when lighting, materials, physics, and audio all pull in the same direction. But at this moment, RIDE 6 is definitely up there with the best simulators we’ve seen.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

But that very scrutiny has exposed a few weaknesses in the armor of an otherwise solid experience that does very well for a free-to-play experience. Look closely enough, and you see a few visual and graphical glitches that should not have been there in the global release. That’s especially true on consoles, with the game’s engine unable to keep up with its grand ambitions in busy locations.

But is what we have still worth playing, complete with its little imperfections? Join us as we take a look at this wuxia-based spectacle from a graphical perspective and comment on how it’s managed to fare when it’s under pressure to perform.

It’s worth knowing that Where Winds Meet runs on NetEase’s proprietary Messiah Engine, aimed at bringing the game to PC, consoles, and mobile phones. That’s quite ambitious, and playing on higher-end systems shows off an outstanding level of beauty to the game. Its cities are dense and full of life, while the draw distances on open plains are nothing short of insane. Combat flows smoothly and does well to present the spectacle that it is designed to make you a part of.

There’s a lot of attention to detail in the way things are presented on the visual front in Where Winds Meet. It begins with your character and any NPCs who are a part of your immediate gameplay loop, with ornate details on armor and clothing being quite prominent. Your cape or cloak sways gently in the breeze, as does your hair. It’s all quite well-implemented, a sentiment that carries over to the world at large.

Saturated colors, dramatic silhouettes, and a sense of heightened reality are great vehicles for its wuxia aesthetic. They lend a very natural sort of beauty to Qinghe’s countryside, its rolling fields, rivers, and mountains all there for you to see as you leap to the skies with a martial art that lets you travel vast distances.

Volumetric lighting and atmospheric haze do well to sustain the effects of a dynamic day/night and weather system, making each scenario suitably darker or brighter. It means more realistic – and beautiful – sunsets, snow, rain, clouds, and other such effects that transform the landscape they are meant to affect in ways that make every inch of the game’s massive world very immersive and visually pleasing.

Indoors, the light from candles, lanterns, or your own Wuxia abilities glistens off your armor, or from moisture on the walls, while shadows shift according to your movements so realistically that it’s almost hard to believe that this is a game that’s free to play. That feeling continues to be an undercurrent even as we continue playing today, especially when you enter a settlement or city, Kaifeng being a great example.

In Kaifeng, the bustling crowds and grand architecture of it all give the impression of a city that you might not fully get to see, despite the freedom you have to explore every nook and cranny of it. It’s a sense of grandeur achieved through presenting the scale of it all as cleverly as possible to the player.

The object density is frankly ridiculous, with an abundance of signs, banners, lanterns, stalls, and the like to make the streets look lived in. The city feels like a living metropolis thanks to an NPC count that the developers were quite proud of in the run-up to the game’s global release. It truly feels alive in a way that even AAA games could be hard-pressed to emulate.

Of course, you’re going to be getting into a lot of fights as you make your way around the world, and once again, the visuals prop up everything on offer very well. The wuxia animations are an absolute treat, while sword trails, shockwaves, elemental effects, and important visual cues are presented with such clarity that it almost feels like the game is rooting for you in every battle.

Get surrounded, and your battle against multiple enemies can feel like every move was choreographed as part of a cinematic set-piece. Boss fights come with particle effects that feel like they could belong in a CG-animated film instead of a video game, provided the frame rate manages to keep up.

And that brings us to the downside of a game that looks and plays as well as Where Winds Meet does. But how can a game that looks this good come with graphical issues and still feel as good as it does? It’s time to find out.

Simply put, Where Winds Meet pushes the bulk of its graphical prowess to what’s right in front of you. That works very well when you’re under its spell, your sense of wonder pushing you to keep exploring and taking on enemies in order to progress the story and get your character’s build going. But look beyond the excellent details and character models, and you’re going to see a few inconsistencies.

For instance, certain props and background NPCs suffer a distinct lack of the details that adorn your character and any companions, making them look last-gen if you were to position them next to your player. That carries over to a few areas, both indoors and outdoors, where there are textures that are of a noticeably lower quality than some of the game’s best locations.

In a game that’s as grand as this one, these inconsistencies are quite an annoyance. They detract from the experience once you begin noticing them, as does the occasionally aggressive LOD streaming system that doesn’t seem to be able to handle the responsibilities of working across platforms quite well. But that’s a common side effect, after all.

On the base PS5, texture pop-in and geometry loading issues have cropped up, once again taking away from the beauty of it all. It does carry over even to cutscenes, if you were thinking that these issues are relegated to traversal and could potentially slip right past you as you move forward with your adventure.

Facial animations can look stiff, and there are a few lip-syncing issues that can affect the overall quality of your experience. There’s also a stark contrast between the kinetic, fast-flowing combat and cutscenes, which can look rather stiff in comparison, thanks to how characters prefer to stay in place for important conversations, making them rigid instead of freely moving around to convey more emotion or less of it.

Yes, they do quite a good job for a free-to-play title, but for a game with such outstanding graphical quality, these issues stand out even more. And let’s not forget a UI that’s almost constantly trying to tell you something with popups that frankly ruin the excellent art direction. Those windows and menus really need to be less obtrusive.

A few bugs are also a part of the experience, although they’re likely to be patched out. NPCs can suddenly vanish or perhaps not load in at all, while clipping issues, animation glitches, and the occasional weird bit of physics on cloth are all there for eagle-eyed gamers to spot. But it’s Kaifeng that brings all of these issues to a head.

On PC, players are experiencing massive drops in frame rates even on higher-end setups, courtesy of the Messiah Engine’s cross-platform functionality getting aggressive with its LOD and asset streaming, while runtime shader compilation in DX12 can also cause a lot of stuttering. Memory usage in the city is also an issue, with massive spikes forcing page-file swapping and even hard traversal freezes.

Things aren’t better on the PS5, with Kaifeng and certain boss fights bringing the same issues to the fore. There are also invisible walls and fences, along with characters climbing in the air in places where a building should have been. Even the PS5 Pro can’t keep up, with a lot of complaints about similar issues coming up.

While Everstone is doing all it can to patch things out and make the game as perfect as it can be, the fact that they exist is a testimony to Where Winds Meet’s raw ambition and the minor blips that it has caused along the way.

Despite its problems, there isn’t quite anything like Where Winds Meet as far as wuxia-based open worlds are concerned. It does a brilliant job of bringing your experience to life and is certainly a visual benchmark when things are going well. But its engine and optimizations could definitely use some work to ensure that its ambitions are realized.

If future patches manage to smooth things out in Kaifeng and the rest of the world, this is a game that could rise to become one of the most impressive visual presentations of a massive open world, and a beacon for similar experiences in the future. The fact that it’s a free-to-play title then becomes icing on the cake.

While there are more similarities than differences between Sony’s and Microsoft’s architectures, we couldn’t help but compare the two in an effort to understand how well the experience has translated to the newer machine. To that end, we present a full graphical analysis of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 on the PS5 and PS5 Pro, and compare those results with the Xbox Series X/S and PC versions.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is a rather technologically advanced game, and it’s built using an evolved version of the developer’s in-house engine which combines a rather sophisticated physics framework alongside real-time world data from Azure to create a surprisingly authentic flight experience. Even though the engine was built specifically for Xbox and PC, the game’s transition to PS5 is a rather smooth one.

The moment-to-moment experience on PS5 (and by extension, the PS5 Pro) is largely comparable to what we see on Microsoft’s console, but there are a few minor differences that one can pick out related to how the texture loading and world streaming work on the newer machine. 

To put things into context, at launch last year we tested the game on a PC with an AMD Ryzen 5950X, a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, and 32 GB of RAM—hardware that’s more than capable of handling such a demanding title. We turned the resolution up to a full 4K while setting the DLSS setting to Quality Mode, and put most of the other settings to Ultra. We also set the Terrain and object level of detail to 200. We toned down certain effects, like Windshield effects, to medium quality, while the glass cockpit refresh rate is kept at High.

When it comes to the visual presentation, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is a very computationally taxing experience and it continues to push every platform to its limits. While the visuals are largely similar across both consoles, there are subtle differences in how Xbox and PS5’s texture and light quality are rendered, and how they maintain the stability of LOD transitions – but these differences are only noticeable when we look closely at the same scenario across platforms.

The PS5 and Xbox Series X both utilize mesh shaders and advanced texture streaming optimizations to handle the game’s dense geometry at a large scale, but developer Asobo seems to have optimized the Xbox pipeline to match the experience that exists on PC. The PS5 version is most likely using a translation layer to accommodate for Sony’s GPU API since the engine was never built around that hardware, but we are happy to report that the performance is mostly uncompromised.

That being said, we did observe visible pop-in artifacts when flying over densely populated areas. These instances are minor but can manifest as momentary reductions in distant object sharpness or a dip in cloud fidelity as the engine prioritizes essential data first. The Xbox Series X handles these transitions slightly more gracefully, and that’s most likely due to the absence of a translation layer that sits between the source code and the hardware which gives the machine a little more compute to work with.

The PC version – unsurprisingly –  stands out from the lot thanks to raw horsepower and the flexibility of configuration. With our RTX 3080 Ti test bench and our graphics configuration from launch, the game maintained consistently higher draw distances than what we saw on PS5 alongside cleaner volumetric cloud rendering at Ultra settings. The DLSS implementation is great; the DLSS quality mode does a great job of upscaling a lower resolution image with minimal artifacting. Even at identical nominal settings, geometric complexity and photogrammetry data loads were faster on PC simply because the platform is not bound by the same memory bandwidth constraints as the consoles. Still, Asobo’s engine is remarkably efficient, and the gap between PC and consoles here is narrower than what we see in many visually intensive titles.

Switching gears over to the rendering resolution, both PS5 and Xbox Series X target a dynamic 4K presentation with image upscaling while the PS5 Pro aims for a higher internal resolution and that results in more stable performance at higher pixel counts. Under demanding weather conditions, such as storms which trigger post-processing effects and volumetrics – the base consoles drop internal resolution slightly, but the reconstruction techniques help minimizing the visible artifacts during gameplay. The PS5 Pro, on the other hand, doesn’t shudder like this, and you can expect a more stable image output on it.

Lighting remains one of Microsoft Flight Simulator’s most striking features, and the comparison between platforms reveals a couple of noteworthy differences. The PS5 versions share the same GI implementation as the Series X, but some scenarios exhibit marginally softer shadowing on Sony’s machine which could hint at some optimization shortcomings – though it isn’t too severe. The PC version flaunts higher resolution shadow maps and superior screen-space reflections, resulting in a more grounded and realistic look, which particularly excels during sunrise and sunset.

Another key element of the rendering is the vegetation and water surfaces. While foliage density is largely identical between PS5 and Series X, the PC version can push significantly thicker tree coverage and more varied grass LOD transitions without noticeable performance hits. Water rendering is likewise more refined on PC, with more consistent reflections and wave simulations under ultra settings. That said, the PS5 Pro’s enhanced GPU headroom allows it to come surprisingly close to high-end PC settings.

The one area that remains quite consistent across all platforms is the world streaming experience, which is great since it’s one of the most important and technically challenging parts of the presentation. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has to stream massive amounts of data from Azure servers, and the quality of the user’s internet connection plays a significant role in how smoothly terrain and photogrammetry load. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X handle streaming admirably, with efficient caching and background loading that minimize visible pop-in, and you can expect the same performance on the PS5 Pro.

Texture quality is another point of comparison, and the story of comparable results continues. On both PS5 and Series X, texture quality is impressive, but the Xbox version occasionally loads higher-resolution textures slightly faster during rapid camera movements when the PS5 version can have slightly delayed texture streams in extremely dense cities. These delays are brief and typically self-correct within seconds, but they remain one of the few visual discrepancies between the two consoles. The PS5 Pro has additional horsepower, so these occurrences are almost non-existent. PC naturally tops the comparison here with instant texture loading and sharper surface details at close range.

Loading times also saw noticeable variance between platforms. The PS5 definitely has a higher throughput on paper, but the Xbox specific optimizations help in significantly reducing the load times on Microsoft’s machine. Booting into a flight from the main menu was consistently a few seconds faster on Xbox Series X as compared to Sony’s machine, and can be attributed to great use of Microsoft’s Velocity Architecture. The PS5 Pro further improves on these load times, shaving off an additional couple of seconds thanks to improved bandwidth and better decompression throughput – but it still doesn’t match the results we see on Xbox Series X.

On the PC side, load times scale heavily with the hardware configuration. Our Ryzen 5950X and fast NVMe drive combination delivers great results that are largely comparable to that of the Xbox (we tested this over several runs). This can be attributed to both optimizations made for DirectStorage API and the sheer capacity of high-end PC hardware to brute-force data processing, especially when dealing with large terrain pools. 

Texture quality is another point of comparison, and the story of comparable results continues. On both PS5 and Series X, texture quality is impressive, but the Xbox version occasionally loads higher-resolution textures slightly faster during rapid camera movements when the PS5 version can have slightly delayed texture streams in extremely dense cities. These delays are brief and typically self-correct within seconds, but they remain one of the few visual discrepancies between the two consoles. The PS5 Pro has additional horsepower, so these occurrences are almost nonexistent. PC naturally tops the comparison here with instant texture loading and sharper surface details at close range.

Loading times also showed noticeable variance across runs, largely because the game pulls real-time data from Azure servers. Factors like internet speed and third-party services can either accelerate or slow down the process, making it difficult to produce a strictly uniform comparison across platforms.

When examining frame rate stability, both consoles target 30fps. The PS5 and Xbox Series X achieve this target with impressive consistency, though the Series X enjoys slightly fewer dips under extreme streaming conditions. These dips are minor, but they do appear more frequently on the PS5, especially in scenarios where post-processing effects or volumetric effects end up pushing the GPU to its limits. 

As mentioned earlier, the PS5 Pro targets a dynamic 4K resolution at 30fps, and it performs markedly better than the base PS5, remaining locked for the vast majority of our tests. Since it doesn’t have to reduce its internal rendering resolution as often as the PS5 or Xbox Series X, image clarity is visibly improved. Even in demanding scenes with intense volumetrics, the PS5 Pro maintains its composure, resulting in a consistently smooth experience. 

In conclusion, the PS5 version of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 stands tall alongside the Xbox and PC versions. It delivers a decently optimized experience that remains faithful to Asobo’s vision. Despite a few minor differences in texture loading and world streaming responsiveness, the game offers a near-identical level of fidelity – making it another successful port of a previously Xbox exclusive to Sony’s platform.