S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Developer GSC Game World brought the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series back into the limelight with the recently released Heart of Chornobyl, which undoubtedly represents the peak of the series. It takes what worked in prior entries, and creates something that’s bigger and better in almost every way. It blends a modern gameplay framework with the brutal survival mechanics of past entries, and that culminates in an experience that’s sure to stay with you long after the credits roll.

For PS4 players, there’s Circus Electrique, Dynasty Warriors 9, Melty Blood: Type Lumina, Monster Jam Steel Titans, Samurai Warriors 5, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated and Undertale. PS Plus Premium players gain access to three new Classics, starting with Twisted Metal and Twisted Metal 2 on the PlayStation One.

Gravity Crash Portable on the PlayStation Portable is also playable. All three titles are available for PS4 and PS5. PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can also download titles from the Essential tier, like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Alan Wake Remastered and Endling – Extinction is Forever. These are available till July 31st, so claim them now.

Sony and Microsoft – the former especially – have highlighted SSDs as one of the biggest improvements being made to next-gen consoles, and developers across the industry have spent quite a lot of time talking about the advantages that will present. Another such developer is Sampo Töyssy, co-founder of 10tons, developers of the upcoming open world post-apocalyptic action RPG Dysmantle.

Speaking with GamingBolt in a recent interview, when asked about how developers will be able to leverage the PS5 and Xbox Series X’s SSDs in his view, he said that being able to load faster and stream more content much more quickly will be a big boost, and that games aiming for large, high detailed worlds will benefit from it more than most. He added that 10ton’s upcoming Dysmantle, too, uses streaming tech for its world, but comfortably falls within the limits of current-gen hardware.

“Everything will feel a bit snappier, but that’s already something you’ve sort of gotten used to on PCs with SSDs,” Töyssy said. “But now for the first time, you can rely on that speed being available on a console. There have been studies on how much of loading the player can tolerate before it starts to be annoying. Making it load faster, you can simply add more stuff in shorter time and still provide a good user experience.

“Streaming world content is one of the big things that will get better. You can have a more detailed world as you can stream data faster from mass storage into the GPU. You can also move faster in the game world as the hardware can keep up better. Dysmantle has also a streaming system for the world, but we are probably not exceeding even current-gen capabilities in that regard. Games with massive, extremely detailed worlds will benefit the most.”

Töyssy added that as far as multiplatform developers are concerned, they will most likely scale data in such a manner that their games work the same on both PS5 and Xbox Series X in spite of any differences in hardware.

“Multiplatform games will probably find a suitable bandwidth and tools to scale the amount of data so that it works on all platforms,” he said. “It might be that texture detail level can be varied according to available bandwidth, for example.”

10tons’ Dysmantle is out later this year for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Our full interview with Töyssy will be going live soon, so stay tuned for that.