This doesn’t spell the end of console exclusivity, or even timed exclusivity on Sony’s part, but it does bode well for the future of the Helldivers II ecosystem and that of other titles. Online multiplayer games are meant to be played with others, and if that extends across many different platforms for the sake of ‘democracy’, the more the merrier. So, what can Xbox players look forward to with the Helldivers II port? Here’s 15 details you need to know about Helldivers II on Xbox.

Nixxes Software is Handling the Port

Ports can be hit or miss these days, so knowing the port developer can be a key bit of info in determining if it’ll be solid or not. In this regard, Helldivers II seems to be in good hands. Sony’s subsidiary studio, Nixxes Software, is tasked with converting Helldivers II to Xbox Series X and S. Nixxes has been in the port business since the original Legacy of Kain Dreamcast games. You may know them now by their string of PlayStation to PC ports, which includes the Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition, Marvel’s Spider-Man and Miles Morales, and the near-flawless Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart PC port.

Cross-Play

So, the port won’t likely be plagued by optimization issues based on developer pedigree, but there’s even more good news. Helldivers II on Xbox supports full cross-play across PS5, PC, and Xbox. Considering its cooperative identity and framework, Helldivers II greatly benefits from opening up its ecosystem to more players.

Series S and Series X Performance Comparison

That expanded ecosystem doesn’t leave Xbox Series S players hanging, though, at least not quite. Just expect a slight bump down in performance. The game can’t run at 60 FPS with the full graphics suite on a base PS5 – that’s what the ‘performance/quality’ mode compromise is for. And considering a Series S has less power than a PS5, we expect it to run at 30 FPS unless a boatload of graphical settings are tuned down. The Series X version, by comparison, should run similarly to the base PS5. Helldivers II has an ‘optimized for the Series X’ label on the official site and will display at 4k HD in graphics mode while running at a targeted 60fps in performance mode.

Xbox Controls

One of the big differences between the Xbox and PS5 versions is the controller. The Xbox Elite and basic controllers have advanced rumble capabilities with haptic feedback, so you’ll be able to feel the visceral nature of the battlefield in a similar way that PlayStation players do. However, the triggers don’t have variable resistance like DualSense, which lessens the realism of aiming and shooting certain guns. The closest Xbox gets is with its Impulse Triggers, which are basic rumble motors on the shoulders of the controller. In general, Xbox players will find the viscerality and controls comparable to the PS5 experience.

Updates Since Launch

Being the live service game that it is, Helldivers II has gone through a number of patches and updates since its February 2024 launch. This is great for Xbox players, as they get to enjoy a largely bug-free (unless we’re talking about space bugs) experience with lots of updated content. The game has had three major updates: Escalation of Freedom, Omens of Tyranny, and Heart of Democracy. These updates added additional biomes, new difficulty settings, new enemy and unit types, and fresh missions and features.

Latest and Future Updates

The latest update to the game wasn’t a major one, though, being one of many Warbond additions. This new Control Group Warbond includes a seven-barreled volley gun, bouncing arc grenade, laser sentry with infinite firing capacity, and a number of support items and cosmetics. The next update is set to drop alongside the Xbox port on August 26th, though we have nothing to go off of besides leaks and speculation as to what the update will contain.

In-Game Currency and Monetization

If you’ve played any live service game, you’re probably familiar with battle passes. Well, Warbonds are basically battle pass rewards with no FOMO time-gating, allowing players to freely choose between the full catalogue of items without worry of them leaving. Warbonds and Armor packs are purchased through the game’s Super Credits currency. You find these Super Credits by exploring maps, or by using real money.

Story

One of the main draws of Helldivers II is its tongue-in-cheek setting and story. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, yet succeeds in drawing us in with its compelling setting. You find yourself, one of many shock troopers, fighting to defeat the escaped Terminid bugs, Automatans, and an alien race hell-bent on stopping Super Earth’s ‘democracy’. While the story informs everything you do in the game, it isn’t filled with overly long cutscenes or a cinematic campaign structure.

Mission Structure

Instead, the game’s core structure revolves around co-op campaigns (called Operations) which have a handful of Missions each. The Missions have a random assortment of mandatory primary objectives and secondary ones that grant higher XP and rewards. The game isn’t lacking in objective variety. With over 100 different objective types (ICBM launches being a favorite), players will have to spend well over 50 hours to experience them all.

Four-Player Co-op

And you’re never by your lonesome in your quest to spread democracy. The game connects you with three other random players in four-player mission sessions. Want optimum coordination with those you know? Simply set Matchmaking to Friends Only or Private and invite some pals for some bug exterminating chaos. Just mind your aiming as friendly fire is constantly on in Helldivers II.

Planets and Biomes

Missions rarely get repetitive thanks to the many randomly generated maps and sheer number of planetary biomes available. To date, Helldivers II features 261 planets across with an impressive 23 different biomes. The variety isn’t just for looks either. Each biome comes with difficulty disclaimer with the more extreme ones calling for better armors. The whirling fire cyclones across the Scorched Wasteland provide more challenge than the tame Ionized Grassland.

Weapon Upgrades

Feeling under-equipped for the mission? That’s what weapon upgrades are for. You gain weapon experience upon completing Missions, and turning difficulty up multiplies EXP further. For customization junkies, there’s plenty to personalize through the Armory. Weapons and armors can be outfitted with skins, different attachments, and of course, upgraded stats.

Ship Upgrades

Even your your base of operations, the Super Destroyer ship, can also be customized and upgraded. Just find Ship Modules on any given map to spend them on various sections on your ship. Upgrades to the Bridge, for example, may improve your Helipad deployment steering while the Robotics Workshop may be upgraded to speed up Sentry targeting.

Stratagems

One of the main things to upgrade are Stratagems. Stratagems are actually carried over from the first Helldivers game, aiding players with all manner of orbital drop weaponry. Calling in an airstrike bombardment after punching in a code sequence never gets old and remains one of the funnest aspects of the Helldivers II experience. There’s close to a hundred different Stratagems in the game, ranging from mountable turrets to weaponized vehicles, and there’s more to come with future updates.

Galactic War Progress

Your battles for Super Earth don’t go unnoticed. Players’ victories and losses contribute to an ongoing Galactic War map that charts the live status of planets that have been liberated and how far the Super Earth forces progressed in the war. This is all driven by players across all platforms of the game in real-time.

Release date, Price, Editions

Gamers rejoice, Helldivers II on Xbox only costs $39.99. That’s for the basic version anyway. The $59.99 Super Citizen edition includes a pretty sizable set of additional in-game weapons and items, including: DP-53 Savior of the Free Armor Set, ‘Will of the People’ Cape, ‘MP-98 Knight’ Weapon, Super Citizen Status, Stratagem Hero Ship Game, and a Premium Warbond Token. Xbox players can join the fight for democracy when Helldivers II for Xbox releases on August 26th.

We’re talking about the Decima Engine, of course. A proprietary engine that was developed in-house at Guerilla, it has been at the heart of wildly successful video games from the studio, most notably Horizon Zero Dawn and its sequel Horizon Forbidden West. That makes it a development platform that has worked across successive generations of hardware, and one that has evolved in response to the improvements they brought to the table.

But in a world where Unreal and Unity continue to dominate popular discourse, why should Decima be relegated to the background despite the stellar job it does there?

Honestly, it shouldn’t, given how it has allowed Guerilla and even Kojima Productions a way to push the envelope on several fronts that include visual fidelity, improved environments in massive open worlds, and also brought performance boosts to the experiences that it has powered.

It’s time to give Decima the spotlight it deserves.

A Performative Powerhouse

Decima made its debut back in 2013, powering the sixth instalment of the Killzone franchise named Killzone Shadow Fall. Bringing the title to the then newly launched PlayStation 4, the first-person shooter was quite a success despite it utilizing only a portion of what the new console was capable of thanks to Sony keeping its new console’s  improved RAM and graphical capabilities under wraps until its launch.

Guerilla’s attempts to breathe new life into the franchise paid off thanks to a version of Decima that was then referred to as “the engine”, with the studio not planning to take its powers public.

The engine was next seen working its magic in Supermassive’s Until Dawn and its 2016 PlayStation VR spinoff, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood. Thanks to Sony Interactive Entertainment’s ownership of Guerilla Games and its role as a publisher for Until Dawn, the Decima Engine began to make its presence felt in the gaming world.

Its prowess was enough to catch the attention of none other than Hideo Kojima, who chose the Decima Engine for Kojima Production’s first independent title Death Stranding. The eccentric director showcased what it could do in terms of accurate detailing and physical lighting effects by recreating his own meeting room to justify its choice. Quite the feat!

But Death Stranding was still a long way from its final release at the time. 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn was a feather in Guerilla’s cap, and a brilliant showcase of how the Decima Engine could bring a unique gaming experience to life in ways that its rivals could perhaps not achieve. It was a demonstration of all the capabilities Guerilla highlighted in 2016’s PlayStation Experience which included AI, logic tools, 4K support, HDR imaging, and exquisite physics.

It was at this time that the name Decima finally came into being as an acknowledgement of Kojima’s role in bringing the engine into the spotlight and Guerilla’s Dutch origins.

Decima has since made its presence felt in the sequel to Zero Dawn, with Forbidden West taking its capability even further – which was evident from the game’s PS5 version bringing advanced terrain rendering, a gorgeous and smooth underwater experience, and breathtaking cinematic set pieces to the table.

Those very capabilities have been honed even further in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, allowing Kojima to realize the vision he had for his explorations of life and legacy through the lens of Sam Porter’s adventures in Australia and Mexico. Decima has played a huge part in bringing some of modern gaming’s most impactful titles to life – and is among the more obscure reasons for their success.

But how – and why – is it better than the best? That’s quite easy to answer.

Bringing Milestones to Life

In many ways, the Decima Engine has been the biggest benefactor of a collaboration between Guerilla and Kojima Productions. On the PS4, it ensured that Aloy’s adventures in Horizon Zero Dawn came with a layer of realism that matched her world weary take on a post apocalyptic world.

Each machine she took on was as detailed and intricate as the Cauldrons she explored to learn more about them while the Nora’s and Carja’s villages, cities, and fields shone with a vibrance that other games simply could not match. But Decima’s capabilities went beyond its visual flair. The machines came at Aloy with deadly efficiency, and the engine’s true value was there for all to see.

Every leap, frantic dodge, and counterattack came together in an experience that continues to enthrall gamers to this day, while gentle breezes and cramped spaces felt alive in a players’ hands. It was clear that Decima could bridge impressive visuals and stellar graphical performance, tying them together into a cohesive whole.

Things only got better in Forbidden West with the addition of a larger, more ambitious open world, dynamic lighting, improved weather and a terrain that was the perfect way to show off the PS5’s improved draw distance. Buttery smooth framerates on the game’s Performance Mode made the experience work well with an improved melee combat system while taking to the skies in the game’s later sections was a visual and graphical treat that no other experience available for Sony’s latest powerhouse could hope to match at the time, let alone imitate.

The same evolution of Decima’s capabilities has been showcased in Death Stranding and On the Beach. Sam’s adventures benefitted greatly from Decima’s ability to bring a layer of ethereal realism to a landscape devastated by the Death Stranding while giving Kojima the ability to weave his thematic explorations into the environments he created for the game.

Norman Reedus excellent acting chops, alongside those of a very talented cast, were icing on the cake for Decima’s most influential titles, as it brought every bit of nuance in their performances to life in ways that elevated the experience its players were privy to, allowing both Strand titles from Kojima to shine in ways that directly impacted the quality they offered to those who decided to dive into their deadly worlds.

On the Beach’s recent release is almost certainly the epitome of what Kojima and Guerilla have built over the years with Decima, bringing a level of cinematics that makes incredible use of skin shaders, fluid simulations, and lighting effects that make its take on Mexico and Australia come alive in the hands of its players.

A common undercurrent that ties these four great games together is the way in which Decima has been a factor in making their worlds feel like characters on their own, responding to a player’s actions in ways that other engines have perhaps come close to but not quite matched in their efforts to bring new levels of visual and graphical fidelity to the games they have powered.

But can Decima continue to surpass its rivals, or hold its own against them in a future where gaming experiences are shaping up to be even better than what’s currently on offer?

Standing Out From the Crowd

The answer to that question requires a nuanced look at how Decima’s biggest rivals have managed to fare in the recent past.

Pitting Guerilla’s creation against Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) brings an important distinction to life. The collaboration between Guerilla and Kojima is sure to play its part, allowing the studio to future proof its creation in preparation for the inevitable launch of the PS6. While many UE5 experiences do bring a lot to like, its performance inconsistencies are a sore spot in any comparisons with Decima’s ability to deliver each and every time it powers a game.

The RE Engine is another valid contender, powering some of the studio’s best work and culminating (for now) with Monster Hunter Wilds. While the experience it has managed to deliver does come close to Decima in terms of how it presents the many biomes it takes its players to, the Japanese studio’s transition from the PS4 to PS5 could have been better.

However, Guerilla might want to pay close attention to any releases RE Engine brings out in the next few years while it gears up to bring the third instalment of its Horizon franchise to players. The studio is sure to take all of the lessons it has learned from creating Death Stranding and its sequel and apply them to a new generation of games that will undoubtedly allow Decima to bring further refinements and abilities to the table.

While its rivals are certainly catching up, Decima currently holds the crown for a video game engine that seamlessly blends unique visual signatures with graphical and technical capabilities that allow talented developers to create experiences that garner both critical and commercial success.

Whether that trend continues in the coming years is a matter of patient observation, but Guerilla is sure to bring its A-game to the table and continue to enthrall its players with aplomb. And that’s not even considering whatever Kojima has up his sleeve for his next game.

It’s going to be an interesting time for Decima and the games it powers. But modern gaming’s most silent success is certainly up to the task.

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.

As per SteamDB, on its PC launch day, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered saw a peak of 23,350 concurrent players on Steam. Those aren’t necessary groundbreaking numbers, but presumably, they will continue to rise over the game’s first weekend.

In comparison, The Last of Us Part 1 has a peak of 36,496 concurrent Steam players. It should be interesting to see whether its sequel can surpass it. One area where it has got off to a decidedly better start is its reception. Where Part 1’s PC port was widely criticized upon release, Part 2 has a Very Positive user review rating on Steam at the time of writing, with 91 percent of its 1000-and-odd user ratings being positive.

The Last of Us Part 2 is available on PS5, PS4, and PC. Read our review of the PC port through here. Season 2 of HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation is also coming later this month.

So let’s get the most important things out of the way first. The PC version of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is quite excellent. As the reasonable hardware requirements that the studio had previously announced would imply, the game is able to make fantastic use of the resources a modern gaming PC can give it. During my time with the game for this review, I played on a PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, an AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU, and 32 GB of RAM. This, paired with the fact that I had it installed on an NVMe M.2 SSD, meant that I never really experienced any technical hiccups.

Throughout my time with The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, I was able to max out the graphics without having to switch on any of the image upscaling tools like FSR, while still being able to maintain frame rates of anywhere between 90 and 120. All of this while playing on a 1440p display with a refresh rate of 144 Hz. Running it on the Steam Deck was also quite fruitful, delivering good enough performance with some of the graphics settings dialed in to get me just under 60 FPS. While this may not sound that good, it is worth noting that Steam Deck games often tend to run fantastically with a frame rate of 40 FPS for a good balance between performance, visuals, and battery longevity.

"The PC version of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is quite excellent."

All of this good news also carries over into some of the smaller aspects of the game, like how it actually plays. Turns out the keyboard and mouse combination is a rather excellent way to play The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered. It offers players a lot of control and accuracy when you really need to nail that headshot, while also providing more versatility when it comes to doing things like needing to craft a quick molotov in the heat of battle. The only real downside to the control scheme—one I didn’t experience while briefly using a DualSense controller—was what felt like a strange rendering issue.

Essentially, when you’re in-game, Any UI element involving the mouse tends to tank the frame rate. I experienced this multiple times with my frame rate going from the high 90s all the way down to 40. Overall, this strange bug didn’t really have much of an effect on my enjoyment of the game, since you rarely need to use the mouse outside of crafting and upgrading abilities anyway, and the moment you leave the UI and your mouse disappears, the frame rate tends to shoot back up. While I am far from a technical expert on the matter, the issue feels like it might have something to do with how the mouse is being rendered. These dips in the frame rate are basically non-existent just about anywhere else in the game.

Generally speaking, the PC release of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is a big step up—not just from the state of the PC port of The Last of Us Part 1, but also the more recent PC release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Aside from the minor bug involving frame rates dropping in UIs with a mouse, there hasn’t really been much to complain about. Even the controls have transferred over to mouse and keyboard quite well, with the minute-to-minute gameplay involving both stealth as well as action feeling better than ever. The fact that the title is also Steam Deck Verified is definitely a sweet cherry on top of an already-excellent sundae.

"Even the controls have transferred over to mouse and keyboard quite well"

When it comes to the game itself, even five years after its original release, The Last of Us Part 2 can still be considered a certified masterpiece. The game tells an incredible, epic tale of how the cycle of violence tends to hurt those closest to you, and how revenge is ultimately never really worth it. It also does an incredible number of smaller things to make sure that the overall narrative hits hard.

The narrative trick here has been executed incredibly well; while you start off the game hating Abby as a character and spend quite a bit of time as Ellie in her quest for revenge, the script is essentially flipped at one point. You go back in time and take on the role of Abby, and you start to learn why she did the things that kicked off the plot of the game. You also get to see just how horrifying Ellie’s actions have been from an outside perspective, with her kill count getting higher and higher as you progress through the game.

Interestingly, while many players will appreciate Ellie largely because they grew attached to her thanks to the events of the first game, in The Last of Us Part 2, I found Abby’s parts to be much more fun from a gameplay standpoint. While both characters play the same (albeit with separate upgrade paths and weapons), Abby’s gameplay felt a lot more interesting because of the kinds of enemies you get to take on, thanks to some of the best boss fights that Naughty Dog has ever made.

"You also get to see just how horrifying Ellie’s actions have been from an outside perspective"

I also have to make special mention for one of the strangest encounters in the entire game: the Rat King. Feeling like an enemy straight out of a Resident Evil game, the Rat King is an amalgamation of incredibly strong cordyceps infected enemies, including clickers, stalkers, and even a bloater. The entire encounter is an intense one, forcing you to use up just about every resource you can to take it down. In a fun twist, players also experience a separate battle against a stalker that broke off from the Rat King during your fight with it. The whole fight, along with others you get to encounter as Abby, such as the memorable ones against Tommy and Ellie, are some of the highlights of the entire game, really showcasing how well its intense action gameplay works.

The core story of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is excellent, but special mention has to go to its gameplay. The general gunplay and stealth both feel so good to use in the game, that the Remastered release on the PS5 brought with it an entirely new game mode with it in the form of No Return. Essentially a roguelite mode that allows players to fully experience the depth of The Last of Us Part 2’s stealth and combat mechanics, No Return has been a generally great addition since its debut. The PC release brings in some more content for the mode, including new playable characters like Marlene. The mode continues to be an excellent way to re-experience the downright fantastic gameplay of The Last of Us Part 2.

The Last of Us Part 2’s story choices remain divisive to this day, but regardless of where you stand, its gameplay is undeniably top-notch. Playing it on a high-end PC with excellent performance makes this version the definitive way to experience the game.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Taking to Twitter, Naughty Dog announced that The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered will be officially Steam Deck Verified on launch, which means the game is fully optimized for the portable device. Many guessed (or hoped, at least) that this would be the case, especially after the action-adventure title’s PC requirements were revealed earlier this month, but it’s good to have confirmation, at the very least.

The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered launches for PC on April 3. It will also feature new content for the roguelike mode No Return, which will also be released for free for the game’s PS5 version on the same day.

The Last of Us Part II Remastered for PC is officially Steam Deck Verified ahead of its release on April 3! 🎮✅

Pre-purchase now: https://t.co/p2tDhmSdGa pic.twitter.com/3AnnTIvE3G

— Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) March 31, 2025

Ahead of the game’s imminent PC release, Naughty Dog, along with Iron Galaxy Studios and Nixxes Software – both of whom are providing development support for the upcoming port – recently released new details on what players can expect from the game’s newest release. Details have as such emerged on The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered’s PC-specific features, the tech it will boast under the hood, the new content it will bring to the table, and more. Here, we’re going to go over all of that and more.

TECH AND VISUAL ENHANCEMENTS

Naughty Dog is promising plenty of improvements and platform specific technical features with The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered’s PC release. For starters, upscaling and frame generation will be available through support for DLSS 4 and AMD’s FSR 3.1 and 4. And that won’t be the end of technical and visual enhancements, of course. In addition to native 4K and 3D audio support, the game will also allow players to play with 21:9 ultra wide resolution and 32:9 super ultra wide resolution. Support for 48:9 resolution and triple monitor setups is also confirmed, for those who want to really go all out. Players can additionally also expect uncapped frame rates, frame rate cap options, and VSync support.

MORE PC FEATURES

We’re not done yet with The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered’s PC enhancements and tech upgrades, with plenty still left to talk about. As you’d expect, graphics options will allow plenty of customizability, and players will be able to adjust ambient occlusion, texture quality, reflections quality, LOD distance range, shadow quality, and volumetric quality, and other things. Naughty Dog has explicitly said the port has “been developed with features designed specifically for PC,” so you wouldn’t be blamed for having high expectations in this department.

CONTROLS

On PC, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered will obviously be playable with a DualSense controller, which means you can expect support for the controller’s adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, and other features, just like last year’s PS5 release. On top of that, as you’d expect, full support is also confirmed for keyboard and mouse controls. Players can expect fully remappable controls, as well as primary and secondary binding options. Best of all, the game will also tout an adaptive mode that will let you combine controller and keyboard inputs.

FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS

Beyond the major tech features and enhancements that we have discussed so far, The Last of Us Part 2’a PC port will have other, smaller (yet still welcome) improvements to speak of as well. Naughty Dog is promising a host of bug fixe, a handful of other quality of life improvements, and “various improvements to offer as smooth a play experience as possible”. Meanwhile, the developer also says the game will also be compatible with handheld gaming PCs, though Steam Deck verification hasn’t yet been officially confirmed. That said, the port’s surprisingly modest PC requirements (which we will get to in a bit) would certainly suggest that optimization for Valve’s device shouldn’t be an issue.

NEW NO RETURN CHARACTERS

When The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, launched last year, it added a major new mode in the form of the roguelike No Return, which has become something of a fan favourite. It’s no surprise, then, that with the game’s upcoming PC release, Naughty Dog is taking the opportunity to add new No Return content as well. Where its roster of characters is concerned, that will mean two new characters to play as, in the form of Bill and Marlene, both from the first game. Bill can use his smuggling skills by nabbing shotguns from dead drops and getting double rewards from regular drops, and he’ll also be stronger against melee attacks, though he won’t have dodging abilities. Marlene, on the other hand, can use a custom assault rifle, new gambits, and more.

NEW NO RETURN MAPS

In addition to new characters, with its PC port, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is also adding four new maps for players to check out, each a location from the single player campaign. There’s Overlook, which, well, overlooks the city of Seattle, and will have plenty of verticality. There’s the fan favourite location Hillcrest, a neighbourhood with several dilapidated buildings, overgrown streets, abundant hiding places, and plenty of room for carnage. There’s also an abandoned elementary school, as well as Neat, a particularly dangerous spot that Abby braves in the campaign.

MINIMUM AND RECOMMENDED REQUIREMENTS

The full system requirements for The Last of Us Part 2’s PC version have also been revealed, and at least on the lower settings, they’re pretty modest, all things considered. On minimum settings, for instance, to run the game at 720p and 30 FPS, you will need either an i3-8100 or a Ryzen 3 1300X, along with either a GeForce GTX 1650 or a Radeon RX 5500XT. Meanwhile, on recommended settings, for 1080p and 60 FPS gameplay, you’ll need either an i5-8600 or a Ryzen 5 3600, alongside either a GeForce RTX 3060 or a Radeon RX 5700.

HIGH AND VERY HIGH REQUIREMENTS

For those who want to play The Last of Us Part 2 on the higher settings on PC, higher setups will also be available. High requirements will run the game at 1440p and 60 frames, you’ll require either an i7-9700K or a Ryzen 7 3700X, along with either a GeForce RTX 3070 or a Radeon RX 6800. Meanwhile, Very High settings will also be available, running the game at 4K and 60 FPS, and will need either an i7-11700 or a Ryzen 7 5700X, along with either a GeForce RTX 4080 or a Radeon RX 7900XT. Across all settings, you’ll also need an SSD and a whopping 150 GB of free storage. Minimum, recommended, and high settings will also require 16 GB of RAM, while Very High settings will need 32 GB.

PSN NOT REQUIRED

Sony has unfortunately axed itself in the foot with its last several PC releases by making PlayStation Network account linking mandatory, but thankfully, the company has started walking back on that controversial call. The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered will still support the PlayStation overlay and Trophies on PC, but PSN account linking will be purely optional this time. Those who do link their accounts will get some in-game bonuses though- speaking of which…

BONUS SKIN

Players who link their PSN accounts while playing the action adventure remaster on PC will get an exclusive skin based on Jordan A. Mun, the protagonist of Naughty Dog’s upcoming sci-fi action adventure title, Intergalactic, which was revealed last December. Additionally, account linking will also net you with 50 bonus in-game points, which you can spend on No Return purchases.

The first thing I should note is that I had little in the way of performance issues from the game. I was able to largely max its settings out, minus ray tracing, while playing it on an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32 GB of DDR5 6000 MHz RAM, and an AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU. The frame rates weren’t quite able to make full use of my 144 Hz display at a resolution of 1440p, I was still getting well over 60 FPS, with the general open-world gameplay stabilising at around 70-80 frames per second. While performance wasn’t an issue, I did face a few crashes, at the time of writing this review. While I’m unsure of what caused these crashes – I wasn’t able to replicate them on purpose, and even play time seemingly wasn’t an issue – it does indicate that there are some technical issues with the PC port.

"The first thing I should note is that I had little in the way of performance issues from the game. I was able to largely max its settings out, minus ray tracing, while playing it on an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32 GB of DDR5 6000 MHz RAM, and an AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU."

At the time of writing this review, many others still have reported quite a few technical issues with Spider-Man 2, including crashes, video artefacts, visual glitches, and even poor performance. Unfortunately, there doesn’t yet seem to be a hardware-related throughline discovered as of yet, with both AMD and Nvidia GPU users facing these problems. There also seem to be software-related issues, with both DLSS and FSR users pointing out visual jittering, especially with the hair on characters.

The keyboard and mouse controls are also surprisingly well thought out. I wouldn’t, however, recommend it over a controller. In fact, the title has downright fantastic integration with the DualSense, bringing over essentially all of its key features. My personal favourite has been the game’s use of the adaptive triggers on the DualSense, letting you feel just the right amount of pressure for some of its quick-time events and prompts.

With all the PC-related things out of the way, now is a good time to look at Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 as a whole a little over a year after its release. As was the case with the last two titles, Spider-Man 2 also features a completely original story, this time around involving Kraven the Hunter. The game focuses on spending its first couple of hours by letting you get reacquainted with its open world, however, introducing a host of side-activities and collectibles you can start going for right off the bat. Once you’ve had some time to settle in, the game throws its second major set piece at you, introducing Kraven to both Peter Parker and Miles Morales in the process.

Throughout the game’s thrilling story, there are a couple of understated B-plots happening; Parker is still figuring out how to manage his life and balance things like having a job while also occasionally trying to save the city from supervillains, while Morales on the other hand is dealing with a bevy of personal issues, from mundane things like figuring out his college applications to more complex emotions, like testing his limits for forgiveness when he comes face-to-face with the man responsible for his father’s death. Both of these side-stories tend to not get too much of a focus while still giving us some fun, complex character arcs to follow throughout the more bombastic main storyline.

"Gameplay is where Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 truly comes alive, with just about every aspect of the original two titles being improved in one way or another."

It is worth noting that a lot of the more interesting and nuanced parts of the story come from the B-plots that run throughout the game’s side content. There are even hints of a larger story happening in the background, with things like random criminal activities involving cultists trying to brand people or committing random acts of arson.

Gameplay is where Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 truly comes alive, with just about every aspect of the original two titles being improved in one way or another. Web-swinging is more fun than ever thanks to a bevy of new unlockable moves, and even combat gets an uplift with the addition of new powers for Peter Parker. The best new feature in purely gameplay terms, however, is the ability to glide through the city thanks to the new web wings that both Parker and Morales are equipped with. Interestingly enough, while the ability to glide through the skyline of New York is both fun and intuitive, the wings never feel like they make plain old web swinging obsolete. Rather, the wings feel like they were designed to work in tandem with swinging, since you can only really attain the heights and speeds that you’d need to make the wings work by building up momentum through swinging.

The combat side of things has also been given a major facelift from previous titles. Taking a page out of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Peter Parker now gets in on the action of having special on-cooldown powers in Spider-Man 2 as well. This new system allows for a wide range of powers, ranging from sprouting mechanical spider-legs to aid in combat, to more situational ones like being able to throw all enemies into the air for longer combos. Interestingly, these new abilities do make the classic gadgets that Parker had from the first title feel less useful; not only are most of these gadgets much more situational than the new powers, but they can also be easy to forget about in the heat of battle.

"The only downside here comes for PC players: you might want to wait for a patch or two to iron out the technical problems."

When you get down to it, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 ticks just about every box a sequel should; it’s bigger and better in just about every way you can imagine. Even its main story manages to be more impressive, since it’s able to hit some great emotional and bombastic beats for two protagonists simultaneously. Both Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales were tough acts to follow, but Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 managed this almost effortlessly. Even the new rogues’ gallery you take on during Spider-Man 2’s story and side-missions are more interesting, from both the gameplay and story standpoints.

The only downside here comes for PC players: you might want to wait for a patch or two to iron out the technical problems. While not all PC hardware is created equal, and you might have an experience like mine where just a couple of crashes throughout my time with the game were the only problems I had to deal with, it is worth noting that many more have reported quite a few severe issues. Even if you’re one of the lucky ones with few technical issues, you might also want to make sure that you have a decent controller lying around; a fast-paced third-person action game like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 just doesn’t feel particularly good with a keyboard and mouse despite the studio’s best efforts at making a sensible control scheme.

This game was reviewed on PC.

After a fair bit of waiting, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has finally made its way to the PC platform – with support from Nixxes Software. But how does it compare to the original release, what are the enhancements on offer, and most importantly how does it performance compare against the PS5 version? Without further delay, let’s just jump right in and find out.

What’s New?

Nixxes Software has proven itself to be a more than capable developer when it comes to porting PlayStation games on the PC platform. Insomniac’s in-house engine has already been ported to the PC multiple times, in the form of Marvel’s Spider-Man, Miles Morales and Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, and despite the sheer fluidity all of those games displayed on the PS5, they have largely been excellent PC ports.

Spider-Man 2 on the PC platform is all about pushing the limits of what was possible on the PS5, and Insomniac has given quite a few options to enhance the image quality by a further margin. Chief among these options is the flexibility that comes with ray tracing, ranging from options such as DLSS ray reconstruction to modifying the draw distance for ray tracing and more.

Of course, you also get the flexibility to play in ultrawide resolution alongside options for DLSS 4.5, AMD’s FSR, and Intel XeSS to upscale the image. In addition to this, there’s also support for DLSS frame-generation which should help to create a smoother experience for a wide range of PC gaming hardware.

In broad strokes, the visual presentation hasn’t changed all that much from what we saw in the PlayStation 5 release. It’s an iterative upgrade after all, but that doesn’t make these updates any less important. Despite a few major fumbles, that we will later discuss in later sections, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC is a mostly feature-rich rendition of the PlayStation 5 release.

Test Bench Specs And PC Graphical Settings

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 features a plethora of graphics sliders and quality control options that allow users to find the perfect balance between fidelity and performance. As previously mentioned, you can control everything from texture quality to ray tracing distance to upscaling options and much more. Helpful texts appear as you click on any setting which can guide you on what toggle or slider impacts what part of the visual presentation, however, having distinct meters for VRAM usage alongside screenshots would have made for a much smoother experience for tinkerers such as myself.

For our test purposes, we ran the game on a system comprising AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti, 64 GB of RAM, and a PCI-e 4.0 NvME SSD to closely match the disk read-write speeds of the PS5. To put things into perspective, Insomniac Games recommends players have an AMD Ryzen 5 5600, 16 GB RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 to play the game at high settings at 1440p and 60fps.

Unsurprisingly, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 can be a highly demanding game for the PC audience, which has been the case, well, for almost all major AAA games for years. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 flaunts a large and detailed open world with stunning character models and textures. It was a visual stunner on the PS5 so there will always be a concern about whether it can run at stable performance on the PC.

Either way, our PC rig satisfies the recommended requirements so we went ahead and tested the game on mostly maxed-out settings with ray tracing switched on and set to very high. We were running the game at a resolution of 4K, with DLSS upscaling turned to Quality mode.

Comparison With PS5

We compared some sequences on the PC at the aforementioned settings against the PS5’s Quality mode, and the results are, well, as expected. The first boot of the game takes some time to load which is most likely due to compiling shaders to optimize performance for further runs.

Once you get into the game, some improvements are immediately noticeable over the PS5’s Quality mode. Textures are a bit crisper which is most likely a direct result of better upscaling thanks to DLSS 4.5. Character models and material quality seem to remain the same across the board.

Coming to the ray tracing, reflections look better on the PC as compared to the PS5 Quality mode. Additional bounce lighting adds more depth to the scenes, and the difference is especially noticeable in cinematics where close-up lighting helps bring characters to life. Post-processing effects don’t show much noticeable improvement over the PS5 quality mode.

We turned ray tracing reflection distance to a higher setting, and that results in more detailed scenes with better attention to detail in faraway objects. Shadows are also similarly cast at far distances, giving scenes a lot more depth. World streaming works pretty well for the most part, but there are some pop-in issues that come in the way of moment-to-moment gameplay which can be a bit off putting since high-speed movement is such a big part of the Spider-Man 2 experience.

PC Performance

As for the framerate, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC was running at 60fps during some sequences. That being said, there were plenty of dips during computationally demanding scenes which knocked the frame rate to the lower 30s and sometimes even to around 25fps. DLSS frame generation and upscaling do help with smoothing out those rough performance figures by some margin, but it wasn’t a locked 60fps experience.

The lack of a stable frame rate is a pretty big deal given that Spider-Man 2 is a fast-paced experience and the significant performance drops impact the moment-to-moment gameplay. Furthermore, we also noticed a few bugs and glitches during our tests, such as one during an initial scene where Norman’s eyes seemed a bit weird. These bugs and glitches are mostly visual and don’t impact the gameplay all that much, but it’s still worth noting because these issues don’t exist on the PS5 release. At the time of writing this analysis, there are a number of reports highlighting crashes and several other errors while running the game. In fact, it’s something we witnessed as well while reviewing the PC version. Suffice to say, Spider-Man 2 isn’t exactly off to a stable start on PC.

Conclusion

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC can be a mixed bag. While it doesn’t disappoint in terms of PC-exclusive features, it definitely leaves a sour taste in the mouth with performance and optimization issues across the board. Right from long shader compilation on the first boot to unstable performance and bugs, Spider-Man 2 on PC could greatly benefit from a post-launch patch that could fix such issues.

Again, what makes the whole ordeal surprising is the fact that Nixxes Software has previously done similar ports with much better results. However, the silver lining to it all is that fans finally have a way to experience Spider-Man 2 on PC – albeit with issues. Let’s hope that all of those will be sorted out in the near future.

Originally released in 2017, it has been over 7 years since the game came out – but it still holds surprisingly well to this date. As such, the thought of a remastered version might sound like a cheap attempt at grabbing some quick cash from gullible consumers but Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is a lot more than this initial preconception. With this technical analysis, we will be taking a look at both versions of the game to try to understand exactly what has changed.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is essentially an attempt to bring the original up to spec with the visual splendor of the sequel Forbidden West, and the brains behind this operation are Nixxes Software. The team has solid experience of working on PlayStation ports and remasters, and the fact that the transition is happening across the same engine makes compatibility a whole lot easier.

Fans might remember that Horizon Forbidden West was also a cross-gen game, so the engine was already built to be scalable across both generation machines which would probably have helped the developer’s cause by a significant margin. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered brings both iterative changes and radical overhauls to the image quality which we will be discussing in detail in further sections.

Character Models

The original Horizon Zero Dawn had some pretty good-looking character models for its time, complete with a high polycount and brimming with detail. Physically based materials had been used for clothing, and hair physics was pretty rudimentary – but they were definitely an integral part of the presentation itself. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered doesn’t rewrite the story, but it does bring several improvements over the original in key areas.

Character models look much sharper with an even higher polycount budget, and skin meshes look a lot more detailed and realistic than before. These changes aren’t really visible during exploration, but when the camera juts in close during cinematics – you can easily see the differences. In a similar vein, one can also notice a bump in the quality of cloth materials which exude more detail than before.

Having that bump in material quality also gives the machines a fresh new look. Machines have more complex geometry, and it’s markedly easier to make out the individual parts that coalesce to create these goliaths of destruction. Having these higher-quality materials also helps with enhancing reflections on their bodies, which gives a more premium look to the machines this time around.

Moving on to the hair physics, they are quite a bit more sophisticated than before – and Aloy’s hair will appropriately sway to the tune of the winds and fly around as she waltzes through these environments. Hair textures are also finer this time around, and reflect light in a much more accurate fashion.

What’s Changed In The World?

Switching gears over to the world, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered brings plenty of changes that long-time fans will appreciate. Starting things with the textures, Nixxess has updated texture quality across the entire board of assets – no matter how big or small. Of course, these changes might not be instantly visible on a macro level – but if you stop and stare at the finer details, it all starts to make sense. Different kinds of plants and ferns now flaunt finer details than before, and it is almost on par with what Horizon Forbidden West offers. Another noticeable change occurs in how dense bushes of plants react to Aloy’s movements. Notice how blades of grass and edges of leaves can awkwardly cut through the character model while in the remaster – Aloy gracefully swerves without much of this clipping issue.

Another change in the environment is with regards to how clouds function. In the original, we had fairly static meshes that served the purpose but didn’t really stand out in terms of the quality itself. Forbidden West brought significant improvements with the Nubis system, delivering realistic cloud volumes that stand tall as one of the best in its class. That very Nubis system has been brought into the Remastered version, and the results are definitely noticeable for one. Clouds look more realistic than before with denser meshes and realistic movements that help elevate the look of the environment in the remaster.

Moving over to the lighting, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered has updated the lighting system which results in a lot more accurate reflections this time around. The original majorly relied on precalculated lighting for different times of day, and while the implementation hasn’t changed, the extra processing power has been utilized for better and more accurate results this time. The settlements provide a great point of comparison for this change, notice how areas that should have been under the shadow are corrected this time around while the original had a lot of lighting data mistakes stemming from the rudimentary calculations.

These improvements also extend to the shadows department, where we get to see a more robust implementation this time around. Shadows are cast by a lot more light sources and are cast at further distances than before, so characters and enemies blend in well with the surrounding environment rather than awkwardly jutting out from the ground as seen in the original – giving the world a more uniform look this time around.

One should also check out the changes in the reflections departments. The original used a cube map implementation which worked for its time but suffered from poor accuracy and low-resolution artifacts, but the remastered version changes that up to the screen space reflections that are used in Forbidden West. What once seemed like muddy reflections have now been replaced by fairly accurate, high-resolution reflections which also update with the change in player perspective.

This is most notable in the water reflections, and on that topic – also notice how the water textures and meshes have been updated with the remaster. Caustics both look and behave a lot more realistically than before, and water looks quite a bit better as a result.

Then there’s the world streaming. Despite having a lot of micro-level detail, the Decima Engine didn’t really compromise much when it came to streaming all of these assets without showing signs of artifacting. Clever use of distant fog volumes and blocking geometry like huge mountains helped to ensure a smooth world streaming solution, and it works just as well as the original with little to no difference between the two versions.

Finally, there’s the post processing pipeline. Light shafts look a lot better than before, and beams of light emanating from machines and surroundings have better bloom effects. Other elements of the presentation such as anisotropic filtering, depth of field, and motion blur have also seen incremental upgrades – though not as pronounced as the previously discussed changes.

Performance

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered on PC offers a plethora of graphical options to choose from ranging from texture quality to clouds quality and FOV sliders and much more. It’s a robust experience this time around, largely owing to the increased maturity of the team after handling so many projects of this ilk. Apart from the buffet of options that fans can choose from, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered also does away with the shader compilation issue that plagued the original PC release.

We tested the game on a PC consisting of AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, Nvidia RTX 3080Ti, 32 GB of RAM, and a PCI 3 4.0 SSD which is well over what the game recommends. We set the resolution to 4K with DLSS 3.0 turned on and maxed out the game. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered performed fairly well during our tests, constantly hovering between 60fps and 70fps with little to no major drops.

Loading times have also been improved in the Remastered version with fast-travel and loading from a fresh save being faster this time around. While it definitely helps that we are loading off of a PCI e 4.0 SSD, it’s also possible that Nixxess might be using Windows DirectStorage options to help speed up the process even further.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is a great attempt to breathe new life into one of the biggest games of the recent generation. It sits very comfortably between a by-the-numbers remaster and a full-fledged remake, and it makes for a great way to experience this classic in a new light.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered instead aims to do more than what its title might imply. Rather than just being some minor visual tweaks and some higher-resolution textures here and there, the game has essentially been brought up to a similar level of visual fidelity as its sequel, Horizon Forbidden West. Even the PC release’s system requirements tell a similar tale, with the remastered release requiring a much beefier system than the 2020 PC release did.

Despite the massive visual upgrade, however, PlayStation Studios, Guerrilla Games, and Nixxes have kept to PlayStation PC release traditions and have released a wonderful port of the game. Running the title on an upper-mid-range PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and a Sapphire Radeon 7800XT GPU, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered defaulted to its High graphics preset, which gave me a stable framerate of 99 frames per second, with occasional dips down to 74. Turning the visuals up to Very High and making use of AMD FSR3, on the other hand, gave me 91 frames per second with dips down to 79.

"The game has essentially been brought up to a similar level of visual fidelity as its sequel"

Interestingly, the game seems to be bound more to the GPU than CPU, and players with higher-end graphics cards but slightly weaker processors will likely find higher frame rates with better visuals. It is still important, however, that the game does require a relatively modern CPU as well, with the studio indicating that an 11th-gen Intel Core i7 11700 or AMD’s Zen 3 Ryzen 7 5700X as the ideal processors for maxing out the game’s visuals on a 4K display with 60 frames per second.

Much like the original 2020 release, keyboard and mouse work well as a control scheme in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, with the minor (and curious) caveat that you might want to disable the double-tap directions to roll option, as I personally found it to be an excellent way to get myself killed while trying to climb mountains. Generally speaking, however, the game has otherwise excellent defaults when it comes to controls and graphics options, and for players that like to tinker around with settings, there is plenty to play around with.

As for the game itself, Horizon Zero Dawn’s original release has been considered by many to be one overshadowed by titles coming out around the same time. Time, however, has been kinder to Horizon Zero Dawn, and it even got a critically praised sequel that also received a PC release earlier this year.

"For players that like to tinker around with settings, there is plenty to play around with."

Horizon Zero Dawn has never been a game that tried to reinvent the wheel by any stretch; it was always simply an excellent open-world title with a few unique ideas of its own, wrapped up in an incredibly-interesting world that acted as a great backdrop to a fun story. The game definitely had its flaws back then, and revisiting the title through its remastered release, these same flaws tend to feel larger than they really were. For example, the game has an incredibly slow start. Miserable pacing in its opening sections set a really bad first impression, especially considering how much more interesting the game gets the moment you’re let loose in its open world.

The game also has a gearing and skill tree system that tends to feel superfluous. In fact, some of the earliest skills you unlock in the game can feel rather ridiculous, since they should just be baseline abilities. This includes skills like being able to do stealth attacks, or even filler skills that seem to be present just to pad out the tree a bit, like allowing you to salvage items for metal chips, or getting more items when you gather sticks. Thankfully, the game tends to be rather generous when it comes to giving you skill points, thanks in large part to its plethora of side quests that often reward you with a tonne of experience points. You will ultimately end up unlocking every skill anyway, so the skill tree feeling weird in the game’s early portions ends up not being that big of a deal in the long term.

The most unique thing about Horizon Zero Dawn has always been the battles the game pits you in against its giant robotic wildlife. These can often be the highlight of the game, and there is a sense of freedom thanks to how you will often have to track down specific machines for certain parts that can only be grabbed if you damage the right parts. These fights, especially against some of the bigger machines, can often feel like they were taken right out of Monster Hunter World, albeit with a much more simplistic combat system.

"Horizon Zero Dawn has never been a game that tried to reinvent the wheel by any stretch"

It’s a shame that the story of Horizon Zero Dawn often pits you against opposing humans, since these fights never feel as fun or engaging as when you’re taking on a machine. In fact, fights against humans are where some of the title’s most glaring weaknesses get the biggest spotlight; the melee combat system is laughably simplistic. Some humans tend to die in just a single headshot, which means the bow is the be-all-end-all of combat there, while machines can often have you weaving different weapons from throughout your arsenal, laying traps with the Tripcaster, or even getting in a few whacks with your staff.

Speaking of which, the story is rather excellent, telling the tale of not only protagonist Aloy, but of the world as a whole. There are several questions raised throughout the game’s runtime, ranging from why there are robot dinosaurs all over the place, what happened to humanity, and even about the mysteries surrounding Aloy. The world-building is especially well done, and there is a lot of extra details about the mysterious lands of Horizon Zero Dawn hidden away into collectibles that are up for grabs for players that might want to put in the extra effort.

Despite these weaknesses, however, Horizon Zero Dawn is still an incredibly fun game, thanks to its wonderful world and story that, while sometimes poorly paced, has a great payoff at the end, and sets things up wonderfully for a great sequel. It certainly helps the case for Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, then, that it’s essentially the definitive way to experience the game thanks to its enhanced visuals.

This game was reviewed on PC.