PS5 Pro will be the best console to play IO’s upcoming James Bond sim 007 First Light, and the studio has delved a little deeper into what you can expect.
Writing on the PS Blog, Senior Global Communications Manager Yann Roskell confirmed that the title will take advantage of PSSR2 out of the box, the upgraded version of Sony’s proprietary upscaling technology.
This, he says, “brings a clear step up in image quality”, allowing for denser foliage details and improved character work. “The improvements are most visible in the kinds of scenes that have traditionally been the hardest for upscalers to handle,” he reveals.
Due to PSSR2’s improved algorithm, you can expect a smoother, more stable image overall, with less of the noise and artefacting that became a problem when the PS5 Pro first launched.
While I know a lot of this does sound like buzzwords, the reality is that PSSR2 has been a massive step forward for the PS5 Pro, and it’s received rave reviews from tech experts Digital Foundry across a variety of different games.
Technical Director Henrik Schlichter enthused:
“Upgraded PSSR gave us a meaningful jump in image quality across the board – cleaner, more stable, and noticeably sharper on the kind of fine detail that’s hardest to get right. It’s a clear upgrade for our PS5 Pro players.”
Interestingly, Principal Render Engineer Jon Rocatis adds that IO was able to get PSSR2 working “in about a day”, without much tinkering required. “That’s not something we get to say very often about a piece of new tech,” he beams.
It’s worth noting that if you are playing on a base PS5, you’ll still benefit from FSR 3.1.5 upscaling, but the results will be nowhere near as good as PSSR2. That may not bother you, but the best console experience will be on Sony’s most expensive machine.
Having played the game on a state-of-the-art PC earlier in the year, I’m excited to see how this game scales to all models of the PS5. IO is clearly pushing the hardware hard here, so let’s hope it holds up across all SKUs.
