Welcome back to Part 2! Watch Part 1 here if you haven’t!
Performance and load times
With a powerful 8-core AMD Zen 2 processor, 10.3 teraflops of graphics power and a ridiculously fast custom SSD, the PS5 promises some of the best performance to ever come out of a games console. And while I’ve only played a handful of titles that are designed to harness the PS5’s power, I’m already impressed by what Sony’s console is able to pump out in terms of fidelity, framerate and, most importantly, load speeds.
This shouldn’t come as a shock, but games look fantastic running on Sony’s new console. Spider-Man: Miles Morales looked more akin to a high-end PC game than a PlayStation title, as I gawked at the gorgeous reds and purples of Spider-Man and his enemies popping off the screen in 4K. Thanks to the console’s ray-tracing support, Manhattan’s skyscrapers reflected off one another realistically, as did a series of lifelike puddles in a busy Times Square.
The PS5 version of Miles Morales has a special Performance mode, which turns off effects such as ray tracing and uses upscaled 4K in favor of a higher framerate. When I switched to this mode and zipped through the city at a silky 60 frames per second while still enjoying beautiful visuals, I felt like I was experiencing something that simply couldn’t be done on previous-gen consoles. This made it extremely hard to go back to the PS4 version of Miles Morales, which often chugged below 30 frames per second.
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But while ray-traced visuals and 60 fps performance modes are great, it’s the PS5’s lightning fast SSD that truly makes Sony’s console feel next-gen. When booting up a game like Spider-Man: Miles Morales, there’s almost zero downtime between selecting the title from your home screen and being out on the street, beating up bad guys. The same process took around 20 seconds before I could start playing the PS4 version.
Astro’s Playroom is just as instantaneous, as I was able to jump from the game’s main hub area to its myriad vibrant levels without a single loading screen in sight. The PS5’s blazing SSD is also what allows you to skip to certain portions of a game via the Activities menu, and upcoming titles such as the dimension-hopping Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart look they’ll do some truly inventive things with it. We’ll have to see how more titles utilize the SSD, but it already feels like one of the biggest leaps forward in console gaming in quite a while.
When it comes to load time improvements for PS4 games, I saw the most dramatic gains when playing The Last of Us Part II. Naughty Dog’s acclaimed action-adventure game started up more than twice as quickly on PS5 than it did on PS4, and took nearly 30 seconds less to get into a playable encounter from the main menu. I noticed similarly significant improvements for Star Wars Battlefront II, which took about 33 seconds to boot up on PS5, compared to over a minute on PS4.
The differences in load times were less stark when testing titles such as God of War and Mortal Kombat 11, but every single game I tested loaded fastest on PS5.
Backwards compatibility
The PS5 works with nearly all PS4 games, which is a huge step up from Sony’s complete lack of backwards compatibility last generation. I tested close to a dozen PS4 games on PS5, including The Last of Us Part II, God of War, Mortal Kombat 11, Tetris Effect and Resident Evil 2, and almost all of them loaded faster and ran better than they did on my launch PS4. Both digital and disc-based PS4 games worked without a hitch on my PS5, and my physical movies worked just fine on the system’s 4K Blu-ray drive.
The PS5 allows you to take advantage of any PS4 Pro enhancements a game offers, so games that have higher resolution or frame rate modes benefit the most from Sony’s new console. As someone coming from a launch PS4, the ability to finally enjoy God of War’s high-frame rate mode or play Tetris Effect in 4K felt almost worth the price of admission on its own (the aforementioned load time boosts certainly don’t hurt, either).
The PS5 is designed to work with most first-party and officially licensed PS4 accessories, and I had no issues bringing my existing last-gen gear over. Pairing my DualShock 4 to the PS5 was as simple as plugging it in via USB cable, and my existing headsets worked just fine with the DualSense’s 3.5 mm audio jack.
Third-party wired controllers, such as my Hori Fightpad and Victrix Pro FS Fight Stick, also worked perfectly as I mashed buttons in Mortal Kombat. Just keep in mind that the DualShock 4 only works with backwards compatible PS4 games, so you won’t be able to use it for PS5-only titles.
Game lineup
The PS5’s launch lineup is off to a solid start. The console’s big marquee launch game is Spider-Man: Miles Morales, a gorgeous and fun follow up to 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man complete with ray-traced graphics and an optional 60 fps performance mode.
Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a simple but charming 3D platformer with lots of character customization, but Astro’s Playroom, the free pack-in game that shows off the DualSense controller, might be even better. Not since 2007’s Nintendo Wii has a console launched with a notable game included out of the gate, and Sony’s new platformer is oozing with fun collectibles and easter eggs for hardcore PlayStation fans.
If mature action’s more your thing, Godfall is a fun and beautiful action-RPG that feels like a marriage of the weighty combat of God of War 2018 and the deep loot system of Destiny. Want something more stylish? Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition is an enhanced version of the stellar 2019 slash-em-up complete with both ray-tracing and 120 fps performance modes.
One of the PS5’s biggest true launch exclusives is Demon’s Souls, a visually stunning remake of the beloved 2009 action/RPG of the same name. We’ve just started testing out Bluepoint’s new take on the cult favorite, so stay tuned for more impressions.
The problem is, you don’t need a PS5 to play many of these games. Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Sackboy: A Big Adventure are also available on PS4, as are many of the big third-party games arriving at launch.
Those include Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate, The Pathless, Dirt 5 and NBA 2K21. All of these games will be available on PS4, but you’ll need a PS5 to enjoy features such as true 4K gameplay and 60 fps frame rate options. It’s also worth noting that Fortnite will be PS5-optimized at launch, and titles such as Madden NFL 21 and Watch Dogs Legion will offer free PS5 upgrades for folks who own the PS4 versions.
Looking forward, you can expect major PS5 exclusives such as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, God of War Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West (the latter of which will have a PS4 version) to start hitting in 2021 and beyond.
While you don’t necessarily need a PS5 to play some of the biggest new games from both Sony and third parties, you will enjoy much better versions of them on the new system. And don’t forget that most of your PS4 library will come with you — complete with major visual and performance enhancements for select titles.
Apps
The PS5 has access to pretty much every entertainment app you’ll need, including Disney Plus, Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video and, new to the PlayStation ecosystem, Apple TV Plus. These apps all worked identically to their PS4 counterparts in my testing, which isn’t a bad thing.
Every app I tested loaded quickly and streamed reliably, whether I was binging Chappelle’s Show on Netflix or catching up on wrestling news on YouTube. But more importantly, the PS5’s streaming apps are easier to access than before thanks to a handy Media tab that’s just a button press away on the home screen. That’s a nice upgrade from the PS4, which buried all of its streaming apps in a slow-loading TV & Video menu.
Heat and noise
Thanks to its massive internal fan and large vents along the inside of the chassis, the PS5 stayed cool and mostly quiet during my time with it. I rarely noticed any noise coming out of the console, even as I spent hours exploring Astro’s Playroom or webbing up crooks in Spider-Man. I did notice some rare moments of audible noise when running Star Wars Battlefront II, and could hear discs spinning pretty loudly when I first put Blu-rays in the machine. But compared to the jet-engine-like noises that come out of my PS4 when simply downloading a game, the PS5 is blissfully quiet.
3D audio
The PS5’s Tempest Engine enables it to deliver 3D audio for supported games, allowing you to hear game sounds with greater directionality than standard stereo can offer. The PS5’s 3D audio is designed to work with most existing headphones and headsets, though Sony’s new Pulse 3D Wireless Headset is optimized for the technology. So far we’ve tested 3D audio on an Astro A20 headset, and while the effects have been mostly subtle, they show lots of promise.
The PS5’s audio tricks were most pronounced in Astro’s Playroom, as I could hear the rain clearly coming from above me, and could pinpoint the sound of a tornado whirring between my left and right ears as it shot my character upwards. It was also easy to pick out where cars, planes and enemies were coming from when swinging around in Spider-Man: Miles Morales, but I didn’t notice a huge difference between when the effect was on or off.
Like many of the PS5’s features, it’ll ultimately be up to developers to make the most of the console’s 3D audio tech. We’re eager to try more games with 3D audio support, as well as get our hands on the Pulse 3D headset for the full experience.
Verdict
The PS5 is a genuine leap forward for console gaming, offering gorgeous 4K performance, stunningly fast load times and a truly game-changing controller that makes playing games more immersive and tactile than ever. It plays nearly all PS4 games, and, in many cases, allows them to run and load better than ever before.
However, there are a few reasons to wait before hitting that buy button — if you can even find Sony’s new console, that is. The PS5’s launch lineup contains very few must-have exclusives, as PS4 owners can still enjoy major releases such as Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The console’s massive size may also be a concern for those with limited space, and the DualSense controller itself could be a little big for folks with smaller hands.
As with most console launches, the PS5 is only going to get better over time with new exclusive games and features for those who choose to wait. It’s also worth considering Microsoft’s $499 X box series X, which offers slightly more power and works with four generations of Xbox games. But if you manage to pick a PS5 up now, know that you’ll be treated to a true next-gen experience complete with advanced haptics, beautiful graphics and almost zero friction between you and the games you want to play.
(Story Credits: Tom’s Guide)
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