Black Myth: Wukong on PS5 is fetching, flawed but fixable

Black Myth: Wukong is a formidable sport from a technical standpoint, particularly on PC the place it delivers luxurious visuals regardless of stutter and different efficiency points. The PS5 model of the sport provides an opportunity for builders Recreation Science to supply a extra curated expertise, but baffling design decisions and a few visible cutbacks detract from what is in any other case a gripping sport.

These design decisions begin with the sport’s modes, which are available three acquainted flavours: high quality, stability and efficiency. These three modes appear to supply practically equivalent settings, with related shadows and texture decision, so the first variations right here come by way of decision and frame-rate targets.

The standard mode is maybe essentially the most easy, with roughly 1440p inside resolutions (we measured 1224p to 1584p) upscaled to 4K with FSR 3. This seems convincingly 4K-like in stills, but can come undone in movement – one thing that is historically not FSR’s sturdy swimsuit.

Here is the complete video model of this text, with Oliver Mackenzie and Alex Battaglia discussing their experiences with the PS5 and PC variations of the sport. Watch on YouTube

This is exacerbated by each the setting of the sport – which options a number of transparencies like furry bosses – and dithered post-processing results that make the sport look speckly and messy in movement. Movement blur makes issues even worse, but even with it disabled you may nonetheless discover points with post-processed distortion results on weapon hits.

High quality mode looks as if it’d wish to goal 30fps, but as a substitute it tends to fluctuate between 31 and 36fps – really weird. The frame-rate cap right here both is not working, or is working in a particularly unusual approach.

The stability – not balanced – mode is subsequent, and appears to make use of a 1080p inside decision with out upsampling or dynamic decision. That offers it a softer resolve, with much less seen element and even worse dithering points that remind me of halftone comedian books. This mode targets 45fps inside a 60Hz container, a sort of body supply no man’s land that reliably delivers judder as the sport alternates between lengthy and quick frame-times. The one different time we have seen this is within the really horrible port of Arkham Asylum within the Return to Arkham Assortment on Xbox One X, and it makes simply as little sense right here.

The completely different modes appear to make use of nearly equivalent settings, but decision, efficiency and frame-generation do differ between the three. | Picture credit score: Digital Foundry

Efficiency mode is even weirder, because it makes use of the identical mounted 1080p inside picture, but the picture has an extremely sturdy sharpening filter that makes it look extraordinarily crunchy, with a deep-fried look. Efficiency mode is additionally the one mode to make use of FSR 3 body era, which permits it to focus on 60fps – and obtain it more often than not, regardless of some (better-than-PC) traversal stutters and onerous drops to 40fps in demanding scenes.

Nonetheless, this comes at the price of conventional body era artefacts across the borders of the display, on particle results and inside UI components, that are far more apparent than regular as the sport is working at such a low base decision. Neither AMD nor Nvidia recommends utilizing body era on this method – Nvidia suggests a 40fps to 80fps conversion for a base degree of high quality, whereas AMD’s steerage revolves round an much more conservative 60fps to 120fps use case.

This places the sport in an uncomfortable place, as you are getting the visible fluidity of 60fps, but with graphical artefacts and extra enter lag than you’d anticipate at 30fps – not superb for an motion sport, even on performed on gamepad.

Even on high quality mode, dithering might be fairly obtrusive particularly in shut fight with sure enemies. | Picture credit score: Digital Foundry

Recreation builders are in a position to make use of the PS5’s 120Hz and VRR help to enhance in any other case shaky modes – but that hasn’t been performed right here. Neither know-how is supported, which is an actual disgrace as a 40fps stability mode in a 120Hz container with VRR would supply a a lot smoother expertise than the present 45fps nightmare mode. You’ll be able to forcibly allow VRR, but this does not make a distinction within the high quality and stability modes as a result of the sport would not persistently attain the minimal 48fps mark the place VRR is energetic – and the efficiency mode is both at 60fps, the place VRR is not wanted, or at round 40fps, the place it may possibly’t be activated.

General, the 60fps efficiency mode is one of the simplest ways to play the sport, but not one of the three modes feels properly configured for the PS5, and vital enhancements might be made to every.

It may be attention-grabbing to have a look at how PS5 video games carry out in opposition to PC, and on this case we’re particularly evaluating the PS5 model to the PC model working at 4K with DLSS efficiency mode, no body gen, cinematic settings and full ray tracing set to very excessive. You want a really quick rig for this, so is the PS5 capable of ship an appreciably related expertise at a fraction of the fee?

Efficiency mode is largely 60fps – albeit with added enter lag from body era – but onerous drops to 40fps are potential. | Picture credit score: Digital Foundry

The opening moments of the sport present a number of variations, from extra dynamic and better decision volumetric simulation whereas combating in clouds to extra life like shadows with variable penumbra, longer-range shadow protection, extra life like oblique lighting that may brighten up some areas and higher caustics and reflections in water. Alex’s Black Myth: Wukong PC tech evaluate goes into larger element about why the sport seems so good at its most settings.

The sport nonetheless does look cheap on PS5, but this is one in every of a handful of PC titles that look considerably higher with cranked to their most – even for those who want one thing near an RTX 4090 to nonetheless get pleasure from excessive frame-rates at such settings.

That should not take away from the PS5 model, which does look higher than different Souls-like titles on PS5 by way of its lighting, fashions, particles, animation and character designs. Whilst an early UE5 sport that switched from UE4 within the midst of improvement, it delivers a jaw-dropping degree of visible high quality in naturalistic environments with wonderful supplies and dense fashions. This is one of many best-looking video games that we have seen all yr.

For some cause, stability mode targets 45fps – so frame-times are by no means steady and judder is an enormous situation. | Picture credit score: Digital Foundry

Finally then, the options Recreation Science has chosen for the PS5 model by way of oblique lighting, reflections and shadows all work moderately properly – gamers aren’t being left behind on a function degree.

My issues are extra in direction of the sport’s modes and efficiency. Body-rates should not excessive basically, but the bizarre sharpening in efficiency mode, the weird FPS cap in stability mode and the damaged frame-rate cap in high quality mode are all clumsy personal objectives that would and must be mounted in time. Equally, the deployment of body era nonetheless feels a bit unusual, and the shortage of 120Hz, VRR and even HDR help unnecessarily hobbles the sport for homeowners of high-end shows.

It is clear that Recreation Science has poured a number of time and experience into making a high-quality sport, so I hope that these efficiency points might be ironed out. My impression is that this is a PC-first launch from builders that do not have a number of expertise growing for PS5, as a result of a number of the conventions and concessions that console video games usually use simply aren’t right here. Utilizing UE5 in all probability does make attaining stability between efficiency and picture high quality harder, but there is actually low-hanging fruit right here that would considerably enhance the expertise within the right here and now whereas extra thorny points are solved.