God of War , the 2018 title for PlayStation 4, has finally received a patch that improves it on PlayStation 5 and, similar to what happened with Days Gone and Ghost of Tsushima, which allows it to reach the coveted 60fps.
As already seen in other similar cases, this is a far from marginal improvement, almost as if the last piece of a puzzle finally fell into place. The original version was already gorgeous on its own thanks to its 4K resolution, phenomenal attention to lighting, great amount of detail and great performance. In short, only 60fps were missing, impossible on PS4 and PS4 Pro already pushed to the limit.
Before even facing the numbers, however, let’s talk about an improvement on the “quality of life” front. While it is true that the work of the Santa Monica Studio put a strain on the last-gen Sony, it is equally true that in doing so it clashed with the design of the PS4 and PS4 Pro cooling systems. God of War had become our game preferred for measuring power consumption, noise pollution and thermal performance of PlayStation hardware. As for the noise, above all, it is known that the game made the fans take off at unparalleled levels, and then here the landing on PS5 is suddenly a much more enjoyable experience: a story full of nuances that speaks of loss and relationship. with parents it is much better enjoyed without the insistent hiss of fans running at full speed in the background.
Returning to God of War, then, we realize the risk run by SIE and Santa Monica Studio: risky bets have been made which, fortunately, have paid off. The series began as an arcade brawler with spectacular bossfights, while on PS4 we played a slower title, capable of taking the time to tell the story and characters, so much so that the previous chapters seem exaggerated legends. Perhaps both the audience and Santa Monica Studio needed a different experience.
What we mean is that the series has found new strength, God of War is not a simple reboot. Everything that made the previous chapters epic is back in 2018 starting from the fantastic settings to get to the giant monsters and visceral combat (all excellently rendered on screen thanks to the skill of Santa Monica Studio). There is another aspect that has remained, then, and we talk about that desire to squeeze the hardware that Kratos has always had. Patch 1.35 is very interesting: the 4K and 1080 modes of the Pro version (at 30fps and 60fps respectively, not always solid) have given way to two modes at 30fps and 60fps with checkerboard rendering at 2160p. No wonder the 30fps mode enjoys a rock-solid frame-rate, while the surprise is the solidity of the 60fps one.
Let’s put it this way: in an hour and forty-five minutes of play, only 33 frames out of 378,000 were skipped, and they were all during movies so much that, frankly, it was impossible to notice them with the naked eye thanks also to the direction that uses hand-held cameras. There will be some dips in the course of the adventure, but you probably won’t notice, so much so that God of War in this state of perceived granite 60fps is something not to be missed.
At this point in the story it’s time to reveal the twist: playing God of War in 4K and 60fps is possible from day one of PlayStation 5, this is because, as happens with other games such as The Last Guardian, the code 1.0 of the title (the Gold Master version) runs with an unlocked frame-rate. This is not a particularly good choice and in fact with the D0 patch published during the review period Santa Monica Studio corrected it, but the code on the optical disc still contains the option and PS5 could exploit it, leading to actually identical results. to those offered by patch 1.35.
So is 1.35 a useless patch? Obviously not: first of all it guarantees compatibility with saved games recorded on versions after 1.0 (therefore all), and above all playing on the updated code allows you to enjoy the improvements and optimizations brought patch after patch. Having said that, playing with unlocked frame-rate allows us to highlight interesting data: we can precisely compare the scalability between 1080p and the 4K checkerboard on PS4 and PS4 Pro, and analyze the performance in detail. On Pro it is also possible to compare the performance of version 1.0 in 4K and version 1.35 at 1080p. The assumption was that the bottleneck on last-gen was in the CPU, but the analysis points to bottlenecks all over the place.
Net of frame-rate and resolution, it is the PlayStation 5 experience that shines for accessibility. If you have a PS5, it is very likely that you already have God of War, as it is part of the PlayStation Plus Collection as well as Days Gone (i.e. games that are given away to PS5 owners who sign up for the service). Both games are invigorated by the 60fps, and the advice is to also check out Ghost of Tsushima (which is not part of the collection, however). It’s a shame The Last Guardian didn’t get the 60fps patch on PS5, not least because we know it’s technically possible as we ‘ve said in the past . We hope it will happen soon, but we are also ready to accept that it will not happen at all because the ports, clearly, are not operations of negligible difficulty.
And then, of course, there’s The Last of Us Part 2. What happened to it? Why hasn’t the epic Naughty Dog been pushed to 60fps yet? We know that older games are relatively easy to update, but this may not be the case in all cases. The various graphics engines are not all built in the same way and, to give an example, bringing Death Stranding to high refresh rates was not so immediate (but not even Horizon Zero Dawn), and in short, it is clear that it is not just about removing the frame-cap. Maybe Naughty Dog wants to work on an all and all remaster as happened for Spider-Man? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, we can return to the world of God of War on PlayStation 5, and hope that the sequel will arrive as soon as possible (it should happen in the course of 2021). To want to nitpick we could say that in addition to frame-rate and resolution there are no improvements, but we are sure that Ragnarok will take care of taking full advantage of the PS5 hardware.
