PUBG on PlayStation 4: a basic, rough around the edges port
Playerunknown's Battlegrounds is back with a new console port, finally arriving on PlayStation 4 a full 12 months after its debut as a timed-exclusive for Xbox One (where the title has transitioned to Microsoft's Game Pass subscription service). Available for £24.99/$29.99, we went into this one wondering whether the PUBG Corporation has managed to resolve the lingering issues with the Xbox One code, and the extent to which the port may have been changed or even improved over the existing game.
Upon booting the new release though, It's pretty clear that leveraging the capabilities of the PlayStation 4 hardware isn't a priority for the developer. Kicking off with some PUBG gameplay running on the base PS4 console, the overall impression you get playing it is uncannily similar to the standard Xbox One version. There's the same lurching performance during packed lobbies, the same ugly stutter going into the main game, and similar weirdness that sees frame-rate tank at the beginning of the session, before swiftly stabilising to 30fps - albeit with periodic stutter. Running some quick comparisons, the PS4 version is indeed very close to the turnout delivered by the vanilla Xbox One - the most noticeable improvement being pushed out foliage rendering in the mid distance.
There is PlayStation 4 Pro support, but the implementation is lacking. There are two key advantages to running PUBG on the enhanced console. First of all, there's a resolution bump to a straight 1440p - the 'go to' pixel-count for some of the least ambitious Pro upgrades we've seen across the years. Don't get me wrong, 1440p can look amazing - just check out Ratchet and Clank or For Honor on Pro - but the presentation here is blighted by no improvement to anti-aliasing quality. The jaggies and moire pattern aliasing are just as bad as they are on the base PlayStation - something of a mystery when PUBG's Unreal Engine 4 underpinnings include one of the best temporal anti-aliasing solutions around. The 1440p presentation is also matched by what look like 1440p HUD elements, which really should have been native 4K.
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