Alex Casey has Sam Lake's face, and Ryan McCaffrey's voice ! The hero of Alan Wake's books always was "Max Payne but not Max Payne", and they stuck with it 100%, it's awesome.
@@BurritoKingdomI don't know who really holds the rights (and if it's even that simple, maybe Rockstar has the distribution rights but not the character rights?), but Remedy have already confirmed that they are making the remake
@@SGSOnlineTV Rockstar owns the IP, that's why they were able to make Max Payne 3 without Remedy. I believe Remedy still owns the rights to the source code for 1&2. So Rockstar can't use any of the code and has to contact Remedy for 1&2 unless Rockstar does a full remake ala Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. Though I believe the remake for Max Payne 1&2 is going to be in the style of The Last of Us Part 1, mainly graphical upgrades and modernized control and gameplay with the gist of the game being similar to the originals, which is why Rockstar had to make a deal with Remedy, since they'll probably reuse some of the data.
Its worth noting, how impressive the positioning of the 3rd person camera is. Seems like its a alteration of fish eye lens, with a flare. I'm used to (and maybe everybody) withnessing a typical 3rd person or 2nd person perspective in games.
Looks awesome on both PS5 and PC! I'd really love to see a 40 fps mode on PS5 for 120 Hz TVs, as a compromise between performance and frame rate. A game like this would be perfect for that.
It is a shame how many sheep on socials are skipping this due to a lack of a physical. Kind of a farce reason for boycotting a game imo, especially when it is as polished as this!
@@machiavelli6996 If you read the license agreement even with a physical copy you only own the disc, plastic box and the rights to play the game, not the game itself.
It's because game is so poorly optimized that it needs fsr to barely even provide 30fps. It's a completely shameful display. I mean look at the shadows, look at the textures. It's worse than Arkham Knight that released in 2015 on previous gen.
Aliasing is terrible unfortunately and automatically makes Spiderman 2 likely to win Digital Foundrys best graphics award due to the genius optimization. Alan Wake doesn't even have Ray Tracing and is hitting sub 20 fps in quality mode. Not a great look.
It's amazing to see what was traditionally only available from offline rendering being offered up in realtime now - technologically and artistically beautiful! Both console and PC look superb regardless of the extras enabled/disabled as you play what you have. That said, seeing the accurate, depth accurate diffused shadows of the the foliage on the PC is kind of incredible! Hats off Remedy..👍👍
@@cube2fox Ahh..I missed that part - was 75% paying attention...thanks for clarifying though 👍☺️ Edit: I went back and yes, your correct. Still though, it will still be a dynamic use of baked GI with all the added lighting passes like reflections, cast shadows, AO etc. Amazing..
@@JamieRobert_ So should consoles provide same quality than high end pc? Imo this is the correct way to make the game to respect all platforms. Keep in mind even most of pc players won't run the game as shown in the video.
@@jcdenton868 Yeah well,people still said this game would be a better release in consoles,which it isn't and in fact the game runs like shit in both platforms.
This is such an exciting time for tech and human history. 20 years ago we went from blocks painted to look like characters to photographic CG movie quality characters rendered in real time, as well as fully simulated lighting that is almost as close to bringing in an actual light source straight from the real world. It won’t even be another 20 years before we create worlds indistinguishable from our own. That’s literally right around the corner, and we all get to be here to see it happen. Exciting stuff!
An exciting time this is a horrible time to be a gamer when game engines are their priority and they all suck. You must’ve not been born in the times when you actually bought a video game there was no need to fix it because the shit was complete. The graphics were as good as they were gonna be and the game was enjoyable all the way through we didn’t have to have this stupid debate This game looks like shit on PC too if you don’t have a 3080 or above games nowadays are rendering rigs that should be useful for another 3 to 4 years absolutely useless. It’s ridiculous that we are OK with this being the standard but what an exciting time huh just an exciting time.😅
i impressed how ps5 stacked up to pc in terms of graphics and lighting, usually, in the games when the lighting relies heavily on rt, devs forget about rasterized lighting causing it to look much worse, but in this game devs didn't forget about regular players without 2000$ gpus and made rasterized lighting look really good, huge respect
All games that have a PS5 version stack up good enough to PC and run great except some messes. And some PS5 games have the best visuals in general like Spider-Man 2, God of War Ragnarok, Horizon FW, Last of Us Remake or Ratchet until they come to PC. That's why I don't get how some PC players play with great rigs on 1080p or 1440p displays when like every game on a PS5 and on a 4K display is better than on a 1080p or 1440p display.
@@weaponcomparisoninvideogam5505 don't focus so much on overall resolution numbers when there is much more to it. Overall resolution does not tell you the texture res and 2 games can be 1440p and it doesn't say anything about the graphics and how good they are and that they are equally crisp.
@@flockelocke2297Do you not watch the same video as everyone else did ? 60fps mode has less than 1080p native resolution, while a 4090 can easily run at native 4k at locked 60fps which is more than 400% the resolution of a ps5 at the same fps, not to mention it does with a higher image quality from using rt. Why people think ps5 or xbox is even remotely close to high end pc gpus and cpus i dont know.
@@hamzashaikh9310 Dude, the avarage PC gamer and many more have no 4090 card, okay? Lmao where did I say it's close to a high end PC? 🤷 I said they are good enough.
I think something that was missed in this video was how impressive the lighting is from a distance looking into buildings. Most games can treat their lighting like a camera does, over exposing the background so that whatever is in close focus can be well lit. But in Alan Wake 2, it brilliantly shows light inside buildings like how the naked eye would. This results in it feeling way more real. This is hard to explain in text, and so I hope I am making sense!😅 Anyone else notice that?
Long time DF viewer- Ollie, love the work you do! - and I'd also really benefit from adding resolution numbers to your videos alongside your reporting of them. That visual component makes it easier to "hear" and process the numbers your delivering. Tom, for instance, does a great job of this in his vids and I think it really helps me entertain the resolution numbers a bit easier. Keep up the great work and I hope you'll consider!
Not sure why DF is on about here but I have to agree the reflections on PS5 are terrible. I honestly wish there was a way to turn them off completely as they are honestly distracting and completely take you out of a game that is obviously going for a hyper realistic setting. PC is definitely the way to go here if possible.
@@Nessmith11 PS5 looks pretty good for low end hardware imo, but as always consoles start showing their age big time around half way through their life cycle.
The PS5 is barely three years old though. I know that can technically be a long time when considering hardware revisions, but I still feel like it should look better then it does.
@@Battleneter I disagree, the footage that you saw on PC was running on a freaking RTX 4090! show me a $500 PC that can run the game as good as a PS5 I'm waiting
Alan Wake II (PS5) *Quality Mode* 1270p (internal res) FSR 2 makes it 2160p 30 FPS *Performance Mode* 847p (internal res) FSR 2 makes it 1440p Cutback in foliage density 60 FPS Good job for a $500 system. Mid gen console upgrade make more sense now. This and Phantom Liberty are perfect examples.
@@Radek494can’t wait to see all these said elitists struggle to maintain any form of steady FPS on their 4080+ with RT effects @1440p or below. Lololololol
@@Radek494 R7 3700X RX 6750 XT 16GB DDR4 1TB PCIe 4 storage *PS5 & SX equivalent PC would cost at least $800 as of today. ** No controller included Consoles are VFM monsters
@@Radek494PS5 is definitely better than any 700 dollar PC as of 2023, but yeah, I agree the PS5 is amazing value for money. Stronger than most PC gaming rigs by a lot
@@numberl6 Nahhh, it is good for what it is but far, far fewer effects going on in that across the board. Very nice consistent / cohesive lighting as well, but just less going on, so it is easier to do that ("easy" not the right word, still very hard!). This is insanely good looking with tons of different lighting effects all interacting with each other.
@@numberl6yeah, but it runs way worse, ps5 can run tlou part 2 on 1440p 60 fps where here it does 540p internal and upscales to 1080p and barely gets 60 fps...
If this game connects to Control and the FBC and the oldest place and The Director (or if she appears) I’m literally going to lose it. I became so in love with its Lore.
It connects, there are some hints even in this DF video: The janitor, Oceanview Motel, the hiss-like surroundings when there are Alan Wake scenes ...etc
Control referenced Max Payne, Quantum Break, and included Alan Wake in a very important capacity (as in he was the reason the game's events occurred) and now this game includes bits from all of them.
I'm 4 hours in and I've already met a character from Control and seen a reference for another one and there is a note talking about the FBC experimenting around the lake that can be found in just 2 hours in. At this point almost nothing would surprise me.
I’ll say this, one of the best parts of current day gaming is all the reviews before you make a purchase. This just made me get the game day 1. It makes devs have to make sure their game is great at launch too.
yep. huge fan of the original game so buying it was bound to happen, but between this and alexs video the game is currently downloading. will be my first ray traced title.
Wow they did an outstanding job with both the art style and graphics. There were some shots that I preferred without RT, but it does feel more cohesive with it on.
@@Masarofia This, not saying that the Path Tracing looks worse, but at some points it looks weird, I find it very odd when devs make stuff like puddles look like perfect mirrors when they aren't, at 9:49 for example, the Path Traced version looks almost uncanny to me.
Type "puddle reflection" in google. On which planet are you living..? Go out sometimes after rain and look on the street. The problem is that so many years of rasterisation graphics of games burn in most people brain and they cant belive that with raytracing developers can make lifelike image quality.
@@C0DERedEdits I think this is mostly because its so much more expensive to do diffuse pathtracing, combined with the fact you get more wow factor with a clean reflection, even if its less realistic. There's some interesting discussion about water reflections in the Spiderman 2 interview.
@@Frigobar_Ranamelonicoexactly no need to expect much from console even a pro the recent leaked specs confirm the same ps5 cpu is mantained just overclocked like the ps4 pro but a new hybrid rdna 3 gpu
The amount of minor graphical glitches and pixel shimmering/aliasing in this game is NOT acceptable - it's quite terrible if you care about stable image quality and has very negative effect on the overall graphical fidelity. Plus, performance mode in motion looks like sub 720p at times. If you can, avoid PS5 port until patched. I am disappointed that Digital Foundry underplayed these issues.
Yeah, I'm guessing the earlier build they tested was better, but the current one I'm playing now is definitely unacceptable. Saga's story is littered with jank animations and frame drops that feel like 20fps or lower. Any time there are weather effects like wind or rain, it tanks considerably. Even the safe havens of light drop the frames like crazy when you walk around in their general area. Alan's story feels more stable, but he's got some really janky animations too, especially when opening doors. I don't recall seeing these bad animations in earlier streams of the game on PS5, so maybe these quick patches they keep rolling out are doing more harm than good. I kinda hope Digital Foundry takes another look at the more current build of this game because this review doesn't reflect the current state of this on PS5.
@@BoobTubeMikeyI played DayOne 80% of the game before the patches... in fact, I noticed more bugs after the update... at the beginning it was perfect... Good thing I was close to the end when it updated...
This is what I expected next gen to look like! More cinematic, more realistic lighting, more film like. Too many games are still going for a super clean, polished look where things look plasticy and flat. I’m enjoying Spider-Man 2, but the character models in some cut scenes and gameplay look terrible and washed out, and it pulls me right out of the experience. Bravo Remedy, real looking forward to this game!
The issue with games today is they're still made to run on older hardware, whether PS4 or older PCs. This will always be the issue. You won't get games maxing out the PS5 until the PS6 launches.
I am so excited to play this - the weekend can't come any sooner. What a year for games 2023 has been - still have such a backlog and there's even more to come😅
I'll probably wait for the next gen of cards before playing it but ya it looks incredible. Also gives times for patches, DLC, all that. I'm always happy when there's this super demanding game that comes out that pushes forward what we can expect in some games going forward (the biggie being CP2077, warts and all). I hope the discourse around this is successfully re-aligned from "it's unoptimised!" to "it's just a beast dude, not every game is for every rig"
*7:19** the ps5 water reflection looks more realistic and immersive than the ray traced Mercury lake* Same goes for 10:00 and puddles like 7:27 and anyone who has seen a CRT for real(7:37) knows the reflections on CRT are more diffused like ps5 and unlike mirror like reflections of modern LED TV's or of the reflections shown in the RT mode
Im actually surprised by the performance on ps5 given how demanding the game can be on pc hardware. Didnt think they would go for a performance mode at all ^^
@@baronsengir187 Because people don't understand how optimisation works and how to REALLY optimise you actually end up dropping support for older hardware to focus on newer, more efficient GPU functionality. The wider the range of hardware you support, the less optimisation you can inherently do for each combination.
How often are games more easily optimized for this gen consoles vs pc? I'm almost surprised by your comment. Unless we're talking about xss of course. That would be a surprise worthy reaction.
1270p with FSR2 upscaled to 4K?? Launch day firmware. C'mon bro don't be like that it looks great on console and LG OLED. I don't have a 4090 so PS5 it is
@@JamieRobert_ dude, not everyone wants a PC nor does everyone want to spend thousands upfront for one ( I say upfront as consoles go up overtime thanks to online subs and games being far more expensive ). And most people are using upscaling now even those with 4090s, especially if they max the games out like this and cyberpunk
Nah ah! 9:03 this is the only scene where the ps5 is more realistic. Would the underside of that coffee table look completely black in reality? I think not, my good sir!
So relieved that performance pans out on PS5 and you enjoyed the game. Here's hoping it will be a success sales wise so that Remedy can keep their independent spirit alive.
Why waste time for a PS5 performance review? PS5 is on par with mid-range 2016 PC gaming. Its a toy specifically designed for young children and tech illiterate dads who dont care about performance otherwise they would get a PC.
Part of why I want to support this game Day #1. Vote with your wallet folks! The game is playable at 1080p low on any half-decent gaming rig. We should WANT PC games to destroy our PCs and be a challenge to run maxed out for years to come. It is what PC gaming used to be all about - pushing the limits.
Aside from a few good ones, this years was filled with quantity over qaulity and bad optimizations. Glad Alan Wake is on the good side but still, overall the year was bad.
Looks like part of the Volocity architecture is being used on the Series X/S evidently proven by the smaller install size. Less memory to render should help with performance imo.
The absolute MADMEN! They managed to get this to hit 60fps on console, that's miraculous. The strong art direction will most likely distract from the loss of finer details, too. Amazing work.
@@zeikjtwould you have any ideas when an Xbox series x version is coming out to know how it runs I have both consoles and don't know which one I want to buy it on yet.
Finished Alan wake a couple of weeks ago, not my favorite game but I enjoyed the hell out of it. It suffers from game design from that era, but like I said, still had a good time playing it.
I’ve always loved the lighting in Remedy’s games, ever since the original Alan Wake. That game had great lighting, especially in the remaster. The original wasn’t a perfect game by any means, but it did a lot of things right. The atmosphere was amazing and very self-aware of the tone it was setting. It really felt like an old school horror thing with just the right amount of cheese. The shooting was satisfying. The story was honestly great. Sounds were great. I think the issues with the game were mostly lack of variety gameplay wise throughout the story, and my biggest gripe was throwing in collectibles during moments when you’re supposed to be running away or in a very intense situation. This was bad design and broke the immersion. Also, dying from a 4 foot cliff? Some silly stuff that was overlooked. Alan Wake 2 looks incredible and the reviews speaks for itself. Remedy has learned a lot from Control.
4:49 - "Collecting evidence had gotten old a few hundred bullets back. I was already so far past the point of no return I couldn't even remember what it looked like when I had passed it."
Any note on the weird brightness clipping or something going on around 3:18, specifically the flashlight in certain scenes, seems to just not go to bright white, and wash out the colour massively. Seems to be unavoidable, regardless of whether I use SDR/HDR, HGig on/off, on both my AW3423dw and a different 4k tv with HDR, and SDR display. I think the HDR looks great most of the time, but the awful flashlight just ruins so many scenes.
I love when DF compares this gen of consoles to PC, because it goes to show that spending $1000/$2000+ to building one for max settings doesn’t mean much now. This is a trend. The PC Master Race is in shambles, and Alan Wake and many other single player games don’t need more than 60FPS to be enjoyable. Hell, I’m good with 40FPS on Spider-Man 2 and other games on my PS5.
@@DoritosBurger Good. Dudes be spending like $1500 for a 4090 GPU, only for it to look marginally better than a PS5/Series X game. 🤡 For that price you can get a PS5, XSX, and Switch with great exclusives. PS5 Pro will make the gap even smaller.
Does the PC and xbox versions support mesh shaders like the developers mentioned prior to release? Will you be covering it at all? Was surprised to see no mention of it
You guys should review the PS5 vs XBSX in this game, as the Series X supports mesh shaders, while the PS5 only supports primitive shaders. For Science, you know!
Yeah because they will sometimes code the game using the least cost path to ensure compatibility. But I wonder because of the performance increase that the mesh shaders provide and it being pushed more so here, if there would be a difference in this game between the consoles@@Crashed131963
@@Crashed131963other outlets have done the side by side an XBSX can in fact maintain a solid 60 fps in the game. Not sure why DF has not brought that up.
Damn, i wish they used 4k video files, even if the game would've been 160gb. Game size hasn't been an (real) issue since the late 2010s so seeing stuff like that in a game so exceptionally beautiful is kinda weird.
This game visually looks stunning on both PC and Console! I've never played Alan Wake but recently bought a 4090 and recieved a code for a copy of Alan Wake 2 so I'm looking forward to trying this out.
As long as you have a 4000 GPU you have access to DLSS 3 Frame Generation and Nvidia Reflex at the same time, which is a game changer. With your standards (someone who would get a 4090), your experience will be mind blowing.
@@JoshuaCBrown I know. The game goes from "it holds up to today's standards" to "take NPC models out of the equation, and this game has the best graphics I've ever seen in my life.". It's crazy how good it looks, but for what I'm seeing here, in Alan Wake 2 it's not looking as good as in Cyberpunk, maybe because of the scenarios we're in. Cyberpunk is... literally a cyberpunk city.
I was worried about a Cyberpunk situation as well with the PC thoroughly embarrassing the consoles. But this looks incredible! The crisp ray traced shadows and reflections are nice but I'm happy enough with the console experience
I think because people see high specs and they think the game is badly made, instead of the devs just making a very demanding game and not bothering to make a shitty version for lower spec hardware. It's gotta suck having a PC that can't run the latest games, even when you have what is ostensibly a great rig, so i DO get some of the anger. But there needs to be some sort of campaign "not every game is for every system"
@@andytunnah7650 Exactly, well said. This is one game of many, many good games this year. Not just that, but like, you CAN play it one day in the future when you upgrade. I had to wait a few years before I played the first Alan Wake because my PC was out-dated.
@playstation719 I think this PS5 version looks pretty good relative to the maxed out PC version. The beautiful lighting and high quality assets and materials are all there. Just missing the ray traced shadows and reflections and a bit more aliasing which I can live with
It would probably be much more noticeable if the backdrop was a City full of neon lights and highly reflective materials. Have tracing seems to make less of an obvious impact more natural scenes
I just played the first few hours. I am really impressed, it’s quite scary actually. I had already 3 or 4 jumps from my chair. It’s like a good horror movie mixed with x files.
Edit: I am a remedy fan and unfortunately when I finished the Game I really thought this IS by far the worst Remedy Game. I replayed Alan wake remastered and It IS so much better. Alan wake 2 Gameplay is dreadful and just not fun to play.
Leaning toward Quality mode as the 30fps seems pretty stable which is what matters, this game is more about graphics so it seems the logical choice as long as FPS is stable
The aliasing problem bothered me a little, as it doesn't change anything from the performance version. Which makes me question whether it's worth sacrificing half the FPS in this case. I'll be keeping an eye on this game over the next months, as I suspect it will get even better with future patches.
@@guilhermeheinen5859 the shimmering issue seems to be more about their whole rendering pipeline, those issues don't pop up in other games that are upscaling from 1270p with FSR, they usually happen when you're dropping way down to the 720p range, but yeah apart from that it looks great, altho in its current state those shimmers are way too distracting, not even control or quantum break had them
Is it possible just to real time cubemaps for reflections, or render to texture planar reflections? They look better than what's on offer. Other than that, a visual splendor with good looking hair, textures, and geometry.
I would rather have approximately aligned cubemaps on every console game. SSR and many other attempts fall short. The work Naughty Dog did with well placed cubemaps is convincing enough that you never stop to question them. That is unfortunately all reflections or shadows have to do is go unnoticed, but then devs use things like SSR and you can't miss them drawing in and out.
As materials become more complex and more and more lights are present, rendering a real time cubemap can be as expensive ray tracing, since you have render multiple times(faces of cubemaps) usually 6(as in sides of cube), so only racing games and games with fully baked lighting do realtime cubemap, except GTA 5(only static objects) their entire rendering starts with cubemaps and even they render cubemaps at 1/4 resolution and 1/2 framerate, only Cryengine 3 natively supports realtime cubemaps without much performance diff..
I also wondered about this. You would need plenty of cubemaps along the scene though, because GTA V and RDR2 had a single realtime cubemap rendered from the players position and was used on every reflective surface; this caused that far away objects would be reflecting stuff that was right besides you, which looked weird.
Cube maps would probably be too demanding considering that it has to render scenes with really high polygons and high density vegetation objects twice, unless they take "time"(which developers rarely have) to modify geometry detail and clever use of hiding lower poly versions of everything in the cube map. Planar reflections are arguably on par if not better than high quality screen space reflections and it's advantage is the lack of artifacting or "halos" around object, but is more demanding and difficult to implement compared to screen space. Surfaces have to be flat or curvy but not bumpy or rough, which neither are an issue with screen space reflections which can be on any type of surface. Cube maps and planar reflections take time to get right, time is something devs don't have, which is why there's a huge push for realtime rendering, no need to spend weeks and months baking in everything, but at the cost of performance and resolution. Dlss, fsr, xess, frame generation were born because of that.
@forrandomsites3336 If you're going to spend 4 years making a game, take the extra month or two and get the reflection right. I've seen better reflections on the PS2. Luigi Mansion 3 had Planar reflection on the un mighty Switch. I know a lot less geometry and doesn't draw transparent objects, but it would look better than this. Textures, geometry, lighting, all tens. On the flipside shadows on PS5 looks to be a 5, and reflections a 2. It just makes the game look uneven, along with FSR performance mode motion artifacts I could see in this video.
I must say I am really impressed with how good the visuals are in this game. Reminds me of TLOU2 next gen version. So crisp along with really nice environments! Enjoying the game so far. This has to be the benchmark for these sorts of games going forward!
The 2018 Part 2 E3 demo gameplay is to me the most impressive stuff in visuals and animations shown to date but idk if it is possible like this on a PS5 and in 60 fps but Part 2 screamed next gen in this. The thing is devs like Naughty Dog could easily show more mind blowing graphics than Part 1 Remake but thing is could it even run on console and they focus on image quality and fps too with handcrafted graphics.
I feel like FSR is just overall inferior to the old checkerboard way. The latter at least provides a stable and consistent image whereas FSR could look nice in some places, but terrible in the others.
Let's be real here; a lot of PC players aren't getting those levels of fidelity either unless they want the actual game to run poorly given the specs required. The overall look is still extremely impressive for the console versions (well, we'll see when it come to Series S, but certainly for the big boxes) and Remedy deserve props for getting them looking that good.
@@squirty131 We've watched the video. You can get this amount of detail and hit mostly 60fps without a few concessions. Doesn't change the fact that overall it still looks good.
@@squirty131Forspoken ran like crap on PC at launch too, but just cherry pick one poorly made game and ignore all the others that came out inbetween that look way better. This game has to drop to 540p base res and then reconstruct back up to even hit 1080p 60fps on a 3070 at medium settings. The fact the console versions look as good as they do given how heavy the engine is, is a miracle.
@@squirty131 I'm not defending a box. That'd be you. I game on all systems. I just have perspective. That said, hope your rig is super beefy or you won't be seeing any of those RT shadows either...
@@carpetfluff35The game doesn't need to run at 540p internal resolution on RTX 3070. Turns out a lot of people still rely on "PC specs requirements"and don't wait for actual benchmarks before arriving to conclusions like they should do. But maybe you were not aware that you can't really count on the announced requirements by the devs, because the game is still running better than "expected" in reality aka looking at benchmark videos and not requirements.
@8.49 the PS version has shadows on the leaves on the ground but not on pc... I hope that's a bug because that would mean this problem would occur in other places. Also where the ceiling and the wall connects right above the door has this weird white line... maybe some light leakage...
The differences may be there because consoles lack many types of ray traced elements that PC doesn't, so they can be pretty different. On consoles, rt is usually limited to reflections, in most games that use some, and to a very low degree. You usually don't see ray traced shadows, ambient occlusion, global illumination, etc. Even path tracing, as you're seeing in this video. This doesn't mean there can't be bugs. Ratchet & Clank did have bugs with the ray traced shadows, so it was better to turn them off on release. It got fixed, but the issue was there on release, and it is on DF to. That said: sometimes people may think that the game is lacking something that is not lacking, because it shouldn't be there if the lighting was more "realistic" in the first place.
It's nice to see good optimization across the board. Smooth 60 fps is commendable effort. Though I guess every new game will need FSR2 for 60fps, that's fine but I would prefer playing it at native resolution on quality mode because even on the video artifacts caused by upscaling are visible.
It's sad to see the PS5 being already out of breath after being released so soon (the covid years don't count since nobody could get it and there were few next-gen games for it anyway)
@@dante19890 Sadly but true, its a great mod. I think it's more to do with the fact that most people don't have 120hz VRR capable oled tv and technical knowledge, that's why it's not that popular, it's simpler this way.
How much better does Quality mode look compared to Performance mode? I'm wondering if it's worth the FPS tradeoff, as it seems the 30fps is at least stable to enjoy.
@@Pingaheimer unless you think looking at water or foliage is a spoiler then you'll be fine. IMO I don't think the trade off for quality is worth the frames. The image quality is lower and the foliage is less dense in performance mode. Runs at about half the resolution. 1440p in performance. Can look a bit muddy. Still looks good. I'm going performance
If I was a PS5 player I would go with performance mode: quality mode sometimes was dropping from 30 FPS and I don't think even console players accept that.
I always find funny when people compare a 550$ console with a 2000$ GPU + 300$ CPU. I don't know how is that useful for anybody, of course it looks better.
that aliasing is straight up unnacceptable for console. it looks like alien isolation for ps5. i was gonna buy this tomorrow but im really glad i watched this, because at this point i think i'll just wait until they fix the game to actually output a clean image. and the SSR shimmer looks awful too. shameful on behalf of DF to give it such high praise with such glaring visual presentation issues
On ps5 performance mode: low native resolution, a lot of shimmering everywhere, frame drops under vrr range, audio that sometimes disappear for few seconds, glitches here and there, bad shadows…very good job remedy 👍🏼
There might not be enough CPU and/or GPU overhead on the Fidelity (30fps) mode, as it can't currently hit a constant 30fps, at least in this day 0 version. So, 40fps mode might not be sensible.
@@Str0b0The performance mode targets 60 FPS. Have something looking a bit better than performance mode and a bit worse than quality mode targeting 40 FPS.
Imo, this game was clearly made with NVIDIA technology in mind and first and foremost optimized for high-end rigs. It clearly shows when comparing IQ alone between consoles & PC. Don't wanna be that harsh on these machines, there are plenty of good looking and performing games on them, but as this gen continues - yeah, they are going to have a super hard time.
But why didn't you mention the PlayStation 5 dropping to below/ tanks to 10 frames in certain areas often. I'm starting to lose trust in Digital foundries integrity. Waiting on an patch/ update maybe?
@@cantunc1469 No, Last of Us 2 is a great looking game but graphics aren't nearly as advanced. All you have to do is look at the digital foundry video of one and then the other and compare to two. The first thing that pops out at you is how much less geometry is in the scenes in the last of us 2.
Batman Arkham Knight looks better than this game on the PlayStation the PC version of Batman Arkham Knight is inferior to the PlayStation version graphically
I am waiting for buying it until they fix aliasing-like shimmering.. I would prefer bit simpler graphics/ less greenery but without that fsr2 shimmer that is very irritating for my eyes. Or a bit simpler geometry and bit better shadows. Hopefully they will patch some of it.. or make version for ps5 pro if it comes out..
I was just wondering why leaf shadows flicking like they did in Uncharted 2 and 3 on PS3. For the first time I do wish to have the pc version. At least my 3D audio is amazing. Every tree stick cracking sound makes me jump. lol
Glitchy shadows almost at Redfall levels (5:45) , Space screen AO noticeably disappearing and reappearing (left of the character at 1:51 and specially at 2:13 behind the counter), a little bit blurry presentation with aliasing, weird mirror reflections and can't sustain 30 fps. I don't know, it seems like a very permissive impression. Overall is impressive at times, but I always have the same feeling with the last Remedy games, that they had to make too many concessions and don't offer a solid presentation.
Compared to a 4090, the PS5 version looks quite nice, I "only" have a 6700XT, so I will be watching more comparisons before deciding which version to get.
@@GOTEEGAMING In theory the 6700XT is better, in practice the PC version of many games are way less optimised and I really hate stutters and unstable framerates, I will wait and see how it runs on similar hardware to mine.
Yeah, games with good baked GI don't benefit that much from path tracing. If the shadow maps were higher res and better filtered, and the SSR was reconstructed better, it would be hard to tell which was which for any casual observer. More excited for path tracing in games with dynamic times of day or lots of dynamic objects like cyberpunk or Fortnite for example (lumen is pretty good there already)
After seeing Sam Lake as a cop at the beginning of this video, I REALLY hope they use him again for the Max Payne remake. It would be criminal not to!
Alex Casey has Sam Lake's face, and Ryan McCaffrey's voice !
The hero of Alan Wake's books always was "Max Payne but not Max Payne", and they stuck with it 100%, it's awesome.
Rockstar owns the Max Payne IP. So don't expect a good "remake"
@@BurritoKingdom I hope the just call it Pain Max and give us a proper sequel or remake. I loved the first two games. I mean Remedy not R*.
@@BurritoKingdomI don't know who really holds the rights (and if it's even that simple, maybe Rockstar has the distribution rights but not the character rights?), but Remedy have already confirmed that they are making the remake
@@SGSOnlineTV Rockstar owns the IP, that's why they were able to make Max Payne 3 without Remedy.
I believe Remedy still owns the rights to the source code for 1&2. So Rockstar can't use any of the code and has to contact Remedy for 1&2 unless Rockstar does a full remake ala Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. Though I believe the remake for Max Payne 1&2 is going to be in the style of The Last of Us Part 1, mainly graphical upgrades and modernized control and gameplay with the gist of the game being similar to the originals, which is why Rockstar had to make a deal with Remedy, since they'll probably reuse some of the data.
The Sam Lake rendering looks spot on.
I was shocked that DF is casually spoiling a surprise Max Payne appearance in Alan Wake 2. But apparently that's not the case, so all good. :D
So relieved this analysis is available pre launch.
Facts
Now I don’t want to buy it lol saves you money
& the PC version also? Usually that's a big sign of confidence from developers! :) It's great to see!
@@CoggleszAlex usually doesn't hit the embargo in time. But I'm sure he's had the game for a while already.
Yeah, what on Earth would you do if a game was bad?
Its worth noting, how impressive the positioning of the 3rd person camera is. Seems like its a alteration of fish eye lens, with a flare. I'm used to (and maybe everybody) withnessing a typical 3rd person or 2nd person perspective in games.
Looks awesome on both PS5 and PC! I'd really love to see a 40 fps mode on PS5 for 120 Hz TVs, as a compromise between performance and frame rate. A game like this would be perfect for that.
I agree. I usually use 60fps anyway, but in this game, with very little combat, 40fps would do the trick.
Yknow I’d bet that they’re working on it as we speak. There’s no way they didn’t think of it
It is a shame how many sheep on socials are skipping this due to a lack of a physical. Kind of a farce reason for boycotting a game imo, especially when it is as polished as this!
@@cbgg1585 because you don’t own the game just the right to play it…. I’ve got the digital and for some reason the graphics are bad on ps5 for me.
@@machiavelli6996 If you read the license agreement even with a physical copy you only own the disc, plastic box and the rights to play the game, not the game itself.
Looks great, but the aliasing seems pretty extreme, image stability has come to be something I’ve really appreciated in this current gen
Because it's sub native resolution
Fsr 2 sucks thats why
Spiderman 2 is impressive. Sharp, 60fps, rt reflections no ssr break-up 💟
It's because game is so poorly optimized that it needs fsr to barely even provide 30fps. It's a completely shameful display. I mean look at the shadows, look at the textures. It's worse than Arkham Knight that released in 2015 on previous gen.
Aliasing is terrible unfortunately and automatically makes Spiderman 2 likely to win Digital Foundrys best graphics award due to the genius optimization. Alan Wake doesn't even have Ray Tracing and is hitting sub 20 fps in quality mode. Not a great look.
It's amazing to see what was traditionally only available from offline rendering being offered up in realtime now - technologically and artistically beautiful! Both console and PC look superb regardless of the extras enabled/disabled as you play what you have. That said, seeing the accurate, depth accurate diffused shadows of the the foliage on the PC is kind of incredible! Hats off Remedy..👍👍
Though the reviewer mentions that the game uses baked lighting for global illumination, which is done offline.
@@cube2fox Ahh..I missed that part - was 75% paying attention...thanks for clarifying though 👍☺️ Edit: I went back and yes, your correct. Still though, it will still be a dynamic use of baked GI with all the added lighting passes like reflections, cast shadows, AO etc. Amazing..
@@cube2foxI’m at work now so I can’t watch. Is the baked solution on pc as well.
@@thepsychedelicmicroscope4688 pc has pathtracing
@@skaterkolesch thanks
Such an impressive looking game
@@JamieRobert_ Tell us where the evil, evil consoles touched you.
@@JamieRobert_ So should consoles provide same quality than high end pc? Imo this is the correct way to make the game to respect all platforms. Keep in mind even most of pc players won't run the game as shown in the video.
@@jcdenton868 Yeah well,people still said this game would be a better release in consoles,which it isn't and in fact the game runs like shit in both platforms.
Re4 look better and runs 50times better
gonna cry?@@JamieRobert_
This is such an exciting time for tech and human history. 20 years ago we went from blocks painted to look like characters to photographic CG movie quality characters rendered in real time, as well as fully simulated lighting that is almost as close to bringing in an actual light source straight from the real world.
It won’t even be another 20 years before we create worlds indistinguishable from our own. That’s literally right around the corner, and we all get to be here to see it happen. Exciting stuff!
Yeah photorealistic graphics and boring slop movie games are the future!
@@treemux8185at the end of the day people just want games that are fun to play, and graphics don't change that.. dont care how pretty it is.
An exciting time this is a horrible time to be a gamer when game engines are their priority and they all suck. You must’ve not been born in the times when you actually bought a video game there was no need to fix it because the shit was complete. The graphics were as good as they were gonna be and the game was enjoyable all the way through we didn’t have to have this stupid debate This game looks like shit on PC too if you don’t have a 3080 or above games nowadays are rendering rigs that should be useful for another 3 to 4 years absolutely useless. It’s ridiculous that we are OK with this being the standard but what an exciting time huh just an exciting time.😅
i impressed how ps5 stacked up to pc in terms of graphics and lighting, usually, in the games when the lighting relies heavily on rt, devs forget about rasterized lighting causing it to look much worse, but in this game devs didn't forget about regular players without 2000$ gpus and made rasterized lighting look really good, huge respect
At 847p yes
All games that have a PS5 version stack up good enough to PC and run great except some messes. And some PS5 games have the best visuals in general like Spider-Man 2, God of War Ragnarok, Horizon FW, Last of Us Remake or Ratchet until they come to PC. That's why I don't get how some PC players play with great rigs on 1080p or 1440p displays when like every game on a PS5 and on a 4K display is better than on a 1080p or 1440p display.
@@weaponcomparisoninvideogam5505 don't focus so much on overall resolution numbers when there is much more to it. Overall resolution does not tell you the texture res and 2 games can be 1440p and it doesn't say anything about the graphics and how good they are and that they are equally crisp.
@@flockelocke2297Do you not watch the same video as everyone else did ? 60fps mode has less than 1080p native resolution, while a 4090 can easily run at native 4k at locked 60fps which is more than 400% the resolution of a ps5 at the same fps, not to mention it does with a higher image quality from using rt. Why people think ps5 or xbox is even remotely close to high end pc gpus and cpus i dont know.
@@hamzashaikh9310 Dude, the avarage PC gamer and many more have no 4090 card, okay? Lmao where did I say it's close to a high end PC? 🤷 I said they are good enough.
The art direction and technical realisation is incredible. Amazing job team!
I think something that was missed in this video was how impressive the lighting is from a distance looking into buildings. Most games can treat their lighting like a camera does, over exposing the background so that whatever is in close focus can be well lit. But in Alan Wake 2, it brilliantly shows light inside buildings like how the naked eye would. This results in it feeling way more real. This is hard to explain in text, and so I hope I am making sense!😅 Anyone else notice that?
This game looks incredible. Easily one of the best if not the best looking game I’ve ever played so far.
You played it on Ps5???
Obviously no@@ItsmeDemon-bp4vc
easy
Remedy is by far my favourite western studio, their games are incredible gifts to us Lynch fans!
@@bryanedds8922 damn, quarterpounder is leaking again. Somebody get the piss rag!
@@bryanedds8922what does this mean
lost highway, my favorite movie! :3
@@paprikayesI don't know but "he" is screaming the same gibbirish over and over, probably a bot or mentally unstable.
Play this on qualtiy Mode and leave the settings on Standard... it looks really good. Turn on dtm if lg oled
Beasts! Remedy are killing it. Creativity+talent can never fail.
Long time DF viewer- Ollie, love the work you do! - and I'd also really benefit from adding resolution numbers to your videos alongside your reporting of them. That visual component makes it easier to "hear" and process the numbers your delivering. Tom, for instance, does a great job of this in his vids and I think it really helps me entertain the resolution numbers a bit easier. Keep up the great work and I hope you'll consider!
Wow! The shadows and visuals on PC maxed out are stunning! Looks great on PS5 too.
Pc 🤡🤡
Not sure why DF is on about here but I have to agree the reflections on PS5 are terrible. I honestly wish there was a way to turn them off completely as they are honestly distracting and completely take you out of a game that is obviously going for a hyper realistic setting. PC is definitely the way to go here if possible.
@@Nessmith11 PS5 looks pretty good for low end hardware imo, but as always consoles start showing their age big time around half way through their life cycle.
The PS5 is barely three years old though. I know that can technically be a long time when considering hardware revisions, but I still feel like it should look better then it does.
@@Battleneter I disagree, the footage that you saw on PC was running on a freaking RTX 4090! show me a $500 PC that can run the game as good as a PS5 I'm waiting
I'm a huge David Lynch fan, and I love how this game wears that influence on it's sleeve so to speak.
Control was incredible. Cant wait to try this!
Alan Wake II (PS5)
*Quality Mode*
1270p (internal res)
FSR 2 makes it 2160p
30 FPS
*Performance Mode*
847p (internal res)
FSR 2 makes it 1440p
Cutback in foliage density
60 FPS
Good job for a $500 system.
Mid gen console upgrade make more sense now. This and Phantom Liberty are perfect examples.
Very good performance, comparable to maybe a $700 PC but elitists will bash the console anyway
@@Radek494can’t wait to see all these said elitists struggle to maintain any form of steady FPS on their 4080+ with RT effects @1440p or below. Lololololol
@@Radek494
R7 3700X
RX 6750 XT
16GB DDR4
1TB PCIe 4 storage
*PS5 & SX equivalent PC would cost at least $800 as of today.
** No controller included
Consoles are VFM monsters
Mid gen refresh is going to help Spider Man 2 a lot also. That game loses a lot of resolution at 60 fps.
FFXVI pretty much needs a PS5 Pro for 60 fps.
@@Radek494PS5 is definitely better than any 700 dollar PC as of 2023, but yeah, I agree the PS5 is amazing value for money. Stronger than most PC gaming rigs by a lot
I have never seen such cohesive lighting in a video game. Wow.
id say the last of us 2 looks pretty similar
@@numberl6 Nahhh, it is good for what it is but far, far fewer effects going on in that across the board. Very nice consistent / cohesive lighting as well, but just less going on, so it is easier to do that ("easy" not the right word, still very hard!). This is insanely good looking with tons of different lighting effects all interacting with each other.
@numberl6 No, it doesn't, never say that.
@@numberl6yeah, but it runs way worse, ps5 can run tlou part 2 on 1440p 60 fps where here it does 540p internal and upscales to 1080p and barely gets 60 fps...
@@krspy1337 540P ? Where 540p ? do you have ears ? He said 1270p upsampled to 4K and 864p upsampled to 1440p.
If this game connects to Control and the FBC and the oldest place and The Director (or if she appears) I’m literally going to lose it. I became so in love with its Lore.
It connects, there are some hints even in this DF video: The janitor, Oceanview Motel, the hiss-like surroundings when there are Alan Wake scenes ...etc
Control referenced Max Payne, Quantum Break, and included Alan Wake in a very important capacity (as in he was the reason the game's events occurred) and now this game includes bits from all of them.
I'm 4 hours in and I've already met a character from Control and seen a reference for another one and there is a note talking about the FBC experimenting around the lake that can be found in just 2 hours in. At this point almost nothing would surprise me.
and that Lake location is the second dlc@@valentinvas6454
There is nothing bar raising about HD-ready resolutions for anything higher than 30fps nor barely Full-HD resolution for quality mode
I agree.... It is quite concerning that the quality mode is not even 1440p natively.. Seems this generation is aging very quick.
I’ll say this, one of the best parts of current day gaming is all the reviews before you make a purchase. This just made me get the game day 1. It makes devs have to make sure their game is great at launch too.
yep. huge fan of the original game so buying it was bound to happen, but between this and alexs video the game is currently downloading. will be my first ray traced title.
They raised the bar so fucking high you can't even see yourself in the mirrors 😂
Wow they did an outstanding job with both the art style and graphics. There were some shots that I preferred without RT, but it does feel more cohesive with it on.
Same. I found some reflections to be way too mirror like in the Path Traced version. It is a really incredibly beautiful game!
@@Masarofia This, not saying that the Path Tracing looks worse, but at some points it looks weird, I find it very odd when devs make stuff like puddles look like perfect mirrors when they aren't, at 9:49 for example, the Path Traced version looks almost uncanny to me.
Type "puddle reflection" in google. On which planet are you living..? Go out sometimes after rain and look on the street. The problem is that so many years of rasterisation graphics of games burn in most people brain and they cant belive that with raytracing developers can make lifelike image quality.
@@C0DERedEdits I think this is mostly because its so much more expensive to do diffuse pathtracing, combined with the fact you get more wow factor with a clean reflection, even if its less realistic. There's some interesting discussion about water reflections in the Spiderman 2 interview.
@@alexatkin For Spider Man 2, they had to reduce the horizontal resolution of the reflections in rough water.
This game just reminds me that a mid gen refresh would be nice. Console refreshes need to find a way to have a dedicated RT processor
Or upscaling processor
Unless they go NVIDIA there's no possibility of a real use of RT (path-tracing) so...
@@Frigobar_Ranamelonicoexactly no need to expect much from console even a pro the recent leaked specs confirm the same ps5 cpu is mantained just overclocked like the ps4 pro but a new hybrid rdna 3 gpu
@@xtr.7662 i know, I was responding to the first comment.
Unfortunately RDNA it's basically unable to properly support RT.
I disagree, With that you could argue every generation needs mid gen refreshes. At that point it's kinda pointless
The town sheriff, isnt that the same guy from quantum break? Am I crazy?
It is .
The amount of minor graphical glitches and pixel shimmering/aliasing in this game is NOT acceptable - it's quite terrible if you care about stable image quality and has very negative effect on the overall graphical fidelity. Plus, performance mode in motion looks like sub 720p at times. If you can, avoid PS5 port until patched. I am disappointed that Digital Foundry underplayed these issues.
Yeah, I'm guessing the earlier build they tested was better, but the current one I'm playing now is definitely unacceptable. Saga's story is littered with jank animations and frame drops that feel like 20fps or lower. Any time there are weather effects like wind or rain, it tanks considerably. Even the safe havens of light drop the frames like crazy when you walk around in their general area.
Alan's story feels more stable, but he's got some really janky animations too, especially when opening doors. I don't recall seeing these bad animations in earlier streams of the game on PS5, so maybe these quick patches they keep rolling out are doing more harm than good. I kinda hope Digital Foundry takes another look at the more current build of this game because this review doesn't reflect the current state of this on PS5.
@@BoobTubeMikeyI played DayOne 80% of the game before the patches... in fact, I noticed more bugs after the update... at the beginning it was perfect... Good thing I was close to the end when it updated...
The quality mode is definitely a lot cleaner than performance mode. I wish performance mode had those smooth edges.
I agree
@@BoobTubeMikey20fps on PS5?? Say it aint so. I swear there are no games to play. This thing just collects dust
This is what I expected next gen to look like! More cinematic, more realistic lighting, more film like. Too many games are still going for a super clean, polished look where things look plasticy and flat. I’m enjoying Spider-Man 2, but the character models in some cut scenes and gameplay look terrible and washed out, and it pulls me right out of the experience. Bravo Remedy, real looking forward to this game!
Tbh the character models in this game still look kinda plasticy to me
"Next gen" should not look like an aliased 850p game
I hope games focus on gameplay too.
@@vandammage1747Good thing it doesn't.
The issue with games today is they're still made to run on older hardware, whether PS4 or older PCs. This will always be the issue. You won't get games maxing out the PS5 until the PS6 launches.
So stoked for this game, absolutely love everything Remedy does, they are top notch at story telling.
Storytelling? Cough...... Control........ Cough.....
@@crookimwho hurt you
@@crookim Yes, Control had great story telling. Especially environmental and all the notes and documents were fun to read.
@@cunt5413control lore is so fun to read, it’s basically the backbone for the alan wake zaniness
@@crookim I'm sorry you don't know how to enjoy a good story and atmosphere, I'm sure we can find kids books to entertain you.
So, is pd5 running the game at low PC equivalent settings.?
Lower than low, I guess.
I am so excited to play this - the weekend can't come any sooner.
What a year for games 2023 has been - still have such a backlog and there's even more to come😅
I'll probably wait for the next gen of cards before playing it but ya it looks incredible. Also gives times for patches, DLC, all that. I'm always happy when there's this super demanding game that comes out that pushes forward what we can expect in some games going forward (the biggie being CP2077, warts and all). I hope the discourse around this is successfully re-aligned from "it's unoptimised!" to "it's just a beast dude, not every game is for every rig"
It's surreal to me even seeing a sequel to the first game, it's 13 years old now, definitely a pleasant surprise
*7:19** the ps5 water reflection looks more realistic and immersive than the ray traced Mercury lake*
Same goes for 10:00 and puddles like 7:27 and anyone who has seen a CRT for real(7:37) knows the reflections on CRT are more diffused like ps5 and unlike mirror like reflections of modern LED TV's or of the reflections shown in the RT mode
Im actually surprised by the performance on ps5 given how demanding the game can be on pc hardware. Didnt think they would go for a performance mode at all ^^
"demanding" in that it demands resources without consideration for using them well
@@mechanicalmonk2020Maybe let's wait a few years and several patches and then let's check the performance again...
@@mechanicalmonk2020 Why would you say that?
@@baronsengir187 Because people don't understand how optimisation works and how to REALLY optimise you actually end up dropping support for older hardware to focus on newer, more efficient GPU functionality. The wider the range of hardware you support, the less optimisation you can inherently do for each combination.
How often are games more easily optimized for this gen consoles vs pc? I'm almost surprised by your comment. Unless we're talking about xss of course. That would be a surprise worthy reaction.
Incredibly gorgeous game. Excited to play tomorrow
Enjoy playing at 800p resolution with blocky shadows
1270p with FSR2 upscaled to 4K?? Launch day firmware. C'mon bro don't be like that it looks great on console and LG OLED. I don't have a 4090 so PS5 it is
@@JamieRobert_ dude, not everyone wants a PC nor does everyone want to spend thousands upfront for one ( I say upfront as consoles go up overtime thanks to online subs and games being far more expensive ). And most people are using upscaling now even those with 4090s, especially if they max the games out like this and cyberpunk
@@lilpain1997seriously, i have a pc but i will always stick to consoles.
@@JamieRobert_stay miserable
Haven't finished the video yet. But where is the series X version?
Nah ah! 9:03 this is the only scene where the ps5 is more realistic. Would the underside of that coffee table look completely black in reality?
I think not, my good sir!
So relieved that performance pans out on PS5 and you enjoyed the game. Here's hoping it will be a success sales wise so that Remedy can keep their independent spirit alive.
Why waste time for a PS5 performance review? PS5 is on par with mid-range 2016 PC gaming. Its a toy specifically designed for young children and tech illiterate dads who dont care about performance otherwise they would get a PC.
Part of why I want to support this game Day #1. Vote with your wallet folks! The game is playable at 1080p low on any half-decent gaming rig. We should WANT PC games to destroy our PCs and be a challenge to run maxed out for years to come. It is what PC gaming used to be all about - pushing the limits.
@@Kubush1touch grass, nerd
@@Kubush1 such bs, it has 2019-2020 hardware.
Says the guy getting triggered over a toy. @@Shvabicu
Looking forward to all the nutty things they will do with the visuals
The long wait is finally over. What an amazing year for games!
Aside from a few good ones, this years was filled with quantity over qaulity and bad optimizations. Glad Alan Wake is on the good side but still, overall the year was bad.
You must be kidding, right?
Yes, RE4 Re, BG3, Spider-Man 2 and now AW2, let's see what more great titles we receive until the end of the year :)
Sorry, for bad english btw
Im honestly surprised how good it looks on console. Another job well done Remedy.
Whats surprise. Ps5 has best looking games on any platform like Ratchet and Forbidden West.
The shot at 8:51 literally had me pause the video and say "holy sh*t" out loud. That looks downright real.
Remedy games are so atmospheric...looking forward to this one.
They need to work on their animations and character models though
@@SM-cs3nt I think the character models look great. The animation can be wonky though.
Looks like part of the Volocity architecture is being used on the Series X/S evidently proven by the smaller install size. Less memory to render should help with performance imo.
Great video - I long for the day a Nintendo hardware can push visuals like this! Mark
The absolute MADMEN! They managed to get this to hit 60fps on console, that's miraculous. The strong art direction will most likely distract from the loss of finer details, too. Amazing work.
12:16 not consistent but yeah
@@zeikjtwould you have any ideas when an Xbox series x version is coming out to know how it runs I have both consoles and don't know which one I want to buy it on yet.
@@TheNiland43 sorry, I don't have any more info about that than you do :(
And on pc they ask for double the hardware power, fucking shot of optimziarion
Miracle? No. Just good hw. Nothing new 🙄
Can we just talk about the amount of Max Payne Easter eggs in this haha. The FBI agent, the chap on the sofa....
Can't wait to finish up the first game so I can immediately hop on AWII
Psss... There is awesome AlanWake-themed DLC for Control as well!
@@damir791Control is a superior game
Finished Alan wake a couple of weeks ago, not my favorite game but I enjoyed the hell out of it. It suffers from game design from that era, but like I said, still had a good time playing it.
@@bcd398 ofc, but every Remedy game has it's charm and unforgetable.
dont forget to play Alans first fight in the Darkness in American Nightmare, the second DLC for CONTROL , and some mentions in Quantum Break.
Oh man Oliver how are you not more stoked on this!? This looks and runs absolutely amazing AND it's good. That's such a rarity.
He praised it repeatedly
I’ve always loved the lighting in Remedy’s games, ever since the original Alan Wake. That game had great lighting, especially in the remaster. The original wasn’t a perfect game by any means, but it did a lot of things right. The atmosphere was amazing and very self-aware of the tone it was setting. It really felt like an old school horror thing with just the right amount of cheese. The shooting was satisfying. The story was honestly great. Sounds were great. I think the issues with the game were mostly lack of variety gameplay wise throughout the story, and my biggest gripe was throwing in collectibles during moments when you’re supposed to be running away or in a very intense situation. This was bad design and broke the immersion. Also, dying from a 4 foot cliff? Some silly stuff that was overlooked.
Alan Wake 2 looks incredible and the reviews speaks for itself. Remedy has learned a lot from Control.
4:49 - "Collecting evidence had gotten old a few hundred bullets back. I was already so far past the point of no return I couldn't even remember what it looked like when I had passed it."
Any note on the weird brightness clipping or something going on around 3:18, specifically the flashlight in certain scenes, seems to just not go to bright white, and wash out the colour massively. Seems to be unavoidable, regardless of whether I use SDR/HDR, HGig on/off, on both my AW3423dw and a different 4k tv with HDR, and SDR display. I think the HDR looks great most of the time, but the awful flashlight just ruins so many scenes.
I love when DF compares this gen of consoles to PC, because it goes to show that spending $1000/$2000+ to building one for max settings doesn’t mean much now. This is a trend. The PC Master Race is in shambles, and Alan Wake and many other single player games don’t need more than 60FPS to be enjoyable. Hell, I’m good with 40FPS on Spider-Man 2 and other games on my PS5.
PC isn’t worth it for the time being. Prices are too out of control so I’ll be sticking with consoles for the time being.
@@DoritosBurger Good. Dudes be spending like $1500 for a 4090 GPU, only for it to look marginally better than a PS5/Series X game. 🤡 For that price you can get a PS5, XSX, and Switch with great exclusives. PS5 Pro will make the gap even smaller.
Does the PC and xbox versions support mesh shaders like the developers mentioned prior to release? Will you be covering it at all? Was surprised to see no mention of it
I'm not surprised they dont mention. They are total bunch of sony shills df.
You guys should review the PS5 vs XBSX in this game, as the Series X supports mesh shaders, while the PS5 only supports primitive shaders. For Science, you know!
I see the side by side comparison of Jedi Survivor and the mess shader did not do a thing for the XBox. Especially holding the fps closer to 60.
Yeah because they will sometimes code the game using the least cost path to ensure compatibility. But I wonder because of the performance increase that the mesh shaders provide and it being pushed more so here, if there would be a difference in this game between the consoles@@Crashed131963
@@Crashed131963other outlets have done the side by side an XBSX can in fact maintain a solid 60 fps in the game. Not sure why DF has not brought that up.
Damn, i wish they used 4k video files, even if the game would've been 160gb. Game size hasn't been an (real) issue since the late 2010s so seeing stuff like that in a game so exceptionally beautiful is kinda weird.
This game visually looks stunning on both PC and Console! I've never played Alan Wake but recently bought a 4090 and recieved a code for a copy of Alan Wake 2 so I'm looking forward to trying this out.
I feel you! I’m holding out for a 5090, but this will be my first game purchase when that happens.
As long as you have a 4000 GPU you have access to DLSS 3 Frame Generation and Nvidia Reflex at the same time, which is a game changer. With your standards (someone who would get a 4090), your experience will be mind blowing.
@@joseijosei Dude, trying Cyberpunk 2077 with a 4090 and path tracing/frame gen blew my mind. It still blows my mind when I boot it up.
@@JoshuaCBrown I know. The game goes from "it holds up to today's standards" to "take NPC models out of the equation, and this game has the best graphics I've ever seen in my life.".
It's crazy how good it looks, but for what I'm seeing here, in Alan Wake 2 it's not looking as good as in Cyberpunk, maybe because of the scenarios we're in. Cyberpunk is... literally a cyberpunk city.
I was worried about a Cyberpunk situation as well with the PC thoroughly embarrassing the consoles. But this looks incredible! The crisp ray traced shadows and reflections are nice but I'm happy enough with the console experience
What did you expect a console being compared to a 4090? Its no contest
I think because people see high specs and they think the game is badly made, instead of the devs just making a very demanding game and not bothering to make a shitty version for lower spec hardware. It's gotta suck having a PC that can't run the latest games, even when you have what is ostensibly a great rig, so i DO get some of the anger. But there needs to be some sort of campaign "not every game is for every system"
@@andytunnah7650 Exactly, well said. This is one game of many, many good games this year. Not just that, but like, you CAN play it one day in the future when you upgrade. I had to wait a few years before I played the first Alan Wake because my PC was out-dated.
@playstation719 I think this PS5 version looks pretty good relative to the maxed out PC version. The beautiful lighting and high quality assets and materials are all there. Just missing the ray traced shadows and reflections and a bit more aliasing which I can live with
It would probably be much more noticeable if the backdrop was a City full of neon lights and highly reflective materials. Have tracing seems to make less of an obvious impact more natural scenes
This game looks stunning. What about the HDR implementation?
@@bryanedds8922 What does this even mean?
Probably no HDR. Hope im wrong but they didnt bother trying to patch it in for Control.
@@esaedvik just ignore them. Attention seekers.
The game had HDR at launch.
Grab the popcorn. 🍿
Grabbed chips
And the flashlight
I just played the first few hours. I am really impressed, it’s quite scary actually. I had already 3 or 4 jumps from my chair. It’s like a good horror movie mixed with x files.
Edit: I am a remedy fan and unfortunately when I finished the Game I really thought this IS by far the worst Remedy Game. I replayed Alan wake remastered and It IS so much better. Alan wake 2 Gameplay is dreadful and just not fun to play.
Leaning toward Quality mode as the 30fps seems pretty stable which is what matters, this game is more about graphics so it seems the logical choice as long as FPS is stable
Yeah like who the f needs 60 fps?! This isn’t call of duty
@@TyrellWellickEcorpAnd after all it's a Remedy game, they use graphics to do crazy stuff they add to the atmosphere, it doesn't just look pretty.
The aliasing problem bothered me a little, as it doesn't change anything from the performance version. Which makes me question whether it's worth sacrificing half the FPS in this case.
I'll be keeping an eye on this game over the next months, as I suspect it will get even better with future patches.
@@guilhermeheinen5859 the shimmering issue seems to be more about their whole rendering pipeline, those issues don't pop up in other games that are upscaling from 1270p with FSR, they usually happen when you're dropping way down to the 720p range, but yeah apart from that it looks great, altho in its current state those shimmers are way too distracting, not even control or quantum break had them
Is it possible just to real time cubemaps for reflections, or render to texture planar reflections? They look better than what's on offer. Other than that, a visual splendor with good looking hair, textures, and geometry.
I would rather have approximately aligned cubemaps on every console game. SSR and many other attempts fall short.
The work Naughty Dog did with well placed cubemaps is convincing enough that you never stop to question them.
That is unfortunately all reflections or shadows have to do is go unnoticed, but then devs use things like SSR and you can't miss them drawing in and out.
As materials become more complex and more and more lights are present, rendering a real time cubemap can be as expensive ray tracing, since you have render multiple times(faces of cubemaps) usually 6(as in sides of cube), so only racing games and games with fully baked lighting do realtime cubemap, except GTA 5(only static objects) their entire rendering starts with cubemaps and even they render cubemaps at 1/4 resolution and 1/2 framerate, only Cryengine 3 natively supports realtime cubemaps without much performance diff..
I also wondered about this. You would need plenty of cubemaps along the scene though, because GTA V and RDR2 had a single realtime cubemap rendered from the players position and was used on every reflective surface; this caused that far away objects would be reflecting stuff that was right besides you, which looked weird.
Cube maps would probably be too demanding considering that it has to render scenes with really high polygons and high density vegetation objects twice, unless they take "time"(which developers rarely have) to modify geometry detail and clever use of hiding lower poly versions of everything in the cube map. Planar reflections are arguably on par if not better than high quality screen space reflections and it's advantage is the lack of artifacting or "halos" around object, but is more demanding and difficult to implement compared to screen space. Surfaces have to be flat or curvy but not bumpy or rough, which neither are an issue with screen space reflections which can be on any type of surface.
Cube maps and planar reflections take time to get right, time is something devs don't have, which is why there's a huge push for realtime rendering, no need to spend weeks and months baking in everything, but at the cost of performance and resolution. Dlss, fsr, xess, frame generation were born because of that.
@forrandomsites3336 If you're going to spend 4 years making a game, take the extra month or two and get the reflection right. I've seen better reflections on the PS2. Luigi Mansion 3 had Planar reflection on the un mighty Switch. I know a lot less geometry and doesn't draw transparent objects, but it would look better than this. Textures, geometry, lighting, all tens. On the flipside shadows on PS5 looks to be a 5, and reflections a 2. It just makes the game look uneven, along with FSR performance mode motion artifacts I could see in this video.
I was sooo waiting for this one. Thanks, DF team
I must say I am really impressed with how good the visuals are in this game. Reminds me of TLOU2 next gen version. So crisp along with really nice environments! Enjoying the game so far. This has to be the benchmark for these sorts of games going forward!
Quality mode or performance?? What do you suggest
@@SomaStoic95 Definitely Performance mode. Much smoother gameplay.
The 2018 Part 2 E3 demo gameplay is to me the most impressive stuff in visuals and animations shown to date but idk if it is possible like this on a PS5 and in 60 fps but Part 2 screamed next gen in this. The thing is devs like Naughty Dog could easily show more mind blowing graphics than Part 1 Remake but thing is could it even run on console and they focus on image quality and fps too with handcrafted graphics.
There is no last of us 2 next gen version, what are you talking about?
I think he means tlou 2 running on a ps5 vs a ps4@@redraw0160
I feel like FSR is just overall inferior to the old checkerboard way. The latter at least provides a stable and consistent image whereas FSR could look nice in some places, but terrible in the others.
Why there is no RT reflection here? It was achievable in CONTROL
These are the kind of visuals that justify top end hardware, a lot of devs these days require expensive hardware but give mediocre visuals in return.
Let's be real here; a lot of PC players aren't getting those levels of fidelity either unless they want the actual game to run poorly given the specs required. The overall look is still extremely impressive for the console versions (well, we'll see when it come to Series S, but certainly for the big boxes) and Remedy deserve props for getting them looking that good.
Yep, the console version is extremely impressive here.
@@squirty131 We've watched the video. You can get this amount of detail and hit mostly 60fps without a few concessions. Doesn't change the fact that overall it still looks good.
@@squirty131Forspoken ran like crap on PC at launch too, but just cherry pick one poorly made game and ignore all the others that came out inbetween that look way better. This game has to drop to 540p base res and then reconstruct back up to even hit 1080p 60fps on a 3070 at medium settings. The fact the console versions look as good as they do given how heavy the engine is, is a miracle.
@@squirty131 I'm not defending a box. That'd be you. I game on all systems. I just have perspective. That said, hope your rig is super beefy or you won't be seeing any of those RT shadows either...
@@carpetfluff35The game doesn't need to run at 540p internal resolution on RTX 3070.
Turns out a lot of people still rely on "PC specs requirements"and don't wait for actual benchmarks before arriving to conclusions like they should do. But maybe you were not aware that you can't really count on the announced requirements by the devs, because the game is still running better than "expected" in reality aka looking at benchmark videos and not requirements.
@8.49 the PS version has shadows on the leaves on the ground but not on pc... I hope that's a bug because that would mean this problem would occur in other places. Also where the ceiling and the wall connects right above the door has this weird white line... maybe some light leakage...
The differences may be there because consoles lack many types of ray traced elements that PC doesn't, so they can be pretty different. On consoles, rt is usually limited to reflections, in most games that use some, and to a very low degree. You usually don't see ray traced shadows, ambient occlusion, global illumination, etc. Even path tracing, as you're seeing in this video.
This doesn't mean there can't be bugs. Ratchet & Clank did have bugs with the ray traced shadows, so it was better to turn them off on release. It got fixed, but the issue was there on release, and it is on DF to. That said: sometimes people may think that the game is lacking something that is not lacking, because it shouldn't be there if the lighting was more "realistic" in the first place.
7:52 That's an example of what I said there btw.
It's nice to see good optimization across the board. Smooth 60 fps is commendable effort. Though I guess every new game will need FSR2 for 60fps, that's fine but I would prefer playing it at native resolution on quality mode because even on the video artifacts caused by upscaling are visible.
It's sad to see the PS5 being already out of breath after being released so soon (the covid years don't count since nobody could get it and there were few next-gen games for it anyway)
Great looking game! 40 fps mode would be perfect here between image quality and performance also would probably solve those frame drops as well.
i’m not sure how these things work exactly but how would a 40 fps mode solve dropped frames if the game barely holds 30 fps currently?
A 40 fps mode is not possible if it can't even hit 30 consistently.
@@efraimkentThere’s a 60fps mode. So it’d be a slightly better looking (less soft) 40fps mode. See Naughty Dog and Insomniac.
Hasnt really cought on besides sonys first party studios
@@dante19890 Sadly but true, its a great mod. I think it's more to do with the fact that most people don't have 120hz VRR capable oled tv and technical knowledge, that's why it's not that popular, it's simpler this way.
How much better does Quality mode look compared to Performance mode? I'm wondering if it's worth the FPS tradeoff, as it seems the 30fps is at least stable to enjoy.
Watch the video
@@heretech7025 Maybe he doesn't wanna see anything spoiled and just goes through the comments like me.
@@Pingaheimer unless you think looking at water or foliage is a spoiler then you'll be fine. IMO I don't think the trade off for quality is worth the frames. The image quality is lower and the foliage is less dense in performance mode. Runs at about half the resolution. 1440p in performance. Can look a bit muddy.
Still looks good. I'm going performance
Performance mode for sure
If I was a PS5 player I would go with performance mode: quality mode sometimes was dropping from 30 FPS and I don't think even console players accept that.
That aliasing looks like dead space prior to patch
I always find funny when people compare a 550$ console with a 2000$ GPU + 300$ CPU. I don't know how is that useful for anybody, of course it looks better.
Are you guys gonna take a look at it on the Series X?
that aliasing is straight up unnacceptable for console. it looks like alien isolation for ps5. i was gonna buy this tomorrow but im really glad i watched this, because at this point i think i'll just wait until they fix the game to actually output a clean image. and the SSR shimmer looks awful too. shameful on behalf of DF to give it such high praise with such glaring visual presentation issues
On ps5 performance mode: low native resolution, a lot of shimmering everywhere, frame drops under vrr range, audio that sometimes disappear for few seconds, glitches here and there, bad shadows…very good job remedy 👍🏼
The shimmering is very present in QM,too.
They raised the bar yet again!
The game looks great!
Finally, a REAL next-gen game !!!
can't wait for Alex's PC analysis !!!
We used to have nice mirror reflections without RT for decades. Not anymore.
Fingers crossed for a 40fps mode in the (near) future.
Hope so. Wish more devs would do this for 120hz displays.
There might not be enough CPU and/or GPU overhead on the Fidelity (30fps) mode, as it can't currently hit a constant 30fps, at least in this day 0 version. So, 40fps mode might not be sensible.
@@Str0b0The performance mode targets 60 FPS. Have something looking a bit better than performance mode and a bit worse than quality mode targeting 40 FPS.
The consoles are starting to show their age here.
They already did long time ago.
@@SOTVT to a degree yeah, but not as much as this.
Imo, this game was clearly made with NVIDIA technology in mind and first and foremost optimized for high-end rigs. It clearly shows when comparing IQ alone between consoles & PC. Don't wanna be that harsh on these machines, there are plenty of good looking and performing games on them, but as this gen continues - yeah, they are going to have a super hard time.
Demon’s souls is one of the best looking games and it’s on the ps5
Seems like a good game to play on 30fps with live action cutscenes also at 30
30 fos? In 2023? Just no.
Hell No...
@@ghostfacen745have you seen the game at 60fps on ps5? It looks horrible
30fps on ps5 looks really good... its more cinematic feeling. A game for it
But why didn't you mention the PlayStation 5 dropping to below/ tanks to 10 frames in certain areas often.
I'm starting to lose trust in Digital foundries integrity.
Waiting on an patch/ update maybe?
It’s very impressive what Remedy have achieved with this game! Console version looks absolutely stunning!
They have done pretty well on what is now low end hardware, I am not sure about stunning but looks good.
Except inside where the anti alysing shimmers like glitter
Last of us 2 looks much better than this blurry mess.
@@cantunc1469 Generally shimmering like glitter is an artifact from ray tracing noise. Are you sure its from anti-analysing?
@@cantunc1469 No, Last of Us 2 is a great looking game but graphics aren't nearly as advanced. All you have to do is look at the digital foundry video of one and then the other and compare to two. The first thing that pops out at you is how much less geometry is in the scenes in the last of us 2.
Would like to know how PlayStation’s shader compares to PC and Xbox mesh shader. Does it effect performance or fidelity?
Infamous second son, the last guardian, spiderman 2 the last of us 2 laugh at these graphics. It looks like a true walking simulator
Batman Arkham Knight looks better than this game on the PlayStation the PC version of Batman Arkham Knight is inferior to the PlayStation version graphically
I am waiting for buying it until they fix aliasing-like shimmering.. I would prefer bit simpler graphics/ less greenery but without that fsr2 shimmer that is very irritating for my eyes. Or a bit simpler geometry and bit better shadows. Hopefully they will patch some of it.. or make version for ps5 pro if it comes out..
Benefits of small worlds and fixed time of day, you can bake very high resolution lighting, in this case almost resembling path tracing..
I was just wondering why leaf shadows flicking like they did in Uncharted 2 and 3 on PS3. For the first time I do wish to have the pc version. At least my 3D audio is amazing. Every tree stick cracking sound makes me jump. lol
It's pretty simple : The low res in both modes produces poor image quality because of FSR.
Glitchy shadows almost at Redfall levels (5:45) , Space screen AO noticeably disappearing and reappearing (left of the character at 1:51 and specially at 2:13 behind the counter), a little bit blurry presentation with aliasing, weird mirror reflections and can't sustain 30 fps. I don't know, it seems like a very permissive impression.
Overall is impressive at times, but I always have the same feeling with the last Remedy games, that they had to make too many concessions and don't offer a solid presentation.
Compared to a 4090, the PS5 version looks quite nice, I "only" have a 6700XT, so I will be watching more comparisons before deciding which version to get.
@@bryanedds8922 only the 30fps mode which is unplayable for many. The 60fps mode looks like garbage
That 6700xt will like better and have higher quality trees and shadows than the ps5 PS5 and series x is 2019 gpus so
@@GOTEEGAMING they have more vram than most 2019 gpu's
@@GOTEEGAMING In theory the 6700XT is better, in practice the PC version of many games are way less optimised and I really hate stutters and unstable framerates, I will wait and see how it runs on similar hardware to mine.
@@rubenthehuman not really it's higher textures on pc too that's and the game is lock at 30fps on the ps5 and drops to 27fps in some areas
But also it's a $500 machine vs what I'm assuming is around. $3-4k machine. V impressive for PS5. Excited to play this 😊
Rather a 1,5 to 2k!
ps5 is $400
$3-4K lol you can get a easily spend less than half that , but whatever keeps you thinking a $500 console is a deal, I guess
@@xBINARYGODx Keep dreaming that a $400 PC right now will perform this good
Consoles have many flaws, price-to-performance isn't one of them.
the graphical presentation looks incredible, best i've seen
Looks amazing for a $500 console, that PC setup could cost like 6-7 times a console?
Nad it's 6-7 times stronger, what's your point?
Rather like a 2k machine.
I was expecting a consoles comparison to decide which version to get! Hopefully it will be released later today!
Me too, I'm actually looking forward to a Series X analysis, as it's my preferred console, not sure why DF skipped it.
The series x version is the best & a locked 60 fps. The ps5 version drops to 40fps.
Yeah, games with good baked GI don't benefit that much from path tracing. If the shadow maps were higher res and better filtered, and the SSR was reconstructed better, it would be hard to tell which was which for any casual observer. More excited for path tracing in games with dynamic times of day or lots of dynamic objects like cyberpunk or Fortnite for example (lumen is pretty good there already)
Indeed. There is no need for real-time GI or ambient occlusion when nothing really changes.