Hot on the heels of Sony’s recent PlayStation 4 powered PSVR VR headset Launch, the next, more powerful iteration of the PS4 console will launch on November 10th and Sony have announced the games set to feature ‘Pro’ enhancements, including 13 for PlayStation VR.
It was once the case that console gamers had to wait for a new generation of their favourite games platform before seeing evolution in visual fidelity, but with the appetite from consumers and console businesses to see a longer cycle for each generation, both Sony and Microsoft are moving to introduce enhanced versions of their consoles to bridge the gap between generations. We won’t see Microsoft’s Xbox Scorpio until 2017 but Sony’s latest PlayStation 4 console is launching next week. The questions are: How will games developers choose to utilise that extra processing power and how will VR users stand to benefit?
Ahead of launch, Sony have now announced a list of titles which will sport PS4 Pro enhancements and for those PSVR owners contemplating the jump to Pro, that list includes an encouraging number of VR titles.
Of the 45 titles announced to appear for the PS4 Pro before the end of the year (see full list at the bottom of this article), the following either sport PSVR-enabled features or built for Sony’s VR headset from the ground up.
- Battlezone
- Bound
- Call of Cuty: Infinite Warfare
- DriveClub VR
- PlayStation VR Worlds
- Rez Infinite
- RIGS Mechanized Combat League
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Robinson: The Journey
- Super Stardust Ultra
- The Playroom VR
- Thumper
- Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
Again, precisely how these titles will be enhanced for PSVR is not yet clear. However, with the big selling point for the PS4 Pro being its ability to push existing titles at UHD / 4k resolution (see caveat for this below however), the hope is that super sampling will be employed on some games. One of the single biggest visual enhancements you can make to VR titles across the board, super sampling renders each frame at a higher resolution before down sampling to the headset’s native (in this case 1080p) resolution, reducing jaggies and improving perceived detail. We do know from the PlayStation Pro’s launch that this is a likely prospect with at least some titles, with PSVR title Farpoint (intriguingly absent from the announced list) being demonstrated with, as Sony’s Mark Cerny stated at the console’s unveiling, a “crisper image”.
The PlayStation 4 Pro sports an enhanced SoC (system on chip) from AMD boasting an enhanced GPU and slightly higher CPU clock rate, all said to increase the console’s peak rendering throughput to 4.2 Teraflops, compared with the original PS4’s (and now PS4 Slim’s) 1.84 Teraflops. This means that although the new console isn’t too far removed from its predecessors’ core CPU architecture, its pixel-pushing grunt is significantly enhanced. Despite all this, it’s thought that the majority of games enhanced for PS4 Pro won’t hit the ‘true 4k’ resolution found in new UltraHD TVs (3840 x 2160), instead using clever rendering techniques to closely approximate it. Despite this, there’s clearly more grunt for use with VR, which is of course intensely demanding. Additionally, the PS4 Pro will also support HDR (high dynamic range) gaming, although curiously will not include an UltraHD Blu-ray capable drive.
We’ll be taking a closer look at the PlayStation 4 Pro when the console launches on November 10th for $399 / 399 EUR / £349. In the mean time, here’s the full list of titles expected to receive PS4 Pro enhancements this year.
- Battlefield 1
- Battlezone
- Bound
- Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3
- Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
- Dishonored 2
- Driveclub VR
- EA Sports FIFA 17
- Firewatch
- Helldivers
- Hitman
- Hustle Kings
- inFAMOUS First Light
- inFAMOUS Second Son
- Knack
- Mafia III
- Mantis Burn Racing
- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
- NBA 2K17
- Neon Chrome
- Paragon
- PlayStation VR Worlds
- Ratchet & Clank
- Rez Infinite
- Ride 2
- RIGS Mechanized Combat League
- Rise Of The Tomb Raider
- Robinson: The Journey
- Smite
- Super Stardust Ultra
- The Elders Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited
- The Elders Scrolls: Skyrim Special Edition
- The Last Of Us Remastered
- The Last Of Us: Left Behind
- The Playroom VR
- Thumper
- Titanfall 2
- Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
- Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
- Viking Squad
- Wheels of Aurelia
- World Of Tanks
- XCOM 2