Ray-traced lighting at 60fps?
Assassin’s Creed Shadowsis a game with pretty extreme expectations.
How does AC Shadows fare on Pro?
Is this an iterative upgrade, or a revolutionary one?
Running through forest areas, the difference is unbelievably vast, with a generational divide in lighting fidelity.
The addition of RTGI is ultimately a pretty huge visual uplift over the base console.
In a lot of lighting conditions, the PS5 Pro version almost looks like a totally different game.
The upsampling produces somewhat variable results in terms of achieving a sharp, 4K-like appearance.
However, some of Ubisoft’s pre-launch Pro promises haven’t quite materialised in the finished game.
The most obvious evidence is just that base PS5 and Pro look so similar in image quality terms.
Presumably, Ubisoft found that this was a better solution for this game than PSSR.
Beyond the RT boost on Pro, the game has very similar visual parameters on both machines.
Draw distances, shadow resolution, and other common tweakables seemed to be about the same on both consoles.
Despite the addition of RTGI though, PS5 Pro doesn’t get RT reflections in its performance mode.
These RT reflections also suffer from a fair amount of pop-in, which can be distracting.
Outside of the RT reflections divergence, other visual tweaks appear fairly similar.
RTGI is present on both machines and generally looks comparable.
you could notice some improvements in terms of specular detail on Pro from the additional RT.
Other PC tweakables seem pretty similar across both consoles, without an obvious divergence in my tests.
Image quality is also generally comparable across both machines.
Neither is perfect, though both offer a less artefact-ridden image than their performance mode counterparts.
Resolution is similar between the two machines, though some shots exhibited a slightly higher resolution on PS5 Pro.
Performance is very good in quality mode.
The game can drop a frame in some circumstances, but it’s generally a very consistent performer.
Base PS5 offers essentially the same update here, with strong performance as well.
Shadow resolution is upgraded in the quality mode, as is foliage density.
RTGI is in, but RT reflections are out.
Elsewhere, fidelity come in somewhere between the other two modes.
Both are upsampling to 4K, so they produce a sharp final image.
I came away from AC Shadows impressed with the technical package that Ubisoft has assembled.
It’s hard to overstate how diminished the game is without the technique.
Quality mode and balanced mode get more moderate boosts.
In that context, this is quite possibly the most transformative PS5 Pro upgrade we’ve seen so far.
