When Microsoft began sharing its first-party exclusives for release on PlayStation, it wasn’t anticipated that the PS5 would offer a superior experience than on Xbox consoles.
However, that might be the case when Machine Games’ Indiana Jones and the Great Circle arrives on the PS5 and PS5 Pro next week. And the big news is in… on the Pro console you’ll get native 4K gaming with advanced ray tracing.
In a post on the PlayStation Blog, developer MachineGames detailed how it is making use of the standard PS5 and PS5 Pro hardware to deliver the best possible experience for gamers.
For starters, the game will benefit from “lightning fast loading”, run at a “stable 60 FPS with high quality resolution”. The latter at least matches the Xbox Series X/S experience with Digital Foundry commenting in December that “the frame-rate is virtually unwavering at 60fps during actual gameplay on both Series X and Series S.”
Whether the game can maintain that stable 60 FPS frame rate while pushing beyond a resolution of 1080p on PS5 or PS5 Pro remains to be seen. It’ll be interesting to see whether the frame rate can remain high at 4K resolution with the top ray tracing settings enabled.
MachineGames is making “extensive user of the PlayStation 5’s ray-tracing capabilities” on both base and Pro consoles.
“The global illumination system allows for greater detail and quality as well as more realistic and dynamic lighting throughout the world,” Machine Games said. It’s not clear whether the use of “greater” here means greater than Xbox.
As we mentioned above, if you have spring for a PS5 Pro console, you’ll get native 4K resolution and “advanced” ray tracing as well as higher and consistent frame-rates. The game carries the PlayStation Pro enhanced label, suggesting its highly likely to eclipse Xbox Series X-level performance.
“Playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at a native 4K resolution really is the best way to appreciate the level of detail the team at MachineGames has poured into every corner of the world,” says Production Director John Jennings.
“You could spend hours just walking around the different environments admiring every little thing, from each artefact in Marshall College’s impressive collection to the verdant beauty of Sukhothai’s jungles.”
He added: “We’ve worked hard to ensure our use of the PlayStation 5’s suite of features directly benefits you and the game.”
Furthermore, there are DualSense controller-based enhancements like access to haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, while the Lightbar relates to Indy’s in-game status too. The blog adds that “when you enter combat, the LED light around the touchpad will turn yellow, or pulse yellow if the NPCs are searching for you. If your health gets low, the light will pulse red until you heal up. Using a consumable to restore health like food or a bandage will turn the light green for a few seconds.”
Opinion
My Xbox Series X is fast becoming one of my most regretted tech buys ever. I knew I’d backed the wrong horse when Microsoft’s line-up of exclusives paled in comparison to the PS5.
But when those games started arriving on PS5 anyway it just rubbed salt into the wound. Now the Indy experience is looking like it’ll be better overall on PS5? I feel like I’ve been had.
