I almost always recommend a PC version over a console version. You’ll have access to more graphics options, more ways to optimize your performance, and a community-driven support system to modify or fix your games. This is especially true as the current generation of consoles is starting to show its age.
But there’s still an unsung advantage of playing games on console over PC and Square Enix leaving puts this PS5 advantage over PC in the spotlight.
Forspoken on PS5
Starting with the PS5 version, you’ll have access to three performance modes: Quality, Performance, and Ray Tracing. Quality has a variable frame rate that never went below 30 frames per second (fps) in my testing. Ray tracing also has a variable frame rate, hovering around 30 fps, and includes ray-traced shadows, but no ambient occlusion or reflections. Finally, performance mode attempts to lock the game at 60 fps, occasionally dropping to around 55 fps, reducing the resolution and draw distance.
For resolution, the game uses dynamic resolution to try to keep the frame rate consistent. It ranges between 4K and 1440p, with performance mode being closer to 1440p and quality mode being closer to 4K. These resolution differences can also have a big impact on how the game looks.
Ray tracing mode in particular has some significant artifacts as it attempts to reconstruct a 4K image. This is by far the weakest mode, not only because of the aggressive upscaling, but also because of the minimal visual impact of ray tracing leaving (more on that in the next section).
Outside the quality modes leaving also includes a 120Hz mode, but it’s a bit deceptive. This limits the resolution, but the game doesn’t really reach 120 fps. Instead it just outputs a 120Hz signal and uses that to achieve 40fps in quality and ray tracing modes (usually unsuccessfully).
Forspoken: PC vs PS5
For testing, I used a PC equipped with a Ryzen 5 5600X and AMD RX 6600 XT graphics card. This machine is more expensive than a PS5 but has about the same performance. You can watch the video above to see how it stacks up overall.
Instead of the dynamic resolution in the PS5 version, I used AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2) for the performance and ray tracing comparisons. I also left the game on the default graphics preset, which brought up some interesting differences between the PC and PS5 versions.
The PC version looks worse at first glance. The PS5 version looks like it will prioritize textures closer to the camera and use an enhanced version of those textures. You can see the massive difference in the quality of the stone above, with the PC version looking far less detailed.
These enhanced textures are available in higher quality levels in the PC port, but show how the PS5 version handles them differently. In the same scene, you can see how much softer the edges are around Frey on the PS5. Also, the grass is blurry on the PS5 version while it’s clear on the PC.
On the performance front, FSR 2 works wonders for the PC port with ray tracing enabled, allowing the game to run at close to 60 fps. Similarly, with ray tracing off, the PC is able to maintain 60fps when FSR 2 is on in balanced mode, while the PS5 occasionally drops slightly lower.
The problem with PC is frame pacing. You can see how stuttering it is in quality mode, although the average frame rate isn’t far off the PS5. As I will explain in more detail in the next section, the PC port of leaving never feels like it’s going smoothly no matter what your frame rate is.
Another big area where the PC and PS5 versions differ is ray tracing. The PS5 supports ray tracing shadows, while the PC version supports shadows and global lighting. Unfortunately neither brings much. There’s not a huge performance hit, and I struggled to tell a difference in image quality.
It is possible that this is now an error. Regardless, I recommend leaving ray tracing disabled on PC and PS5.
Big problems with the PC port
There are a couple of big issues with the PC port of Leaving. First up is frame pacing. As you can see in the performance comparison above, an equivalent PC can outperform the PS5, but it doesn’t do so consistently.
I haven’t encountered any massive stuttering issues, at least not on the order of Gotham Knights or elden ring. There were a few stutters, but the bigger problem was inconsistent frame times. Even at an average of 60 fps, the frame time would jump from 16 milliseconds to over 40 ms and back and forth in a moment. Worse is the inconsistent frame rate, so the frame time window keeps shifting.
The result is this leaving never feels smooth on PC. Even with FSR 2 available, the game never feels consistent. You can improve your frame rate, and the overall performance isn’t bad for low-end hardware. But even with a tricked rig, Leaving’Average frame rate only tells a fraction of the performance story.
There may be a memory leak Leaving, even. In about an hour of gaming, I went from 6GB of memory usage to just over 9GB, and it was a steady increase. New chunks would cause a storage spike before data is deleted, but base usage would increase.
If you’re unfamiliar with a memory leak, it’s when all of the data that should be flushed to memory isn’t there, causing usage to slowly increase the longer you play the game. That might explain why leaving calls for 32 GB of memory for the recommended system requirements.
It’s easy to show a memory leak, but hard to test the effects. If you don’t have a lot of RAM in your system and you’re gaming for hours on end, expect performance to steadily decrease as RAM usage increases.
Buy it on PS5
FSR 2 is a huge bump for the PC port of Leaving, but it’s hard to ignore the game’s possible memory leak and inconsistent frame-pacing. The PS5 version runs much smoother, even if it occasionally drops below the target frame rate.
The good news is that the PC version doesn’t have many advantages over the PS5. Ray tracing is doing next to nothing at the moment, and while you can get higher frame rates, the game still tops out at 120fps on PC.
Editor’s Recommendations
