The developer of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is in talks with Sony over the game’s potential support for the upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro.
PS5 Pro, due out in November priced $700, has an AI-powered upscaling feature called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) that can automatically improve the image clarity of games.
In an interview with IGN, Saber Interactive Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits said he’s hopeful the PS5 Pro will improve Space Marine 2 by default via PSSR.
“What I'm excited about is the AI upsampling of the graphics,” he said. “So I have my kickass AMD machine, a kickass Nvidia machine right there. And the game looks f***ing great. But when I play on the PS5, I play performance.”
Space Marine 2 has two display modes for PS5 and Xbox Series X: 'Quality' offers higher resolution, a stable 30 frames per second, and better graphics, whereas 'Speed' drops the resolution in a bid to hit 60fps.
However, Space Marine 2 has performance issues on PS5 relative to the Xbox Series X version. According to the tech experts at Digital Foundry, Space Marine 2 impresses on Xbox Series X and S, but “flags” on PS5. Here’s DF’s analysis:
“In testing Space Marine 2 on PC, it's clear that the game's encounters with alien swarms pushes the CPU hard - and at least as of patch 1.02, that results in lop-sided performance on consoles in the 60fps speed mode. Series X typically outperforms PS5 by around 10 to 15fps, despite both machines using the same settings and resolution targets. The lowest drops come when taking a flamethrower to the encroaching horde, where PS5 drops to the mid-30s while Xbox Series X is in the mid-40s.”
Willits’ “hope” — he admits he’s not a technical person — is that Space Marine 2 in Speed Mode on PS5 Pro will look better than Quality Mode does on the base PS5.
“So what I hope — and it's just me, I don't know anything technical — but what I hope is with the PS5 Pro, with the AI upsampling, that players will be able to play Space Marine 2 in Performance [Speed] Mode, and it'll look better, hopefully — hopefully, I don't know — it'll look better than it does in Quality Mode now.”
It true, it means those who play Space Marine 2 in Speed mode on PS5 will benefit from its higher frame-rate (hopefully locked to 60fps this time, but no guarantees as the issue on the performance side — hitting 60fps — is the CPU limitation) and improved graphics. The game will have a higher resolution owing to the PS5 Pro's faster GPU (more pixels) and then PSSR upscaling (better upscaling of those more pixels).
But what about a PS5 Pro Enhanced patch for Space Marine 2? Sony has said several games will be patched with free software updates for gamers to take advantage of PS5 Pro’s features (IGN has a list of all the confirmed PS5 Pro Enhanced games so far). These games can be identified with a PS5 Pro Enhanced label within their title.
Willits said Saber has no plans right now for Space Marine 2 to join the PS5 Pro Enhanced list, but did confirm that the company’s engineers are in talks with Sony to work out if it’s something they want to support.
“So we're actually in discussions with Sony to figure out what we want to do,” Willits said. “Sony's really happy about the game. Microsoft is happy about the game too! But yes, our engineers are discussing what we can do. We have no plans right now. We're still trying to figure that out. Again, the PS5 Pro is brand new, our game, we're just trying to catch up. So we just have to be patient with our official plans.”
Sony is set to host a State of Play broadcast today, September 24, at 3pm PT / 6pm ET, with news on more than 20 upcoming PS5 and PS VR2 games “from studios around the world.” Perhaps we’ll get a clearer idea of what to expect from the PS5 Pro at the show.
Meanwhile, we have plenty of Space Marine 2 coverage to check out, including Willits on the record-breaking success of the game and what it means for a potential story DLC or even Space Marine 3. Warhammer 40,000 superfan Henry Cavill has also been playing Space Marine 2, and we also have details on what fans can expect from Space Marine 2’s seasonal post-launch content model. Season 2 runs from October until the end of 2024, and includes a new Operations map, a new enemy, a harder difficulty level, a new weapon, and various other improvements.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
