We’ve just been given a glace of the potential power of the PS5 thanks to a gameplay trailer of Observer: System Redux, which showcases what the game will look like on next-generation hardware.
Released back in 2017, the original Observer was a cyberpunk horror game that trod the line somewhere between CSI, Silent Hill and Blade Runner. Its grim and dark dystopian setting looked good at the time, but with the graphical horsepower of the PS5 behind it, the remastered version looks seriously next-gen.
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The trailer mentioned that the game will have “enhanced gameplay” and “next-gen graphics” but didn’t really expand on those. So we’d hazard a guess and say it has an extended main story or new features on the gameplay side, and a whole load of remastered graphics effects.
Compared to the older game, the PS5 remaster delivers some impressive visuals. Surfaces, objects and textures look more detailed and realistic compared to the original version, and the lighting looks significantly improved.
From what we can see it looks like the game will make use of the PS5’s ray-tracing capabilities. There seems to be some sumptuous illumination going on, with light being reflected in the sticky blood pools of one macabre scene, and lightning flashes illuminating puddles in a soaked Blade Runner-esque cityscape.
The trailer is also showcasing the game at 4K and running at 60 frames per second, which is something even the most powerful PCs can struggle to do in graphically rich games. So there’s no doubt that the PS5 with its 10.28 teraflops of compute power is going to be able to deliver some games with seriously impressive graphics.
And with the PS5 making use of super-fast SSD storage, we expect such games to load very quickly as well; this is something current-generation consoles struggle to do with graphically intensive games like Red Dead Redemption 2.
While the Observer: System Redux trailer is for the PS5, it’s also set to come out on Microsoft’s Xbox Series X, so the trailer also gives us a hint at what the next-generation Xbox might be able to do. It’s worth noting the Xbox Series X has 12 teraflops of power, so it could trump the PS5 in graphics performance, if developers can tap into all that power.
Observer: System Redux is expected to be out at the end of 2020, so it should be ready for the launch of both consoles. We are hoping for some brand new games rather than remasters to also show off what the new consoles can do, though we got a slight hint at that from Microsoft's Halo: Infinite footage from 2019.
