Watch Dogs Legion will look amazing on PS5 — but there’s a catch

News
By
published

Watch Dogs Legion on PS5 will look great but won't run at 60 fps

Watch Dogs Legion
(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Sony has touted the PS5 as a 4K 60 frames per second games console, with it occasionally hitting 120 fps and rendering games at 8K. However, this doesn’t appear to be the case with Ubisoft’s new Watch Dogs Legion. 

In a Reddit AMA, Lathieeshe Thillainathan, Ubisoft’s live producer on the game, said Watch Dogs Legion will run at 4K and only 30 fps, though it will do so with ray-tracing enabled.  

Running games at 4K, which is already a rather heavy undertaking for current generation consoles and a lot of gaming PCs, is even more demanding with ray-tracing on top. So there’s an argument that hitting this performance envelope in Watch Dogs Legion could be rather impressive. 

But a lot of people like to play games at 60 fps, as the frame rate makes gaming action feel considerably smoother than 30 fps. And some like to game at high frame rates to take advantage of high-refresh rate displays. 

However, it doesn’t look like there'll be a 60 fps option in Watch Dogs Legion when it’s released on October 28. On the Reddit AMA some members took exception to this with one stating 60fps should be a minimum in next-generation games. 

We’d be inclined to agree a little here, but it’s important to remember that Watch Dogs Legion is a cross-platform game, and that means its performance might be a little constrained due to it not being developed natively for PS5 hardware. 

We rather suspect that as developers get more acquainted with the PS5, which is due to be released November 12, then we should see games that can really tap into the consoles 10.28 teraflops of graphics power. 

The Xbox Series X is coming with 12 teraflops of power, but it has yet to be seen if that little bit more graphics grunt will make a huge difference in next-gen gaming, With the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S arriving on November 10, we’ve not got long until we find out. 

PS5 pre-orders are now live, as are Xbox Series X and Series S pre-orders. But a word of warning: securing a pre-order is difficult due to demand, so be prepared to be patient. 

Roland Moore-Colyer
Roland Moore-Colyer

Roland Moore-Colyer a Managing Editor at Tom’s Guide with a focus on news, features and opinion articles. He often writes about gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he’s also got an interest in cars. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, often with a look of curiosity on his face. 

2 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Nightseer
    For Ubisoft, it really looks like they are putting east to advertise graphics way ahead of player experience and hard to do optimizations. Which is a shame. I kind of wish MS and Sony would mandate 60FPS minimum. Be side this move was really done with player experience in mind. But of course, Ubisoft is once again trying to be EA and is doing what Ubisoft does best, which is being the worst. Plus not yo mention them again selling exp boosters and money boosters, except this time it looks like you won't get yo keep it permanently, unlike they had with Assassin's Creed. But hey, as long as game doesn't need to get optimized, Ubisoft is fine with it.
    Reply
  • Blight0r
    Journalists need to stop imagining 4k+RT@60 is going to be the norm.

    Thats crazy.
    Reply