Why Death Stranding 2 isn't on PS4 explained: What the devs have said
Bad news, PS4 owners.
The latest game from Kojima Productions, Death Stranding 2, may turn out to be the defining game of the PS5 generation.
It's been a huge hit with players and critics thanks, in part, to its grandiose story, stellar cast and a killer soundtrack to boot.
But the game has only released on PS5, unlike its processor, which launched on PS4 and later came to PS5.
So, why isn't Death Stranding 2 on PS4? Here's what the developers themselves have said about it.
Why Death Stranding 2 isn't on PS4 explained: What the devs have said
Put simply, Death Stranding 2 is just too much for the PS4 to handle. The game's graphics, powered by the Decima Engine, are incredible, and have been tailor-made for the PS5 and PS5 Pro.
In an interview on the PlayStation Blog, technical art director Takayuki Uchida spoke about developing the game, and how the PS5 and PS5 Pro allowed them to achieve certain improvements.
"We implemented a new day/night cycle in the open world. This achieves more realistic transitions between the time of day and introduces new dynamics that weren't present in the previous title.
"The scenery and atmosphere now change depending on the time of day, so exploration is also more compelling and exciting.
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"For the base PS5's Performance Mode, we stabilised the framerate by switching the LOD (Level of Detail) earlier to reduce geometry and adjust the resolution dynamically.
"On PS5 Pro, players can enjoy a higher resolution that is closer in quality to Resolution Mode, while maintaining 60FPS gameplay."
The game looks so good, in fact, that with Performance Mode turned off on a base PS5, the game only runs at 30FPS.
If we were to translate that to a PS4, then we would assume that the game would maybe be able to run at 60FPS using the Performance Mode graphics, but considering how boundary-pushing the Kojima Productions team have aimed to be with this game, that doesn't seem like an appealing prospect.
And at the end of the day, the PS4 came out in 2013. It's perhaps a bit optimistic to expect that a game like Death Stranding 2 would be able to run smoothly on a 12-year-old console.
Sorry to all you PS4 owners out there, it looks like you're out of luck. But there's still hope for PC and Xbox players!
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