If you’re one of the many people planning to buy a PS4 Pro later this week, then you’re most likely salivating at the thought of playing your old games with that added extra layer of PS4 Pro sheen.
One of the games getting this magical brush up is none other than Sucker Punch’s inFamous: Second Son, and its expansion, First Light. PS4 Pro support for Second Son clocks in at over 3GB, while it’s under that figure for First Light.
Over on the official PlayStation Blog, Sucker Punch’s Jason Cornell details the inFamous PS4 Pro upgrades people can expect from the two games.
First up is HDR. When we re-worked our engine to create Infamous Second Son for the PS4, we had a strict focus on realistic lighting and exposure. We wanted the art direction and tech to reflect realism in a way that immerses players in the damp, rainy streets of Seattle. We did a lot of work to ensure our sky, sun, and light sources felt like the real thing. So why is HDR such a big deal now? This patch, along with an HDR capable TV, pushes those crazy bright values even further.
Yes, that means looking at the sun or sky in our game feels extremely bright, providing a level of contrast I’ve never seen in our game before. The vibrancy of the sky and lighting creates some really striking and beautiful moments. Furthermore, this particular feature will work on the standard PS4 as long as you have an HDR capable TV.
The second reason is in the smaller details. In both games, the Seattle city streets are filled with incredible art from our hard working art team. Signs, coffee cups, puddles, fall leaves — this world is filled with little touches waiting to be noticed. With PS4 Pro’s increased resolution, those touches are even more crisp. You can see detail on bricks and signs that previously went unnoticed. When we created the Seattle landscape, we had a goal to make everything wet. That means reflections of those details on every surface. It also meant a fair amount of specular aliasing. The increased resolution improves this and many other alias issues. And if you don’t have a 4K TV, you’ll still see a smoother image as the PS4 Pro will scale down to match your 1080p display.
The third — and best — reason to revisit the Infamous games on PS4 Pro is simple: the powers look amazing. Delsin’s smoke powers and Fetch’s neon powers are particularly impressive. Watching the original effects now in 4K and HDR, I notice details I didn’t even know existed. For example, when Fetch does a ground pound, waves of brilliantly flickering particles erupt in all directions. We even improved photo-mode to let you pause on powers. My favorite is winding up Fetch’s ultimate neon bomb and then quickly activating photo-mode to pause and observe the thousands of emissive particles bits forming around her.
Don’t forget, for some of the new features, you need to have a 4K TV that supports HDR. But as Cornell has mentioned above, even non-4K TV owners can take advantage of the PS4 Pro’s added horsepower.
Are you going to play any or both of the inFamous games once you get your PS4 Pro? Don’t forget to check out our hardware review of Sony’s upcoming console here.
[Source: PlayStation Blog via GearNuke]
