Black Myth Wukong on PlayStation 5 uses AMD FSR 2 over TSR, and this is likely due to a few factors, including the usage of the very first version of Unreal Engine 5.
The tech experts at Digital Foundry recently talked about Game Science’s decision to go with AMD’s upscaler for the PlayStation 5 version of the game, highlighting how this could be a simple leftover from when the game was being developed in Unreal Engine 4. Frame generation, which is used in Performance mode, may also have played a part in the decision. The most likely reason, however, could be that Black Myth Wukong uses the very first version of Unreal Engine 5. In this version of the game development engine, TSR is more demanding than in the latest, and it lacks specific optimizations for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Still, console users don’t seem to be missing out much, as, while TSR looks better than FSR 2 in some scenarios, producing less ghosting and flickering, it still isn’t particularly good.
Black Myth Wukong has yet to be released on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, as Game Science is reportedly dealing with some critical tech issues, but Digital Foundry seems to be certain how the Xbox Series S isn’t causing the delay. The game is not CPU bound, and Unreal Engine 5 is not heavy on VRAM, which should make it easy for the developers to scale things down and have the game run decently on the system, although features like Lumen and other visual settings, including resolution, will obviously get toned down. A subpar experience, however, could be caused by the team’s inexperience with console development, as the PlayStation 5 version highlighted. As long as weird optimization choices aren’t made, such as using frame generation in Performance mode to go from 30 to 60 FPS, everything should be fine. There’s also the chance that Game Science could go with different choices, resulting in a slightly better experience than the one currently offered on PlayStation 5.
Black Myth Wukong is now available on PC and PlayStation 5 worldwide. You can learn more about the game by checking out my review.