The Final Fantasy VII Rebirth playable demo comes with some evident visual issues, especially in Performance Mode, but it seems like low resolution is not what is causing everything to look so blurry.
Commenting on the demo’s visual issues on X/Twitter, Digital Foundry’s John Linneman said that the game has some pretty surprising and serious issues. Alongside some Unreal Engine 4 baggage, the second entry in the trilogy suffers from some strange design choices regarding how assets are jammed together.
It has some pretty surprising and serious issues. A lot of UE4 baggage but also some bizarre design choices in regards to how assets are jammed together. Image quality is not good in perf mode but at least it runs well, I suppose.
— John Linneman @dark1x.bsky.social (@dark1x) February 9, 2024
Interestingly enough, the blurriness of the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth demo visuals is not caused by low resolution or by a dynamic resolution range that dips down too much. According to John Linneman, the game runs at 1440p resolution in Performance Mode, and the blurriness is caused by post processing at 1/4 of that resolution. Given how big it is, this seems like a major oversight, so hopefully, something will be done before the game launches later this month.
What’s funny, though, is that it’s 1440p in perf mode…so resolution isn’t the cause for the blurry image quality. That’s caused by other issues.
— John Linneman @dark1x.bsky.social (@dark1x) February 9, 2024
I thought so too but it’s not! Post-processing at 1/4 res seems to be causing issues.
— John Linneman @dark1x.bsky.social (@dark1x) February 9, 2024
It is a shame Final Fantasy VII Rebirth may be hindered by subpar visuals, as it seems like the development team created a compelling open-world formula, filling the world of Gaia with a lot of different and fun activities, as highlighted by Kai in his preview.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launches on PlayStation 5 on February 29th. The playable demo, which features the infamous Nibelheim segment, will be updated later this month to give players a taste of the game’s aforementioned open-world experience.
