Alan Wake 2 PS5 Pro Technical Review

According to the poll, you were most looking forward to the PS5 Pro version of Alan Wake 2, so now we present it to you. Last year’s Survival Horror from Remedy is still one of the most visually impressive games on PC and modern consoles. However, the game had some problems on Xbox and PlayStation, especially with image quality. This is probably why the patch for PS5 Pro was so anticipated. But is it worth it and have the developers used the extra power correctly?

What do you think of the original PS5 version?

Alan Wake 2 on the base PS5 offers two modes: Performance and Quality, which behave fairly standard. Quality targets 30 fps with higher input and output resolutions and higher detail, while performance increases the target frame rate to 60 fps at the expense of resolution and detail.

However, both modes suffered slightly in terms of image stability, presumably due to FSR upscaling. Likewise, the original version did not include any form of ray tracing (other than the global illumination component, which uses it by default on all platforms). So there was a lot of room for improvement.

• Performance
  • Entrance: 864 rub.
  • exit: 1440 RUR
  • Upscaling + smoothing: FSR
  • Maximum frame rate: 60 fps
  • Actual frame rate: 55 to 60 fps
• Quality
  • Entrance: 1224 RUR
  • exit: 2160 RUR
  • Upscaling + smoothing: FSR
  • Maximum frame rate: 30 fps
  • Actual frame rate: 30 fps

What’s new on PS5 Pro

Instead of adding new modes, Remedy decided to keep the Quality and Performance modes, but radically rework them. Performance increases the output resolution to 4K and also increases the detail settings to the level of the original quality mode. A new quality mode adds ray tracing reflections on transparent and opaque surfaces. Additionally, both modes use Sony PSSR technology to enhance image quality. And what are the consequences in practice?

• Performance (Pro)
  • Entrance: 864 rub.
  • exit: 2160 RUR
  • Upscaling + smoothing: PSSR
  • Maximum frame rate: 60 fps
  • Actual frame rate: 50 to 60 fps
• Quality (Pro)
  • Entrance: 1224 RUR
  • exit: 2160 RUR
  • Upscaling + smoothing: PSSR
  • Maximum frame rate: 30 fps
  • Actual frame rate: 30 fps
  • Ray tracing: Reflections (transparent and opaque surfaces)

Performance Mode

I think most players will be interested in the Performance mode. Based on data directly from Sony, 60 FPS is preferred by most people. And the PS5 Pro’s Performance mode does bring significant improvements, but in the end it’s not without its problems and some compromises.

However, where the PSSR demonstrates its image stability the most is in the dark, densely vegetated areas you’ll frequent in the passages outside of Saga. While the original Performance Mode was extremely unstable and leaves, grass, and other vegetation would flicker whenever the player moved the camera, the new Performance Mode is incredibly stable and looks really cool.

Another big plus is the higher level of detail, which is mainly due to the higher target resolution. So I’m mainly talking about the sharpness of the image, which is very noticeable on the characters, as well as the surroundings, especially when looking into the distance.

The new Performance mode also reduces the overall number of aliases, but things are a little more complicated here. Although it has almost completely disappeared from forested areas, it is still widespread in cities. And most importantly, another problem has recently been added to this.

This is some strange graining, as if I turned on film grain in the settings (which I turned off). This is not present in the original performance mode, but in the new one it is very noticeable.

This is especially noticeable in SSR reflections in puddles or lakes, where the new mode looks clearly worse than the original and thereby spoils the overall impression. I hope this is just a bug in the settings and will be fixed soon.

Performance can be somewhat controversial. Paradoxically, the game runs worse in the new Performance mode than on PS5. The difference is in FPS units, and in the most demanding playthrough it drops to somewhere around 50 FPS instead of 55, so you’ll still be fine with VRR, but it’s still an interesting development. Additionally, pure performance didn’t seem to be enough to increase the output resolution, detail, and implement PSSR scaling, which, if anything, has a slightly larger performance impact than FSR.

Quality mode

The quality mode is also very interesting. And before we get to the main point, it should be noted here that the image quality is significantly better than on the base PS5. And again, this is best seen in forest locations, where the vegetation is drawn much cleaner.

However, unlike the new Performance mode, the Quality mode was improved in every way, in that the image seemed more stable even in cities. Of course, aliasing has not been eliminated, but there is less of it.

There is grain too, but not in this form. Thus, interiors (with static scenes the situation would be completely different if the camera moves) look better in the original quality mode, which is at least more stable in such situations.

But the new quality mode has one huge advantage – the aforementioned ray tracing reflections, which take the game to a whole new level. Of course, they don’t reach the quality of the extremely clean and accurate reflections in the PC version, but the quality of the console version really surprised me. For these needs, Remedy has implemented a new noise reduction that should be adapted to PSSR, and it shows a lot.

RT reflections are best seen in puddles and lakes. Although the original SSR reflections stick to a static camera (even there they cannot be so sharp and accurate), when moving, as is inevitable from the nature of this technology, they completely disintegrate, which greatly spoils the impression. RT’s thoughts, of course, persist throughout.

There are also RT reflections on transparent surfaces such as glass windows.

As for the frame rate, there are no surprises here; the game is able to maintain a stable 30 FPS even in demanding playthroughs.

Summary

The expected improvement of Alan Wake 2 on PS5 Pro has brought the desired results. Both modes provide more stable images thanks to PSSR, which is especially noticeable in dense vegetation in dark forests, as well as aliasing on various surfaces.

The Performance mode in particular also benefits greatly from the higher output resolution, which makes everything look significantly more detailed, but on the other hand it suffers from unpleasant graininess, especially in reflections. A slightly lower frame rate may scare some people away, although owners of screens with VRR should not have any problems.

If you don’t mind 30fps, you can’t go wrong with the quality mode. The improvement in image quality is very noticeable here too, and the ray tracing reflections are a huge difference compared to SSR.

In the end, it’s a little surprising that the patch had significant flaws when it came out, mostly in the form of much-criticized graininess, but otherwise it was a success and the experience on the Pro version will definitely be better than on the base PS5. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether it’s worth upgrading.

In the next episode we’ll look at a couple of games from the Horizon series. And if you haven’t read it yet, you can check out the Stellar Blade for PS5 Pro whitepaper in the meantime.