
Monster Hunter Wilds’ highly anticipated beta is out now for PS Plus subscribers, and there’s no two ways about it: it’s rough. Now it’s important to underline this is a beta, presumably based on old and unfinished code. Therefore there’s no reason to panic, and we’re confident Capcom is hard at work on the game. But it simply can’t release like this.
We’re testing the title on a standard PS5, and it makes an alarming case for PS5 Pro. The resolution, when prioritising frame rate, is among the worst we’ve seen all generation. Hair appears fuzzy and dithered, while finer details and textures are completely obscured due to the rubbish image quality. We’re not even convinced PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, the proprietary upscaler in Sony’s new hardware, can fix this.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison, with Prioritise Frame Rate on the left and Prioritise Resolution on the right:
The frame rate feels fine on the performance option, although it’s far from steady. On the Prioritise Resolution setting you’re looking at 30fps, which just doesn’t have the responsiveness required for a game like this. The visuals do look a lot cleaner on the higher resolution option, but they’re still far below what you’d expect from a modern PS5 game.
We should note there’s a toggle for 120Hz displays, which will presumably leverage VRR to smooth out performance further, although we haven’t been able to test this yet.
Our early impressions aren’t particularly positive at all, but as we said at the start of this article, it’s a beta and there’s hope Capcom will dramatically improve the resolution and image quality before launch on 28th February. And if nothing else, this game may end up becoming an unexpected selling point for the PS5 Pro, as the new system should be able to clean up some of these issues.
Comments 96
I joked the other week about the Wilds beta being a ploy by Sony to boost PS5 Pro pre-orders, but didn't expect the beta to look this rough.
I'm sure the gameplay will still be godlike, but it'd be nice if current-gen games could actually just run smoothly and look great at the same time.
They prioritize PC development over consoles just like in Dragons Dogma 2. The fact that you need Nvidia frame generation to run this thing at 60 fps with medium quality was a dead giveaway that it wouldn't run well on consoles. I'm pretty sure they said not even the PS Pro version will be 60 fps, but I'll need to find the source.
My hopes aren’t high for console performance after the state Dragon’s Dogma 2 launched in.
This game looks really, really bad. I hope it's just because it's a beta.
Agreed. I was honestly taken-aback by just how bad the game looked when I played it last night. It's fun still of course. But man, image quality on this was worse than image quality in Monster Hunter Rise on the Switch! When the Switch game looks better than the PS5 game, you know it's a problem.
Basically the more LOD and fancy RT etc they add the more the resolution seems to lower now on the consoles.
Then add 60fps and everything ends up 1080p at best with LOD lowered and RT gone.
Either the PS5 and Series x have aged poorly or developing for multiple consoles and PC is leaving specific console optimisation as a nice to have.
That is why normally an in-house Sony Studio gets the best from a Sony console.
Experience, only one console to produce for and cross studios knowledge.
@OldGamer999 Yeah, ironically Sony's games are the worst showcase for PS5 Pro because they already look so clean!
I've said it before but Sony has been going about pushing the PS5 Pro the wrong way, their own first party games are almost always wonderfully optimised to run at 60fps at (subjectively) near enough to quality settings. The games that the Pro will likely see the largest benefits will be the third party ones like FF7 Remake, Dragon's Dogma 2, Monster Hunter Wilds, and likely even things like Elden Ring etc. Games that don't run anywhere near a locked framerate and have a large delta between quality and performance modes.
(EDIT) @OldGamer999 SNAP. Same thought.
Man I am so confused, I thought the game looked good outside of it still having that weird washed out color scheme from the trailer at times. And had zero issues with playing through it. Even when there were multiple dogashuma on the screen. It ran and looked nice, i could easily tell what was going on in my screen
People complaining as usual but they don't understand that this is clearly intended to be played downscaled on a CRT TV so I'm ready as ever
I don’t really like this as a precedent. A game looking and playing like crap on current gen consoles because there’s a mid gen upgrade that allows you to play an acceptable version of the game. Should be the mid gen upgrade allows for more bells and whistles, not being the only viable way to play the game.
Tough ***** Sony, I'm closing in on 50 and my ***** eyes couldn't tell the difference unless I was five inches away from the screen anyway. I don't care about resolution, make the ***** text big enough that I can read it.
@commentlife it'll be fine, you just need to wait for them to release the game and then wait 6 whole months.
It's a beta, why so harsh about it? It's entirely the point of it existing 🙄 they literally warn you that this is not finished code and it's still in development. You don't even know what version of code this is.
Hmmm no I don’t have £700 for pro and an extra £100 for a disc drive.
I’ll just stick wish my normal PS5 thanks probably have to get an SSD hard drive next year though
So the solution to the incomplete game and poor optimization is...
-checks notes-
Buying a new piece of hardware?
Nah, I just won't partake if they can't make a game.
Graphic/framerate whores the lot of ya!
Is the game actually fun to play?
I mean we have to keep in mind that this is a very old beta or am I wrong on that?
Ouch.
I guess I might avoid playing this until I update my GPU. This sounds rough.
The dreadful judging in the article...its a beta, almost 5 months out from release, chill your beans,
I know this wont go over well, but 30 fps is the true target frame rate for Monster Hunter home console games.
Always has, always will.
Look at MH World.
PS5 doesnt hit 60 fps in World.
Really unimpressed to be honest. Performance and visual issues aside (both are awful) i'm not too thrilled with the focus on story and rubbish set pieces. The combat is good at least but so far i can see this being my least favourite entry based on what the beta offers.
Also its pretty clear the RE engine is struggling with "open world" games based on this and DD2.
@Vaultboy81 World is 60fps on PS5.
Your logic is terrible. Yes, let me spend £700 because of one poorly optimised game.
What a terrible excuse to justify you advertising the PS5 Pro.
It's not a case for the pro, it just shows how horrible Capcom is at optimising their games. Dragon's Dogma 2 was the same.
Yet to play it.
But hopefully they can optimise it better as it’s the same engine that struggled with DD2.
I say hopefully, but they better!
@get2sammyb
Yes that is probably correct.
However also new Sony studios games like Ghost 2 etc should get the most out of the PS5 Pro and then we can see what the Pro can really do, rather than existing game slight improvements.
@themightyant
Yes that is probably correct.
However also new Sony studios games like Ghost 2 etc should get the most out of the PS5 Pro and then we can see what the Pro can really do, rather than existing game slight improvements.
I'm curious to try it on PC in a few days, but it does look pretty rough. I know it's a beta, but still, Capcom should have a bit more effort in it.
@Pat_trick Rise of Ronin, Black Myth, SW Outlaws, Rebirth and more. Its not just one game its many games and the list is growing.
@DennisReynolds Sure. I won't pay for the developers incompetence.
I played it and thought it looked great? I'm glad I'm not too fussed when it comes to frame rate and resolution.
I was worried when I saw the pc system requirements. This game is probably gonna be a disaster on console, which doesn't really bother me. I was gonna play on PC anyway.
@Pat_trick I would say its more current gen consoles can't keep up.
@DennisReynolds That's a fair assessment too. But the developers know the console specs, it's partly on them to create a game that runs at least decently on one that's owned by over 60 million people.
@GumbaMasta “ make the ***** text big enough that I can read it.” I was messing around with the new Welcome Home Screen settings the other day and found under the accessibility widget there is a way to make the font bigger and bold. I thought bigger was too big but bold font is just about perfect. Not sure if it affects in game any but it’s nice to be able to read the PS5 menus anyway.
Removed - unconstructive feedback
Capcom's RE Engine has been a largely reliable engine across various genres but sadly it seems it struggles with open world games.
@TBubs311 it's a terrible precident and is why I am fundamentally against the existence of pro consoles.
Also I'm not sure this makes the case for getting a pro console as we haven't seen how the game runs on that system yet.
Sure is a lot to be hysterically angry about these days!
@Rob_230 if something can be improved, improve it. I'm all in favour of Pro models.
Deleted my previous comment and came back to say this article is not right. Downloaded the Beta and played through the first hunt.
The game looks and runs great.
Set it to performance mode, with 120fps enabled, and turned on the motion sickness settings and I’m having no problems with performance or fidelity.
I usually cringe at this comment but maybe we’re not playing the same game 🤷
Crazy how many comparison articles are popping up all over the internet trying to justify the pro. Only game that will really make a difference is gta6. If that is a massive step up on the pro people will buy it.
@ApostateMage We don't want a Cyberpunk PS4 train wreck..
Welcome to Jensen Huang’s (nVidia’s boss) world!! Lol. The world in which it does not matter what hardware you’re rocking. What matters is upscaling, DLSS, FSR, PSSR, which is to mean tools for devs to compensate for their inability to make a game run well and look great on modern hardware. Huang straight up said the only way forward is upscaling. This goes for all consoles and PC, as well. I’m not going to indulge him. There’s too many well-optimised games out there to care.
@DennisReynolds There is enough to play I'm not funding terrible optimisation.
@gollumb82 Why not put less insane stuff in there and make a game look good and run good.
@Flaming_Kaiser
I know, right? Crazy to think you could just tone down some graphics fireworks and just make the game run well.
@gollumb82 Look at the original remake of Demon Souls with the fake raytracing it looked fantastic and ran fantastic give me that instead of terribly optimismed lookers.
Not me, I will stick with my PS5 thank you.
This beta seems very much to show that this game was primarily developed for 30fps - which is just the wrong way. (Either that or the dev team are really quite bad).
60fps should always be the primary mode, then once running well, the 30fps mode can added by scaling graphics up.
They are probably aiming at very powerful PC's, but thats just silly - average PC's dont include a 4090!
Im buying a Pro regardless, but if on release this game isnt running near locked 60fps (and looking respectable), I wont buy it.
I also still say Sony could help solve this if they refused to show any image or video not running in a near locked 60fps mode on everything they have control of, including storefronts, SoP etc - mind you that also needs them to do a few more SoP's to reward games that do with a bit of free advertising.
I keep seeing people crapping on DD2 in this article. I had very few issues with it. Are people exaggerating, or maybe it's because I'm old and don't expect what they do? I have no idea, but it makes me think I am way out of sync with the gaming community at large.
using HDR on graphics mode and I was like "guhdamn, now I want that ps5 pro". It looks fine? on resolution mode but this is a super pretty game but it does look choppy.
@Boxmonkey
You're right, that's the only game. If you have bought or are thinking of buying any other game, no you're not.
@WizzNL FW is a PS4 game and a 1st party game designed with PS hardware in mind.
@SodaPop6548
Yeah! I despise this thinking of "Guess we really need Pro." No, we need good optimization and devs who does their best to use the hardware they are working with. I won't buy Pro.
It’s pretty bad but still irks me way less than Metaphor’s horrendous performance tbh - I am looking forward to finishing the game so that I don’t have to stare at those atrocious magla effects
I didn't even notice. I thought it looked great, ran great. I still play on a 1080p tv though and have been playing alot of RISE on switch so I guess anything is upgrade. Still preordered.
I've got DA-Veilguard on my Series S, I'm sure I'll be going to rough town with that one. I have the entire DA series on that console so I couldn't bring myself to break it up.
@ScottyG I totally agree, I can't believe the comments here. I played for 4 hours, Prioritise Resolution, 120hz on the LG 55 TV so I guess it was about 40fps in reality but it was smooth. Apart from 1 crash it runs and looks great. I turned on the motion sickness settings as well, maybe this helps but I don't know... Bear in mind I'm pretty sensitive to motion blur and low fps, etc. I gave up playing FFXVI after an hour I felt so sick. I'm hoping to give it another try on the PS5 Pro soon though
I wouldn’t freak out just yet. It’s a beta. There’s time for it to improve and the end product will likely look better. Still not getting a Pro.
People in this generation shouldn’t have to fork out hundreds of £££’s just to play a game meant to be played on this generation s hardware.
@popey1980 Hardware and optimisation aren't infinite resources.
Plenty of jank on previous generations.
@WizzNL Horizon 2 is still a PS4 game its just running on "ultra" settings on PS5, its not pushing the console in anyway as everything about it is rooted in last gen. The DLC is PS5 only but remove the cloud tech and it could have been put on PS4. You're also missing the point about it being a 1st party game, 1st party devs for Sony usually have their own engine and have more knowledge and experience with the console then 3rd party devs. In fact this applies to all console 1st party devs and its why Spidey 2, Forza Horizon 5 and Tears of the Kingdom are able to do things 3rd party games can't. Capcom Devs have to make a game for 4 different machines now 5 with the Pro and have to use an engine that clearly is struggling with more open bigger games, GG has their own engine and only need to worry about PS when making Horizon.
I would be very surprised if Capcom wasn't planning to also release this on the Switch's successor. So to see it performing poorly on ps5 is pretty wild.
@DennisReynolds Sorry, I can't respect your take at all. It's not that the base PS5 can't keep up. There are plenty of games that run great and look beautiful, but then we have games on the other end that are horribly optimized. If some developers can do it, it's not the hardware.
I'm long past tired of the take that the blame isn't largely on the developers and/or their horrible game engines. We should not have to buy a $700 mid-gen upgrade in order to play games the way they should already be.
This is a beta of a game that is 4 months from release, so I do think it's a bit premature to chalk this one up as another poorly optimized mess, but it won't be because of the hardware if it ends up on that list. It'll be clear that the RE Engine can't handle current gen open world games properly.
lol no
I'm not even interested in this game and even if i was, i wouldn't be buying a new console just to play it (and that's presuming that the Pro will run this game at a stable 60fps at a higher resolution and better graphics)
I think it makes a case to not buy the game.
Honestly, i am not the biggest fan of world and i am already afraid this will be an equally frustrating experience for solo players.
I am looking forward to the next entry from the generations/rise team.
When you see how Dying Lights looks on Nintendo Switch, yes it is possible to optimize aggressively a game, it just requires effort. Now for Capcom-like editors, they just don’t care. Look at Monster Hunter Stories 2, performance are terrible even if the game has a couple of years behind… Their lack of respect for customers is incredible. But for sure they will put micro transactions everywhere.
@SodaPop6548 I’m working in the field of high performance computing, new hardware is always a nightmare because it requires a new wave of optimizations in the code. So thinking that a new gpu is going to fix bad optimization, nope.
@KilloWertz You don't understand engines and how games are made do you. The fact you're using a PS4 game as an argument doesn't help you. Wanna know something DD2 and MHW are doing more then what Horizon is doing, its not all about pretty visuals you know. Yeah 1st party games are almost always above 3rd party for the reasons i explained, GG and Insomniac know the PS5 better then Capcom ever does and they both use engines tailored made for the PS systems and the types of games they like to make. Capcom uses the RE Engine an engine originally used for linear "smaller" games like DMC and RE, clearly the engine is struggling with open world games and its why DD2 and MHW look the way they do. Finally a lot of games rely on CPU but both PS5 and Series have really small CPU, chances are GTA VI will also have some drawbacks on console because of the CPU limitations. Its why DD2 performs the way it does on console because its CPU heavy like MHW.
If they aren't putting the system resources into the graphics, what are they using them for?
What a coincidence, I also used the same face and similar colour for the hair when I played the beta yesterday. lol
@ApostateMage Absolutely it is.
@Vaultboy81 MH World is 4K 60 fps on PS5.
Played it a few hours today on Resolution mode and it makes me think the writer of this article didn't really give it chance.
It looks beautiful and I didn't even really notice the lowframe rate,and it certainly didn't feel like it affected gameplay any. And I'm usually pretty sensitive to low frame rate since I'm used to using a 180Mhz PC monitor.
Sure I'll probably get the game on my gaming PC,but my experience with the beta would not make hesitant at all to get it on OG PS5 if that was my only option.
@DennisReynolds Where do I mention a specific game? Nowhere in my comment. But since you brought up Horizon, it's more than just pretty visuals. It also runs at a very good 60 FPS and looks a lot better than most games that try to run 60 FPS. Yes, 1st party games are generally better than 3rd party titles, but I don't think I've ever seen such a wide gap between 1st party titles and some 3rd party titles in my whole life since I've started gaming. The fact that the 1st party titles have somehow managed to dwarf even a lot of major high budget AAA 3rd party titles also shows a major problem currently, and also proof that the PS5 has easily enough power to run games at good frame rates that also look good. A 1st party game is still a game on the hardware no matter who made it.
You also just proved the point that it's on the developers and their engines. They shouldn't be using RE Engine for open world games if it clearly can't handle them. "Well, the CPUs are small." Sure, but once again, other developers have found ways to work with what they have and the results have been just fine. Not games that have to sacrifice so much resolution to run at 60 FPS that they can even look like I'm playing a game on the Switch clarity wise (Final Fantasy VII Rebirth being the prime example).
There's nothing you can say that can excuse the industry trying to justify making a gamer spend $700 in order to play something like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth at an even acceptable resolution at 60 FPS when other developers have already done it. I'm sorry, there's too many examples of games that have been optimized properly. I don't need Rebirth to look even better than it did in Resolution mode. I just need it optimized properly so it looks even just fine at 60 FPS, and it's far from it. If somebody thought it was fine in Performance mode, that's ok, but that doesn't change how blurry it looked because the resolution is so low.
@KilloWertz Gaming is a luxury no one is making you buy anything gaming related.
Doom Eternal can run with great visuals at 120hz so by your logic FF7 Rebirth should run at 120hz with great visuals as well.
As for Horizon yeah sorry i confused you with the other person who brought it up. My point still stands with it though and its worth noting its Performance mode looked terrible at launch for it to the point they had to pretty much remake the mode months later to fix its issues.
@OldGamer999 Honestly I think the biggest problem is that REEngine is just bad. It worked for closed corridors and simple switch games but every big world they try to build with it makes Bethesda games look polished. I don't know why people roll with the whole "capgod" thing.
I tried it on my tv (1080p)...it looks horribly fuzzy in both graphic modes.
Lol, no it hasn't changed my mind about the pro at all.
I wish, with the prices being so much higher for consoles now days, they would put the HDMI pass through on them so we can utilize our consoles when also watching YouTube or a movie or whatever like Xbox one did. Also I wish they could of put a PS3 chip in the PS5 so I could use my old PS3 visualization to play music because I have my TV connected to my sound tower so music and games sound better through digital audio. Also I could download whole cds or copy music again to my connected hard rive but I'm sure if they did bring that back they would neuter the music download right on out. The current music on consoles is just so basic. I miss having visual players and all. Anyway I can't wait to see what the PS5 Pro can do for gamers. Maybe it works out seeing as it's supposedly 30 something terraflops. How many Nintendo Entertainment Systems is that Anyway? 😆
Hmm. This is not a good article. The correct settings are Resolution mode with 120 hz ON regardless of your display. I don't know why this is the case, but the game looks fine with these settings and these settings only. Rey Dau and his lightning attacks show off what the engine can do very nicely.
@Nem They do give you AI companions if you want them. Think Rise was made easier to solo since it was on Switch initially. Regardless, hope you get what you want sooner rather than later.
30fps isn't viable for this type of game eh? Hmmm I must be special because I can play a reaction based game like this fine with 30, no issues whatsoever in all my 30 odd years of gaming. Now 60 and above is definitely smoother and more responsive no doubt but all of this talk in the past decade especially, that a game at 30 is like running through treacle is bs.
Both 120hz modes are pretty good.
Both non 120hz modes suck hard.
Tested all 4 of them, I think Quality 120hz doesn't feel horrible but could be better. Framerate 120hz looks super aliased but isn't too distracting with excess shimmering so far in motion and feels very good to play.
@DennisReynolds Of course it is. You know exactly what I meant. You are just choosing to argue about it for the sake of arguing about it.
Two different kinds of games, so I'm not expecting Rebirth to look quite as good as Doom Eternal at that frame rate, but it still should look a lot better than it does. There's no excuse and there's no way to defend how poorly the game still looks in Performance mode in comparison to Graphics mode or whatever it is.
It's all good, and you are right that it had plenty of issues at launch. They fixed them all though, something that Square Enix has never done with either Final Fantasy XVI or Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Instead a person has to buy a PS5 Pro if they want to play Rebirth at 60 FPS and even an acceptable resolution, something that should be considered unacceptable. Sure, Rebirth should look better on the Pro than the base PS5, but they are just going to use the Pro to fix things rather than take the time to at least get the regular PS5 version to even a decent resolution so it at least has clarity in Performance mode. Probably just through pure brute force.
@Judal27 phew! I thought I was the only person who has really enjoyed it...
@Judal27 exactly my thought too im having a blast , has any of these ppl even play the beta i havent had not one issue at all like everyone needs to relax its a BETA
Played of 500 hours of World on a PS4, I think I’ll pull through ok.
So it doesn't matter if the game plays great but if it doesn't look like a polished turd people are gonna avoid it? No wonder Sony plays us
So I should not be holding my breath for a Switch port?
"30fps, which just doesn’t have the responsiveness required for a game like this" Nonsense. Sure, 30fps mostly sucks, but the responsiveness is fine for a game like this.
@get2sammyb after DD2 I won’t buy games from Capcom on release anymore, this is not acceptable at all. I’m hoping it gets better, but I’m not going to shell out over a grand just to ensure a game runs half decent. Developers are the problem these days, not platform holders. Optimize your stuff or get no sympathy when you get laid off, I’m sorry but consumers are not your support workers. We pay for something and we expect it to work and to work well.
PC wins again, I didn't expect my 3060TI to outperform my PS5. Doubt I'll try the beta on PS5 too but might change my hunter from male to female.
Played it tonight and enjoyed it. I don't think it looked as bad as some are making it out to be.
Monster Hunter World struggled massively on the base PS4 as well, lots of slowdown and inconsistent frame rate. Really needed the PRO to be enjoyable.
Begs the question on whether the console is inadequate, or if Capcom is just really bad at optimising games
Game looks way better on PC unfortunately. Hmm.
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