Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was plagued by an astoundingly blurry performance mode when it first released on PS5 in February of this year. Obvious graphical limitations were put in place so that the RPG could run at 60 frames-per-second; it played just fine, but it could look rough outside of cutscenes.
With the PS5 Pro, Rebirth has gained an additional graphics setting called 'Versatility'. The goal is to maintain performance mode's smooth 60fps, but offer up a significant resolution boost alongside it.
Fortunately, Square Enix has worked some magic here — at least on a surface level. Rebirth looks dramatically better on Sony's new system, sticking to that all-important 60fps while pushing the resolution to what looks like 4K, or thereabouts. It's a striking night and day difference when compared to performance mode on PS5.
But it's not just the resolution. From what we can tell, the new setting inherits many — if not all — of the benefits from the title's 30fps fidelity mode. The environmental lighting's more dynamic, and it wraps around character models much more convincingly. Gone are the days of Cloud looking like some kind of weird shadow realm clone of himself.
Middle-distance environmental assets seem to have been handed a noticeable glow-up as well, so that areas look way more visually cohesive. And again, you get all of this at an unshakable 60fps.
However, as the headline of this article suggests, there is a disappointing downside to this Pro-exclusive mode. Upon running through multiple locations for the sake of this coverage, we couldn't help but catch a lot of pop-in. That is, assets — like vegetation and rocks — popping into existence as Cloud draws near.
The pop-in is especially prevalent in locales that are heavy on grasses and plants, as the game now makes a habit of rendering detail and shadows when you're just feet away from objects. It's the kind of thing that you might not even notice depending on the direction of your gaze, but once you do see it, it's a difficult issue to ignore — and it's happening constantly.
To make matters worse, we came across a number of areas where Remake and Rebirth's trademark texture problems remain, with larger assets struggling to properly load even at a minimal distance. It's a real shame that this distraction is still present.
So, in conclusion, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth runs great on PS5 Pro. In terms of sheer visual fidelity it's a colossal upgrade on the base PS5's performance mode. However, there are some nasty pop-in issues at play here, and we can only hope that additional polish is incoming.
Will you be playing Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on PS5 Pro? What do you make of its 'Versatility' mode? Grab your buster sword and pursue Sephiroth in the comments section below.
Comments 15
In the pop in the same, or worse than the original and is it only in this one mode? If it’s only in this mode and only now then it’s probably a compromise for that mode.
I’m not entirely sure what the baseline is.
The texture thing dates back to VIIR and I don’t see it changing, as bad as it is. It’s just how the game assets/engine works
Pop in and texture issues are the only big problems for me when playing a bit of it earlier but that’s more a hard line issue; FF7 Remake and Rebirth both have awful texture work and their engine seems to suffer with pop in for foliage, even in the PC port for Remake.
Ah yes, the worst part of the REMAKE series. UE4 and its texture issues. Hopefully 7RE3 will make the jump to UE5. Just hope they don't go overboard with graphical features.
I feel it's more or less baked into the engine so it's something that will always be a problem, and likely an issue leading into part 3 unless Square decides to fix it, which is possible.
I have to wait for a drive to play this one and I’m not paying scalper prices so hopefully I’ll be able to grab one soon. Love the PRO animated theme though lol
FFVII Rebirth was the only game to force my PS5 to shutdown while playing. It wouldn't turn back on right away either which was certainly nerve-wracking. Eventually I solved the problem by reinstalling the game.
So I can see the extra appeal with the Pro if it has that extra bit of power to run this packed game.
The pop in is more noticable now that you can actually see the game properly 😂
I expected a bit more, than just the quality mode in 60fps. Some of the graphical settings, are the same as performance mode, like the shadows.
But as mentioned, most disappointing, is the damn pop in. But at least it's not a blur anymore, in 60fps.
What an absolute beast of a machine lol
@Deadlyblack I'm fairly certain it will be fine with a pc that has a decent processor and graphics card.
At the end of the day the pro is still pretty much only up to a 3080 at the absolute most.
Forgot to mention the horrific, god awful trophy list. Pro can’t solve that problem either, it requires competent developers that cater to trophy hunters instead of forcing bad trophy decisions on us.
@Balaam_ yep, the trophy list is horrendous. I finished all the mini-games last weekend. So when I completed the base game, I was at 112 hours with some mini games, all of the world intel but Fort Condor and all but two quests done. I literally no life’ed the minigames for a week plus because I was in bed with an injury. Current playtime now was around 160ish hours.
On the bright side, it’ll be my most played game of the year by far. On the negative side, I’ll probably have PTSD from any future FF mini-game :’)))))) it’s sad too because the combat really is excellent IMO
@Fishnpeas Yeah, I have yet to try 7 Remake on PC, but I played it on PS4 on release. I have no doubt my PC will be able to handle Rebirth when it finally comes over to PC.
@carlos82 I played through it in fidelity mode as I can play games at 30fps 😱 but the pop in or more the drawing in of certain assets was there if memory serves. That along with some good awful textures and in lots of instances textures that just never loaded at all. It's an issue with the engine and developers AGAIN. after Rebirth I played Forbidden West, a base PS4 game and although I'm not the highest fan of its gameplay the visuals were amazing. FF Remakes don't look great outside main character models and certain towns so there isn't much of an excuse, he'll the sections in the Midgar seem to use the old blurry plate jpeg 🤣
@Deadlyblack Played through it on PS5, but cannot wait for the PC version, 4K60 max settings is going to look a bit special I think.
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