For those that invested a lot of money in a brand new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, it’s important that there are games that at some level take advantage of the hardware. Although it could be argued that Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla doesn’t quite hit that kind of benchmark it’s still a very good looking title with a massive open-world to explore.
Unfortunately, Valhalla didn’t quite live up to expectations when it came to being optimized for the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, and performance on the bigger more powerful consoles took a hit. While they obviously outperform the last-gen machines it’s taken the developers at Ubisoft a few updates to get Valhalla in the current state it’s in now. It’s true, the game could still do with a bit of work, but it’s approaching parity on both machines with a few exceptions.
5 Screen Tearing Occurs Less On The Xbox
When Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla first launched on the next-gen consoles one major area where the Xbox Series X version suffered was the screen tearing. This was due to an inconsistent framerate that made the supposedly more advanced consoles on the market seem like it was struggling.
However, thanks to the recent patches the screen tearing has now be reduced to the point it’s much less noticeable on Microsoft’s console. On the PlayStation 5, a more frequent screen tearing issue remains. Whether a future patch for the PS5 will address this remains to be seen but it’s likely that Ubisoft will optimize both machines to achieve parity where framerates are concerned.
4 Dynamic Resolution Is Lower On The Xbox
As mentioned above, the issue of screen tearing has been addressed on the Xbox Series X when compared to the PlayStation 5 version which still suffers occasionally. However, this was achieved by Ubisoft reducing the lower end of the scale of the game’s dynamic resolution.
Thanks to the dynamic resolution scaling most of the unsightly screen tearing on Xbox Series X had been resolved but its resolution will now potentially drop as low as 1188p of the full 4K in the game’s performance mode. Granted, this will only happen on the very rare occasion when in some stressful scenarios and cutscenes, but as it stands now the PlayStation 5 version produces a higher resolution image in performance mode.
3 Camera Bug On The Xbox Series X
While one major concern with the game’s screen tearing has been resolved for the most part on the Xbox Series X, the very annoying camera stutter bug has yet to be addressed. Even when the game is running on the full 60 FPS during cutscenes the camera angles noticeably judder along when panning around.
Thankfully, this isn’t an issue on the PlayStation 5 version, and given all the work that Ubisoft has already done to bring the two versions in line with each other, it’s very likely that a fix will find its way on to the XSX too.
2 Slightly Faster Load Times On PS5
Much has been said about the improvements in speed that the new SSD (Solid State Drive) in the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 offer over the current generation’s HDD. Games on the next-gen systems have much faster load times which is naturally a huge benefit to open-world games like Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.
In the speed tests, however, it’s the PlayStation 5 that comes out on top with around a three-second loading time advantage. The PS5 takes 23.30 seconds to load while the Xbox Series X takes 26.48. Interestingly, the less powerful Xbox Series S is only a little slower with its loading time hitting 27.17 seconds. This obviously good news for those that decided instead invest their cash in the lower-spec Series S.
1 Dual Sense Immersion
If there is one major area that swings a sense of immersion in favor of the PlayStation 5, it has to be the Dualsense controller. It would be easy to pass the controller off as just a slightly better version of the PlayStation 4’s Dualshock but that would be a mistake.
Not only is the rumble feature a major improvement over the excellent Xbox Series X controller but the sound effects are brilliant and the controller’s adaptive triggers offer a level of control not available on other systems. Using bow-type weapons will now offer up some resistance when pulling back the string and the difference between heavy and light bows can be felt instead of just seen.
