Expert analysts at Digital Foundry have released a very detailed comparison video of the PS5 and Xbox Series versions following the second update of the “Next-Gen” patch. The results are not very rosy.
As a reminder, this second update allowed a nine-year-old Fallout 4 to offer different graphics modes and different framerate limits. If the result is more convincing on PS5 and Xbox Series, many much deeper problems remain.
Language patch for Fallout 4 on PS5 and Xbox Series … appears
To please gamers after the success of the Prime Video series, Bethesda decided last month to revive Fallout 4 to make it natively playable on PS5 and Xbox Series via a next-gen patch. Unfortunately, the result was a radioactive cold shower. Quality mode simply didn’t work on the Xbox Series (a shame since the studio is owned by Microsoft). A second update was rolled out a few days ago that aims to fix what can be fixed.
It seems the situation on PS5 and Xbox Series has improved since then… quite a bit. Quality Mode still has bugs, even though on paper the consoles are more than powerful enough to run a nine-year-old game. Despite the latest patch, Bethesda still recommends playing Fallout 4 in Performance Mode on these platforms. In addition, a much deeper problem still exists: slowdowns and unwanted stutters. When the physics engine is put to the test or when walking through the ruins of Boston, the game shows noticeable stutters, even in performance mode. However, this issue stems from a hole at the heart of the venerable title’s aging engine. Digital Foundry recommends a patch that goes deeper into this area to address this pitfall. And even then, improvements are unfortunately not guaranteed.
Now on the PC…
Despite these fundamental issues, the PC version is suffering the most from Fallout 4’s next-gen patch. The addition of wide and ultra-wide screen support on this platform appears to have been done in a hurry. The user interface remains unattractively stretched despite the latest update. Worse still, mods that fixed problems that Bethesda never solved are systematically broken by new updates to the game.
Some PC gamers even believe that Bethesda should just focus on the console versions and leave the rest to the modders. However, given the situation, it seems that Fallout 4 patching is not yet complete. See you in the next update to find out if it’s the right thing this time?
