Death Stranding analysis by Digital Foundry: a brilliant technological showcase

Digital Foundry has published their analysis of Death Stranding on PlayStation 4 Pro, and they came away impressed, calling it ‘one of the most visually striking games of the generation’, and ‘a new benchmark for the medium’.

Digital Foundry notes that the Decima Engine feels like a great fit for the game, being an open world game with a cinematic focus, and that the engine’s key visual features are ‘utilized to great effect’, while also improving greatly on some of Horizon’s shortcomings, such as water rendering.

Death Stranding makes use of checkerboard rendering to achieve a 2160p resolution, with ‘top tier HDR implementation’, adding: ‘what impresses most with Death Stranding is the blend between small details and a vast sense of scale.’ The game runs at 30 FPS with minor dips.

DF praises some of the effects, such as the Time Fall rain that accelerates aging for everything it touches, the foliage that reacts to your movements, and some of the finer details in the environment, such as the smaller stones alongside the rivers that have a level of detail that is ‘off the charts’.

Go here to read the entire analysis of Digital Foundry, or check out the video above.

Update: Digital Foundry has added a second analysis comparing the PS4 Pro version of the game with the base console version.

Source: Digital Foundry (on Eurogamer)