- Originally meant as a DLC for AC: Valhalla, expanded to full game running on Valhalla's tech.
- Smaller world but crammed with detail.
- Character details, however, don't hold up.
- Current consoles all launch with 2 modes, Quality and High Frame Rate (30 vs 60)
- Randomized time of day, NPC distribution etc makes getting perfect like for like difficult.
Visuals:
- PS5/SX Quality is DRS 2160p with lowest tested seen 1944p.
- Series S: DRS with 1620p with lows of 1512p seen in testing.
- PS5/SX have visual settings parity.
- Series S has slight reductions. Geometry and tree quality in far distance lower than SX when seen from elevated locations (towers)
- In general runs it's barely noticeable.
- SS has lower shadow quality which drops even lower in Performance mode but, again, these are hardly noticeable in general plays.
- Performance mode: 1800p dynamic with 1440p low DRS seen on PS5/SX
- Series S: DRS 1080p with 864p lows. Series S's softer image quality is more easy to notice here compared to Quality mode.
- PS5/SX sees a little hit in geometry and tree LoD getting reduction over Quality mode.
- Other settings like texture quality, NPC count etc same between Performance and Quality
Performance:
- Quality mode: All 3 are 'water tight 30' without a single blip seen. No frame pacing issues either.
- In 60 FPS mode: 99% locked to 60fps but rapid camera motion from sky to city can cause tearing and single frame drop (when DRS is stressed quickly)
- Both PS5/SX can suffer this, anecdotally SX prone to tear more in this scenario.
- Fixed 60 FPS in all scenarios and above scenario is 'an outlier'.
- Series S more or less the same. 'Extremely playable at 60' with occasional flashes of tearing.
- The anvil engine has no issues scaling to Series S for a good 60 FPS output during gameplay.
- Series S locks cut-scenes to 30 FPS where PS5/SX run them at 60 in Performance mode. This is the biggest difference.
Conclusion:
- Sticking to 60 FPS on all 3 is recommended.