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Digital Foundry: High on Life 2 DF Review: PS5/PS5 Pro/Xbox Series X|S/PC - Big Fun But What About The Tech?

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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
​



High On Life 2 takes the elements that made the original so popular and ramps everything up to the next level. This is a genuinely fun, impressive game using almost all of the Unreal Engine 5 feature set (hardware Lumen apart). Oliver Mackenzie and John Linneman compare notes, compare platforms, examine higher-end PS5 Pro and PC features and see just how far the developers had to go to get the game running on Series S.


00:00 Overview
00:50 Sponsored by CyberGhost VPN
02:15 What is High on Life 2?
06:26 Unreal Engine 5 and visual features
12:42 PS5 settings and performance
16:34 PS5 Pro: TSR vs. PSSR
18:54 Series X and S
21:04 PC experience
26:02 Switch 2 expectations and conclusion
 
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sub 800p even on Pro,
unstable framerate,
awful looking software Lumen,
shader and traversal stutter,
PSSR looks worse,

all while looking worse than a good looking PS4 game.

UE5 is cancer. pure cancer.
 
Why does UE5 suck so much ass?
Why has like 90% of the industry decided "yes, this horrendous piece of shit that we cannot optimize is what we want?"
 
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Unreal Engine 5.

N1iGkyUXB7FAslyv.gif
 
DeepEnigma said:
RDR2 still looks phenomenal and it was from 2018.
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And that thing pushed native 4k on an XboxOneX..
Its disgusting what happened. All we got this gen so far, 1080p or lower with shitty upscalers that clowns like Digital Foundry love to praise.
1440p should be the bare minimum this gen.
 
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- Based on UE5 (first was UE4)
- Influences from Halo, Doom, Bioshock, Sunset Overdrive
- New Skateboard mechanic allows for fast traversal across the world
- Conventional UE5 experience (Lumen, Nanite etc) with minimal pop-in

- Software Lumen can cause reflections to look static and 'blobby' in shiny surfaces, PC version also uses software Lumen.
- Screen space shadows can cauase similar issues like SSR where shadows disappear depending on angle from casting source
- Overall the presentation is 'more higher quality' than the first game

Consoles:

- PS5:
- Uses TSR for up-scaling with a single 60fps mode.
- Native 720p up-scaled to higher resolution. The game seems to have an in-game 'rendering scale' setting but that doesn't seem to do anything. It goes from 75% to 200%, seems like a development oversight.
- Performance targets 60 but larger areas run from 40 to 50's, stuttering seen during traversal as well with only smaller areas seemingly seeing locked 60
- Most drops seen seemed CPU bound

PS5 Pro:
- TSR and PSSR toggle
- Both seem to render 792p~ with possible DRS.
- TSR shows more aliasing but PSSR shows more instability and noise
- Difference is more visible in indirectly lit scenes, PSSR has trouble here with flickering and fizzling
- Beyond the above, looks very similar to base PS5 and still shows performance drops here and there


Series X:
- Looks similar to PS5 but with higher DRS (720p vs 792p in tested area)
- Performance also feels smoother than PS5 with less wobble

Series S:
- Strips back Lumen RTGI and looks flatter than other versions by comparison
- Shadow and texture quality also downgraded
- Counts just slightly below 720p and targets 60fps with more GPU bound drops
- DF thinks a 30fps mode with the lighting intact would have been a good option

PC:
- Experience is 'good but with caveats'
- Traversal stutter like consoles and shader comp stutter even though there's a shader comp at launch
- Not as bad as other UE5 games but still there.
- FSR4, DLSS, DLAA and both AMD/Nvidia frame gen supported, native Ultra Wide also supported
- Some frame gen wonkiness noted when frame rate was not capped
- No native HDR supported here

- The game is currently not Steam Deck verified



Conclusion:

- A Switch 2 version is scheduled to release in April and DF wonders if it will have Series S like settings.
- On a separate note, Ark Survival aims to be the first game with 30fps with frame gen (i-e will build from a base of 15fps) for Switch 2.
 
kevboard said:
sub 800p even on Pro,
unstable framerate,
awful looking software Lumen,
shader and traversal stutter,
PSSR looks worse,

all while looking worse than a good looking PS4 game.

UE5 is cancer. pure cancer.
Click to expand...
Sad i was thinking with how beautiful ps4 pro games were. all we needed is 60fps and 1800p resolution with some slight upgrades and i'm happy.
 
LordCBH said:
Why does UE5 suck so much ass?
Why has like 90% of the industry decided "yes, this horrendous piece of shit that we cannot optimize is what we want?"
Click to expand...
It's sad, because UE4 and below were great. The tech they showed off for UE5 was impressive on a software level, but clearly a massive overhead cost which is a shift from optimizing for older, lower-end hardware of past revisions to "leveraging modern, high-performance, and next-generation capabilities." Sadly, the ceiling is much too high at the moment with a much lower focus in optimizations from developers and possibly the engine itself.
 
"PC version also uses software Lumen."

Hope we can force HW Lumen like in other UE5 games.

corgiix3 said:
UE5 and its lighting tech is so lame lol. Imagine how sharp games this gen would look if we kept baked lighting.
Click to expand...
No need to imagine as they are sharp AF on PC.
 
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Damn, game looks pretty rough on consoles. Even the Pro. Pretty terrible. PC version can look alright at least, I'd imagine even from 720p thanks to DLSS. But naturally it still has a handful of shader stutters.

I wonder if Hardware Lumen can be forced in the UE5 console? Should do wonders for those shitty reflections. I'm still puzzles why some developers just don't have this toggle on PC. It's requires very little effort to implement.
 
Another ue5 game when pssr looks worse, terrible. Realy hope pssr 2.0 will improve ue5 situation because its just joke. Also without pssr game run almost same res as base ps5, looks same and have same fps drops. Cerny should be whipped for the design of ps5 pro.
 
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corgiix3 said:
ahh yess 2000 dollars to play 4k performance DLSS (1080P) with annoying 1% lows and shader stutter. UE5 is goated.
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Stop being so poor and they said maybe shader stutter for some gun effects and they go away once compiled.
DeepEnigma said:
True, it also comes with its own caveats. Like shader compilation and traversal stutter more often than the fixed hardware systems.
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They said maybe shader stutter for some gun effects and they go away once compiled and I missed the part where he said there are more traversal stutters. At what time??
 
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While UE5 can have issues, some games are far worse than others. Borderlands 4 is actually pretty ok after all the updates. Stalker 2 is pretty good, so is Hellblade2 and Lords of the fallen. This one feels like it was made with a very old version of the engine with little customization from the devs.
 
GAF in 2016: this Uncharted 4 guy looks incredible. Imagine what will we have in the next generation.
GAF in 2026: man… I miss 1080p…
Sad Peaky Blinders GIF
 
corgiix3 said:
ahh yess 2000 dollars to play 4k performance DLSS (1080P) with annoying 1% lows and shader stutter. UE5 is goated.
Click to expand...
1440p with DLSS balanced (4/4.5) or FSR4 would look good. No need for 4k to get decent visuals. A $1200-$1300 PC (even with today's insane RAM pricing) will drive that just fine. Occasional shader stutters is a given with some UE5 games though.
 
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Devs really need to stop using the advanced UE5 features if they're targeting 60 fps on consoles. UE5 was intended for 30 fps on consoles, same for UE4 and UE3 before it (although UE3 rarely got there either). You can argue that Epic should have seen this coming and designed UE5 differently, since there's been a massive 60 fps push this generation. The praise Sony gets for its first-party games running well at 60 fps with good image quality is telling, despite those games having cross-gen visuals at best. That's what people want. But I don't know that Epic could have anticipated that. Regardless, all these UE5 lumen/nanite games looking and running like shit in their console performance modes have made the engine look a lot worse than it would otherwise. Devs are constantly making the wrong choices and Epic aren't stopping them.
 
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sncvsrtoip said:
Another ue5 game when pssr looks worse, terrible. Realy hope pssr 2.0 will improve ue5 situation because its just joke. Also without pssr game run almost same res as base ps5, looks same and have same fps drops. Cerny should be whipped for the design of ps5 pro.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you can't see that 45% power difference between consoles in this game, like at all...
 
Asset quality and lighting are clearly improved over the previous game, but with such low resolution and temporal instability, it often looks worse.
1080p and TSR on consoles should be the bare minimum. No reason to push graphics higher, if it means sacrificing image quality this much.
 
Despite the performance, this is the first released UE5 game going for Ratchet's artstyle and gotta say... You can tell where Insomniac's engine does much better even if the assets in here looks somewhat denser.
 
CowboyLou said:
Devs really need to stop using the advanced UE5 features if they're targeting 60 fps on consoles. UE5 was intended for 30 fps on consoles, same for UE4 and UE3 before it (although UE3 rarely got there either). You can argue that Epic should have seen this coming and designed UE5 differently, since there's been a massive 60 fps push this generation. The praise Sony gets for its first-party games running well at 60 fps with good image quality is telling, despite those games having cross-gen visuals at best. That's what people want. But I don't know that Epic could have anticipated that. Regardless, all these UE5 lumen/nanite games looking and running like shit in their console performance modes have made the engine look a lot worse than it would otherwise. Devs are constantly making the wrong choices and Epic aren't stopping them.
Click to expand...
Devs need stop using garbage UE
 
It frustrates me when I see a studio that does a fantastic job with the atmosphere and art style, but then fails to translate that same brilliance to the performance and optimization. A lack of resources is probably a factor, but there were ways to achieve a better result.

It's true that they're forcing 60fps in UE5 and achieving it quite decently (especially on XSX), but it comes at the cost of many visual inconsistencies. They're shooting themselves in the foot by not offering a 30fps Quality mode or a 40fps mode for those who also want the opportunity to enjoy superior visuals, especially in a game with this kind of art style.

Anyway, I'll definitely play it because I enjoyed the first one and it's on GamePass.
 
sncvsrtoip said:
Also without pssr game run almost same res as base ps5, looks same and have same fps drops. Cerny should be whipped for the design of ps5 pro.
Click to expand...
Bojji said:
Yeah, you can't see that 45% power difference between consoles in this game, like at all...
Click to expand...
And who's fault is that?

Not Cerny or the console itself. We're not talking about top-class developers here.

RoboFu said:
More like if you create a tool that anyone can use then anyone will use it regardless of skill.
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.
 
Bojji said:
Yeah, you can't see that 45% power difference between consoles in this game, like at all...
Click to expand...

You really don't, but then again this is a small game made by a small team, I wouldn't put the same kind of emphasis on this like a game from an EA or Square Enix or Capcom. Squanch Games is reportedly around ~50 people in total.
 
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DeepEnigma said:
And who's fault is that?

Not Cerny or the console itself. We're not talking about top-class developers here.


.
Click to expand...

In general, UE5 games tend to show smaller differences between Pro and PS5, and that is weird when Pro has over 60% more compute power.

Series S version... Fuck me lol. And no HDR support, another typical UE5 flaw. It supports HDR but MANY games don't have it.
 
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