From Software's blend of horror and high fantasy pays off in Dark Souls 3, and more so than any of its intervening works, it strikes an aesthetic that comes the closest we've seen to that of the very first Dark Souls. Embers glow from between armour cracks, and though aspects of this initial area appear a touch plain (notably in plots of grass strewn across the terrain) the craft behind each new environment shows its focused three years of development. In terms of the core visual makeup, both PS4 and Xbox One impress from the off with the gorgeous Cemetery of Ash area - a flooded ruin built to a mountainside. As a result we get a light blur to item illustrations, one that shows up next to PS4's, and it's a shame given there is a commonly practiced workaround here. Rather than setting these 2D elements to display at 1080p over gameplay - a tactic used in most sub-native titles - they're instead put through the same scaling process. Bizarrely, all HUD elements on Xbox One (such as menus and health bars) are also rendered at 900p. In play, the one truly perceptible shortfall of its native 900p image is that pixel crawl flares up more aggressively across foliage - though otherwise its visuals hold up very well. To back this, both consoles use a matching style of post-process anti-aliasing to deal with visual noise.ĭespite this extra upscale, Xbox One still presents Lothric in a flattering light.

Such a resolution drop on Microsoft's machine marks a running trend across this generation so far, and Dark Souls 3 joins a growing list of titles where PS4 offers an image quality lead. The final PS4 code pushes a native 1920x1080 image - as was the expectation after its network beta - while Xbox One instead opts to upscale from a lower 1600x900 frame-buffer. To start, this is the first Dark Souls title where resolution differs between two console competitors. Today we focus on the two console versions - a clash that reunites Sony's machine with From's core tech to bring out some clear PS4 advantages. The engine of the PlayStation 4 exclusive returns too, now put to work in rendering a beautiful, withered fantasy world on other formats, including Xbox One and PC. Developed by two separate teams within From Software, Dark Souls 3 arrives a year on from the excellent Bloodborne, with the apparent aim of bringing closure to the Souls series.

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