Nexon has consistently kept The First Descendant at the forefront of graphics and display technologies. The free-to-play third-person looter shooter game looked great from the first time we saw it, but it was initially developed with Unreal Engine 4. However, the team switched to Unreal Engine 5 as soon as they could to take advantage of Nanite and Lumen, as they believed the latter in particular to be 'essential' for next-generation projects.
In the first interview published on Wccftech two years ago, the developers confirmed support for various ray traced effects, NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution and Frame Generation, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution, and Intel XeSS. We later learned of its support for Samsung's HDR10+ displays, and a few months ago, The First Descendant was also updated to integrate NVIDIA DLSS 3.5, also known as Ray Reconstruction, which enhances ray tracing effects on GeForce RTX GPUs.
Nexon didn't just work hard on the PC version, anyway. The PlayStation 5 version of the game supported Unreal Engine 5's high-resolution Virtual Shadow map technique, as well as ray tracing and even AMD FSR Frame Generation, the latter of which is only available in two or three PS5 games so far.
It's not that surprising, then, that The First Descendant will also be the first PS5 Pro game to support the new PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution in combination with AMD FSR Frame Generation. Here's what Engine Programmer Junhwan Kim told Wccftech in our PS5 Pro-focused Q&A:
The most impressive aspect during the PS5 Pro adaptation process was the AI-driven upscaling technology known as PSSR. On the existing PS5 base model, the FSR Image Upscaling feature is typically used, which has some drawbacks, such as pixel ghosting and pixel jittering during the pixel reconstruction process. The PS5 Pro's Image Upscaling based on PSSR minimizes these weaknesses and delivers highly impressive results.
The original PS5 base model offered FSR upscaling and FSR frame generation features. On the PS5 Pro, we provide an option that combines PSSR with FSR frame generation, allowing for a higher-resolution, high-frame-rate experience compared to before.
The First Descendant on PS5 Pro will also feature improved ray tracing effects: ray-traced ambient occlusion, ray-traced Lumen diffuse, ray-traced opaque, and translucency surface reflection.
But it's the implementation of both PSSR and AMD FSR Frame Generation that could really pave the way for optimal visual quality and performance on Sony's latest console, which is due to launch tomorrow at $699/£699/€799. We'll see whether more developers follow Nexon's example in this regard.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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