Fallout 4 PS4 PlayStation 4 Performance

Let's not beat around the bush: Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim all launched in shameful condition on the PlayStation 3. All three games run on what is essentially the same, creaky old engine, which is one of the main reasons why many of you are understandably sceptical of Fallout 4's technical performance. In short, Bethesda simply doesn't have a good track record when it comes to Sony's consoles.

The studio's releases are infamous for bugs, glitches, and, worst of all, crashes, but even though Fallout 4 once again runs on a modified version of the developer's damned engine, there's always been hope that its performance will pull through because of the PlayStation 4's power. Indeed, Sony's last-gen machine was notoriously hard to handle, and an extremely stunted amount of RAM certainly wasn't ideal for Bethesda's often memory-intensive titles.

Meanwhile, the PS4 is essentially a reasonably powerful PC in terms of architecture, and is always being praised for its ease of use when it comes to game development. As mentioned, the hope that Fallout 4 runs well on the new-gen system is genuine – but is it justified?

Fallout 4 PS4 PlayStation 4 Glitches

We've spent just over 70 hours playing Fallout 4, and what do you know, we've actually got good news to share. In our entire time exploring the Commonwealth, we haven't encountered a single game-breaking bug, and the game hasn't crashed once. Has Bethesda actually released a fully functional, working game on day one? In our experience, yes – yes it has.

It's worth mentioning, however, that we've been playing with a pre-launch patch installed. Sitting at around 500MB, the update will obviously be available to download tomorrow when the game launches. The patch notes don't give any specific details, but we assume that you'll need it in order to optimise your experience.

Having said all that, Fallout 4 isn't perfect on the PS4, but its technical flaws aren't anything out of the ordinary when it comes to sprawling open world games. In particularly busy areas, or locations that feature a lot of stationary assets such as trees, the title can drop a few frames here and there, and you may hear your system's fan kick into higher speeds.

Fallout 4 PS4 PlayStation 4 Bugs

The frame rate drops certainly don't linger for too long, though, and they've never caused us problems during combat. Even when engaged in the most ridiculous of battles with explosions happening all around, the frame rate appears to hover at reasonable levels, which is a massive improvement upon what we've come to expect from the developer's console releases.

However, the one thing that has irked us a few times is that the game can stick momentarily – presumably as it loads a new area. It can be a jaunting little effect, especially if you're just happily jogging through the irradiated countryside. This split-second freeze can also occur when the title's busy autosaving.

Overall, it's easy to see that Bethesda's made a lot of positive changes to its engine. Fallout 4 feels far smoother and more responsive than Skyrim, for example, and there's a real sense that the studio's been able to broaden its scope thanks to the fact that it doesn't have to cater to last-gen hardware.

Fallout 4 PS4 PlayStation 4 Frame rate

One particular thing that we've noticed is that your save file doesn't increase in size as you continue to play Fallout 4. For those out of the loop, all save files from prior Bethesda games would begin to balloon in size as you racked up the hours. Whether by design or not, it was a worrying sight, especially since many players reported that the technical performance of their game would gradually worsen relative to the time that they spent playing. With Fallout 4, our save file has sat at 10.49MB for the entirety of our playtime, which we reckon can only be a good thing.

And that's all there is to say, really. Of course, we can't speak for your own experience, but all we know is that we've had next to no major issues with Fallout 4 on the PS4. Yes, it isn't perfect, and yes, this should be the minimum that we ask for from a full price retail game in 2015, but anyone who's suffered through Bethesda's previously shoddy work will know just how important this is.

Sound good to you? Were you worried that Fallout 4 would be a total bust, or were you confident in the power of the PS4? Drop a few frames but remain playable in the comments section below.