Housemarque has always made games with oodles of style, focusing on eye-popping visual effects and sturdy performance. In this new video from Digital Foundry, the studio is clearly sticking to what it knows best with Returnal, pushing the PlayStation 5 with its custom Unreal Engine 4 tech.

The technical analysts on the popular channel are left very impressed by the game's myriad particle effects (including that wonderfully satisfying fast travel animation), which fill the screen with all colours of the rainbow when you're fighting those pesky aliens. It's also revealed that the game very occasionally drops frames despite all this visual noise; it maintains an almost perfect 60 frames-per-second, only dipping to the mid-50s during particularly demanding moments. From experience, we can say that any drops are barely noticeable. Also praised in the video are the game's load times, or lack thereof. The SSD puts in the work here, with super quick transitions from one scene to another.

Digital Foundry isn't quite so sold on the game's 4K upscaling techniques, concluding that the image quality can be a little fuzzy due to how Housemarque renders the game. We aren't tech experts, but we will say this: you generally move through the game at such a pace that you will rarely, if ever, notice any inconsistencies. The game looks fantastic.

Overall, Returnal leaves a strong impression, then. If you're interested in reading more about the game's technical side, head through this link.

[source eurogamer.net]