In order to provide “the best possible gaming experience”, Warner Bros. has delayed the last-gen console versions of Hogwarts Legacy. Here, we explain why you should play in performance mode on the PS4 despite the expected quality improvements.
Headaches about Hogwarts Legacy: The upcoming open-world role-playing game in the Harry Potter universe is about to be released on PC and current-gen consoles; namely, on February 10th, 2023. However, the release is accompanied by a whole bunch of fan concerns.
This is because Warner Bros. is presumably removing Reddit accounts of users who, for example, present photos of their Collector’s Edition on the network or just claim to already own Hogwarts Legacy. Also, many editors and reviewers are said to have still not received a sample copy of the game. Does the well-known publisher want to cover up the possibly rough edges of the game as long as possible?
The fact that there could be significant flaws in Hogwarts Legacy is not only indicated by the longer postponement of the PS4 and Xbox One versions to April 4, 2023. No, the gameplay footage showed so far also allows us to draw conclusions about possible problems, especially in the last-gen versions.
| Find more helpful guides, collections, or tips and tricks in our Hogwarts Legacy guide overview. |
Hogwarts Legacy on PS4: Performance Versus Fidelity Mode
On PlayStation 4, Hogwarts Legacy will be playable in either Fidelity or performance mode. As usual, the quality variant (Fidelity) prioritizes the visuals at the expense of the frames per second, which will not exceed 30 here, whereas the performance mode offers 60 FPS, but cuts back on the graphics effects in return.
Those interested are concerned that the PS4 might not be able to handle Hogwarts Legacy in Fidelity mode reasonably. The technical shortcomings of the PS5 version, including delays in texture rendering, produce the corresponding worry lines here. Even on the current-gen console, it takes seconds for a door to open completely because textures are reloaded in the meantime.
Of course, the amount of texture data on the PS4 will be natively smaller than on the successor model, even in Fidelity mode. However, the current-gen console performs twice as well as its predecessor in some parts, while Warner Bros. is unlikely to be willing to cut the visual quality of Hogwarts Legacy in half, to put it bluntly.
A bad look is bad for business: In this respect, there could ultimately be problems in both modes, but especially in the Fidelity mode of the PS4 version. After all, the appearance of a game is often decisive for sales (especially with regard to the streaming guild). From experience, we would therefore expect significantly less than 30 frames per second in places in “nice mode”, which would practically force last-gen gamers to play Hogwarts Legacy in performance mode.
At the end of the day, everyone decides for themselves whether they prefer quality or performance. And it remains to be seen to what extent the developers from Avalanche Software, who are about to deliver their first AAA game, can cope with the relatively weak hardware of the PS4.
Want to join our community and discuss Hogwarts Legacy? Then feel free to join our Discord server or visit us on Facebook. We look forward to seeing you there!
