The speculation is over. PlanetSide 2 will run at 30 frames per second on PlayStation 4, executive producer Clint Worley confirmed to us in an interview regarding today's PS4 closed beta launch.
For much of the development process, Sony Online Entertainment was targeting 60 frames per second. While it was running between 50 and 60 FPS, there were some noticeable dips, especially when encountering the large-scale battles that PlanetSide 2 is accustomed to hosting.
Back in November, SOE President John Smedley, in an attempt to prevent false expectations, said there was no chance to pull off 60 FPS in a game like PlanetSide 2. As with most shooters, even the most subtle dip in frame rate can make the biggest difference. Even then though, we didn't have official confirmation. And when we asked an SOE representative at PlayStation Experience in December, we were told the team was still targeting 60 FPS.
In the end though, PlanetSide 2 proved too demanding.
"The game itself is pretty intensive," executive producer Clint Worley told me last week. "Not on the graphical side, but more on the CPU side."
During the interview, Worley told me they have "no problem" running PlanetSide 2 at 1080p on PS4. "The optimization we've been doing hasn't really be graphics," he said, explaining that while most first-person shooters have a max of 32v32, PlanetSide 2 can have battles with hundreds of players Tracking all those bullets and explosions can be pretty intensive.
"The game looking pretty hasn't really been our problem," he said of PlanetSide 2, which on PS4 is comparable to the PC's ultra settings. "It's looked great since E3, but we're locked at 30 [frames per second], 1080p, and that's where we'll be for launch."
PlanetSide 2 enters Closed Beta on PS4 later today. Check out our full interview with Clint Worley here.
