Along with a select few, we've managed to acquire early access to the Star Wars: Battlefront PS4 beta ahead of its official release on October 8th. With several gameplay sessions captured, we're now able to compare the console version's performance and visual make-up against the PC build we played a couple of weeks back in Stockholm. To cut to the chase, the PS4 game runs at a 1600x900 native resolution, falling into line with DICE's previous work on the console. It means there is an upscale on the image, but for the most part its post-process anti-aliasing does a decent enough job in keeping the image clean.
As for performance, the game targets 60fps and hits this number for the most part. Running across the tundra of the Assault Walker stage, it feels buttery smooth at this refresh, with no noticeable drops. However, the PS4 beta starts to struggle once we get into the final third of this match-up, with the encroaching AT-AT vehicles forcing rebels into an interior base. Alpha effects-work cranks up a gear as the two sides clash around this spot, and we get repeated 50fps drops as grenades or missile strikes crash down too.
On a positive note, this interior area also struggled in Star Wars Battlefront's pre-alpha build, as shown at E3 earlier this year. The good news is that where we once saw regular drops to 40fps and below, the worst we see in this latest beta build is a more solid 50fps. Even in controlling giant AT-AT vehicles with the full chaos of the map in view, gameplay sticks between 50-60fps in this latest beta build.
