With Season 4 well under way, a new update for Rocket League brings a big upgrade for the game when played on PlayStation 5, adding a new video quality option that lets players choose to play in a 120Hz Performance Mode. There’s also some free cosmetic DLC in the shape of the Ratchet & Clank bundle.
Up until this point, Rocket League on PS5 has run through PS4 Pro backward compatibility mode, which has limited the game to running at 60Hz and with 4k achieved through checkerboarding. Now, the Quality mode will run at 4K with 60fps as the default. Meanwhile, the 120 FPS Performance option will drop the game resolution down to 70% of 4K (2688×1512), and combine this with a UI overlay that runs in 4K.
That’s a pretty big upgrade for PS5 players, but the fact of the matter is that this is merely catching up to the support that Psyonix has been able to provide for Xbox Series X|S players since December 2020. Even the specific resolutions are a match. So why the hold up? What’s changed?
Well, at the time of release, Psyonix was one of several developers who stated that, while cross-gen awareness was relatively easy on Xbox, for PlayStation 5, they would have to create a whole new version of the game. Things have changed since then, so PS4 games can now be made aware of and have different graphics profiles for the PS5 – Zombie Army 4, for example. It’s not clear if Rocket League now has a new native game client or an enhanced backward compatibility game on PS5.
Here’s the specific breakdown from Psyonix:
Quality:
- 4K resolution at 60 FPS with HDR
- HDR requires HDR10 compatible display and HDMI 2.0 cable or better
- 4K capable display required to experience 4K. If a 1080p display is used, the game will render at 1080p supersampled from 4K
Performance:
- Game runs at 2688×1512 resolution (70% of full 4K) at 120 FPS with HDR
- Game UI runs in 4K
- 4K capable display required to experience 4K UHD. If a 1080p display is used, the game will render at 1080p supersampled from 2688×1512
- HDR and 120 FPS require a compatible display, as well as Ultra High Speed HDMI 2.1 cable
Alongside the performance update, Season 4 is treating PlayStation players to a free Ratchet & Clack cosmetics for all PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 players. This bundle adds the Ratchet & Clank Punk Decal for Octane, Negatron Collider Boost, Clank Balloon Topper, and the Ratchet Balloon Topper to the account of any PlayStation players who log in between 18th August 2021 and 3rd January 2022.
There’s also a new PlayStation Plus Pack from 24th August, including the Goop GE Animated Decal, Hard Hat GE Topper, Magmus GE Boost, and the Reaper GE Wheels.
Source: PS Blog
