IO Interactive’s brilliant Hitman 3 is here, an ambitious cross-platform project that sees the company’s proprietary Glacier Engine deployed on more target platforms on launch day than we saw in the previous series entrances. We’ll be taking a closer look at this latest engine iteration in more depth soon, examining the improvements made to the technology and how they work on the new Hitman 3 levels – as well as the legacy missions from the previous two titles, which can be played on new game. But here and now, it’s the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S that are under the microscope, and it’s the first title we’ve seen in which the additional investment in Microsoft hardware offers a tangible specification boost over the competition on a platform. cross games.
But really, where it really matters, Hitman 3 delivers on all the latest systems – mostly through a 60 frames per second game. In previous Hitman console titles, IO offered users a choice: the ability to play with a 30fps limit or, alternatively, allow the frame-rate to run unblocked. In addition, the enhanced consoles offered quality and performance modes with multiple resolutions. Hitman 3 dispenses with all this, offering a stable performance level of 60fps on all systems and without the need to choose between quality and performance modes. This time, the latest generation systems are set at 30fps, with the curious exception of the PS4 Pro, which also offers what IO describes as a ‘frame interpolated’ 1080p60 option.
We will go into details about the performance in due time, but suffice it to say that the IO gambit pays off since all three systems hardly waver from a 60fps block from start to finish, but how they deliver it varies by system host. Starting at the top, the Xbox Series X runs the game in native 4K resolution (accidentally doubling the frame rate and increasing the pixel count compared to the Xbox One X 1440p). Just below is the PlayStation 5, running at 1800p. Meanwhile, the Xbox Series S targets the same 60fps target, but this time the GPU is tasked with running the game in 1080p resolution. There is no dynamic resolution scale from what we can see, but there is a clever transition from TAA anti-aliasing in all systems.
The first of Digital Foundry’s Hitman 3 videos – this one focusing on the three next generation consoles.
In addition, Hitman 3’s visual feature set is largely consistent across all three next-generation machines, with only a few minor changes. The developers were helpful enough to provide us with complete information on how each system compares to the equivalent PC configurations for each system, so that we can confirm that, in addition to the resolution, there are some other changes. This starts with texture quality, where the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 run at the equivalent of the highest PC settings, versus the Memory S limited Series S, which opts for high quality textures.
In the meantime, there are additional adjustments to the quality of the shadows as well. The S Series uses the equivalent of low-quality PC shadows (in common with the next-generation base console versions of Hitman 3), while the PlayStation 5 runs on average (similar to One X and PS4 Pro) and Xbox Series X up. The difference is quite subtle between the three, but it still exists. In all other scenarios, all three next-generation consoles are the same and the overall presentation is first class. Yes, the resolution advantage of the X Series is there, and the Glacier engine thrives on precision, giving it a primitive advantage. With that said, however, the lower resolution on the PlayStation 5 is by no means an issue and still looks wonderful.
All of which takes us to the performance topic, where interactive IO did an excellent job of delivering Agent 47’s latest missions with 60 frames per second almost perfect from start to finish, regardless of whether you play on Xbox or PlayStation. Hitman 3 allows you to try all missions from the beginning, so we were able to test the title to the full extent of its content.
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Simply put, it’s 60 frames per second … with only one exception in our game hours. In the Mendoza mission set in Argentina, it is possible to see Xbox consoles running between 50 to 60fps in a field close to the level, while the PlayStation 5 remains constant at 60fps. Hopefully, IO will try to improve this for Microsoft machine owners, but everything else we played worked perfectly – except for a slight stutter in a scene at the beginning of the Miami stage of Hitman 2, where all consoles drop from around 40fps. However, at this point, it seems more of a detail than anything that would impact any specific purchase recommendation.
Any other variation between consoles? They are hard to find, if any, so to speak. One of the biggest ‘quality of life’ improvements in Hitman’s transition from next generation systems to the next generation concerns loading times, where we’re looking at something that comes close to a 4x improvement, which means that General loading times are well under ten seconds. All systems seem to benefit here – in our tests, the PlayStation 5 is faster at equal loads, but with only a fraction of a second advantage over the X Series, which in turn has a very small advantage over the S Series. It is versatile good news in this regard too.
We’ll be looking at Hitman 3 in a broader perspective, covering next-generation consoles, with content coming soon – and we’ll also be focusing on the PC version in a separate part. One thing we can share now is that next-generation and next-generation consoles have a lot in common, and require the PC to really push this engine to its limit – in this sense, Hitman 3 continues the mission in the same way as its predecessor. The 60fps boost highlights next generation consoles, but the PS4 Pro’s curious 1080p60 mode is a fascinating outlier. We didn’t invest a lot of time in it, but it works well on the Dubai stage, running almost perfectly, and it’s curious not to see it on Xbox One X either. Regardless, we have a lot more to share in Hitman 3 and we will be reporting as soon as possible.