PlanetSide 2 still targeting 60FPS on PS4

The developers at Sony Online Entertainment haven't given up on hitting 60 frames per second with PlanetSide 2 on PlayStation 4.

Speaking to an SOE representative at PlayStation Experience this weekend, I was told the team is still working to hit 60 fps, despite what company president John Smedley said last month. If you recall, Smedley, when announcing the window SOE would submit PlanetSide 2's first beta build, also said there was "no way" they could keep the frame rate at 60 fps. "Don't want to set false expectations," he said at the time.

If that's indeed the case, it doesn't sound like the developers got the memo, at least according to the representative. He said the team will continue to chug along and work towards attaining 60 frames per second. 1080p at a steady 60 frames per second had always been the goal for PlanetSide 2 on PS4, and we've heard the game was mostly able to run at that, except in situations of really big fights where it would get "bogged down."

"There's been a ton of progress on performance, which has been our focus the entire time we’ve been in development," lead designer Luke Sigmund said during a livestream last month. "They’ve made some really significant games and I'm really optimistic about where we’ll be at launch."

I did have the opportunity to play a bit of PlanetSide 2 on PS4 during PlayStation Experience, and for the most part it ran fairly smooth. Of course, it's worth mentioning that we were playing on test servers so the situations that one would encounter when the game goes live — those massive team battles — weren't taking place. For the most part, frame rate was steady, though there were some noticeable dips and stutters at times. It was also very clear that, despite the progress made on the game since I last saw it (the map was working and looked great), it's still going to have some bugs during beta. For example, and I don't know if this has been fixed for submitted beta build, but the game crashed for me when attempting to use the "Instant Action" button from the map.

Of course, bugs and glitches like that are to be expected in a beta, so there's not too much cause for concern right now. I'm assuming SOE will have most of kinks worked out by the time beta arrives, either later this month or January 2015. SOE is in the process of submitting the first technical beta build to Sony this month (I was told December 17th). As the representative told me, they could've launched beta for PlanetSide 2 on PS4 months ago, but they wanted to make sure they released a solid product, even if it is just a beta.

Other than a few hiccups in frame rate and the single crash, the game played great. It looked fantastic (comparable to ultra settings on PC) and it handled much better than when I last played it at SOE Live. It feels very natural to play with a controller in your hand, and the sensitivity of the DualShock 4 seems to be much more fine-tuned. If you recall during last month's livestream, designer Luke Sigmund said SOE probably wouldn't be "totally happy" with aim assist until they got players into the game. Hopefully beta isn't too far off now that SOE has plans to submit the build.