Released at the tail-end of last week, Doom Eternal’s upgrade for PC and next generation consoles is an important release – it’s our first chance to see how the tech masterminds at id Software are choosing to approach the new features of the latest hardware. Ray tracing, in the form of accurate, real-time reflections, is key to the upgrade, but in putting the new consoles through their paces, a trio of modes are available – and we’ve tested all of them on PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S.
We’ll go into the specifics shortly, but putting this latest update into context, it’s just part of a series of patches and upgrades that have served to further evolve a game that was already brilliant at launch. Two additional DLC packs have provided excellent extra content – rare for a single-player game – along with extra features and tweaks. id isn’t done either, as it looks like a horde mode is also arriving for the game at some point too.
But returning to the next-gen upgrades, we’ve already looked in-depth at the PC version of the game with a particular focus on the real-time reflections id software has added to the game’s aesthetic, dramatically improving upon the standard cube maps and screen-space reflections the game has had since launch. There’s a dramatic level of scalability in the implementation – which goes far beyond the ‘baked in’ presets – and that’s accessible via the command line. On PlayStation 5 and Series X, the same RT features are in place and they are effectively on par with the PC’s medium RT quality level, with reflections rendered at one third the current resolution.
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