Digital Foundry Direct Weekly 157: Hellblade 2, VR & Tech

The State of Hellblade 2 Previews

The Digital Foundry team discusses the recent preview coverage of Hellblade 2: Senua's Saga, highlighting both technical and communicative failures.

Technical Concerns

• The preview footage provided to outlets suffered from poor encoding and juddering, making it difficult to assess the game's true graphical capabilities on Unreal Engine 5.
• There is significant debate regarding the decision to target 30 FPS on Xbox Series X|S, with the team arguing that this is a design choice favoring visual splendor over frame rate, though they acknowledge it may alienate those expecting 60 FPS.
• The necessity of binaural audio is praised as a standout feature from the original game that returns here.

Hardware and Performance Analysis

PlayStation Portal Exploits

"If he didn't do that, all it would essentially do is just delay the inevitable."

• The crew discusses the security research and subsequent patching of the PlayStation Portal, noting the strange desire to mod a device with limited utility.
• The team touches upon the "stutter" issues inherent in the Portal's streaming technology and how it compares to Chiaki on other handhelds.

Advancing PC Benchmarking

• Alex highlights Intel PresentMon 2.0, a powerful new tool providing deep, per-frame insights into CPU and GPU utilization.
• This tool eliminates guesswork when diagnosing frame drops in titles like Jedi Survivor or Dragon's Dogma 2, allowing for clearer identification of CPU-bound bottlenecks.

Gaming Governance and Industry Trends

The Stop Killing Games Campaign

• The team strongly supports the Stop Killing Games initiative, which challenges the legality of publishers shutting down service-based games like The Crew.
• They argue that when support ends, publishers should provide either an offline mode or the means for the community to host their own servers to ensure game preservation.

Mid-Gen Consoles and Industry Models

• The potential for a PS5 Pro is reviewed with cautious skepticism, noting that while it may improve ray tracing performance, it is unlikely to be a "path-tracing beast" equivalent to top-tier PC hardware.
• The discussion concludes with a look at the future console model, potentially moving away from subsidized, closed-platform hardware.