In PlayStation 5’s Nioh Collection, Tecmo Koei combines both of his PS4 emails into a single package, complete with all downloadable expansions, offering a huge amount of content. On top of that, the publisher also promises improvements to the existing PS4 / PS4 Pro versions, with both titles allegedly delivering native 4K modes, as well as support for 120Hz games. On top of that, there’s a new ‘PlayStation 5 standard mode’ – effectively a quality mode focused on the features of the new hardware for a significantly enhanced experience. So how is it all going and what improvement are we looking at compared to the existing PS4 Pro version – which offers 4K, high frame rate support? This is an interesting question to answer, because the older versions of Nioh on PS4 Pro offer a great deal of flexibility with their own performance and quality modes, and because they lean heavily in unlocked frame rates and dynamic resolution scales, you can already get an upgraded experience from the existing games by merging them just backwards on the new Sony platform.
However, these are remasters and although the upgrades are rare night and day improvements, they are significant. For starters, Tecmo Koei has stripped down the somewhat deadly chessboard version of the PS4 Pro version (which contains issues, including clear aliasing and dual-width transparency effects), and opted for original resolution version on PlayStation 5. Don’t get us wrong Non-chessboard may look impressive, but the implementation of Nioh was not very good, so the move to original version gives a boost to the image quality that you will not get from back-to-back comparisons. Second, in Nioh 1, 4K mode delivers just that, with just a touch of scale of dynamic resolution, while the PS5 standard mode increases settings but expands the DRS window, meaning 1800p and possibly even lower resolutions are possible.
And then there’s the 120Hz mode: the resolution drops, but the improvement in input delay and visual response is really impressive – for Nioh 1 it’s my favorite way to play, especially since the level of detail (beyond the number of pixels) is comparable is with the other modes. I’m going to watch the video for a more detailed explanation of how the different version variations stand together in terms of specific examples, but consider it a complete content, more refined version of a real excellent PS4 game, and you will it understands how I rate it so highly.
John Linneman and Alex Battaglia delve deep into The Nioh Collection on PlayStation 5 – what does it look like and play, and which game modes are best for each title?
Nioh 2 is a more challenging game in terms of its delivery demands – perhaps not surprisingly, considering that it was only launched in March 2020 – so while using the same three modes (and maintaining the original resolution delivery) , the results are not quite so pristine. The 4K mode does not really run at ultra HD resolutions, but comes for the most part between 1944p and 2160p, while the DRS range in the PS5 Standard mode expands much further, but benefits from improved shadows and draw distances. The 120Hz mode is also not quite as successful as that of Nioh 1 – the loss of detail is significant and the shadow quality is poor.
Performance is important to the Nioh range, and it’s pretty easy to beat – Nioh 1 is mostly locked in both 4K and PS5 standard modes at 60 fps, while the 120Hz output is just as consistent and most of its expensive spend. delivers a full 120 frames per second. This is a huge improvement over PlayStation 4, and it’s a pleasure to play. The demanding Nioh 2 is not quite as successful – 4K and PS5 standard modes are mostly good, and it locks in frame rates, but not as consistently as the first game. The 120Hz mode is also less steady, often dropping to 90-100fps in more open areas.
This is where the lack of VRR support on the PS5 platform is disappointing: a drop frame in 120Hz mode is a stutter of 8.3 ms, and if much of it occurs within a short period of time, the stutter is noticeable. But at the same time, the per-frame persistence between 90 fps and 120 fps is less than 3 ms – and with VRR, frame-time deviations will be much harder to pick up by the human eye. I really hope to see a good platform-level VRR implementation at PS5 – the technology is extremely impressive and has already been proven on Xbox consoles.
If we return specifically to the Nioh Collection, the loading times – or lack thereof – are extraordinarily impressive, until both titles load so quickly, it’s almost like a cartridge experience. This is a night and day improvement over last generation consoles, and even a significant improvement over the last generation code used under back competency on PS5. This is a further refinement of what is already a nicely improved game, and one that I highly recommend checking out. And one more thing for fans of the physical disc: the Nioh Collection is fully on Blu-ray, with one disc per game, and no extra downloads needed to get the full experience. Nice.