Announced several months ago, the next generation upgrade for Marvel's Avengers lands today and Digital Foundry had the opportunity to check out the campaign element on PlayStation 5 in a near-final build – and the results are impressive. Developer Nixxes delivers a 60fps performance mode with improved graphics compared to PlayStation 4 Pro, upping the ante for the next-gen quality mode, and utilising the new console's advanced storage capabilities to provide a revelatory improvement in loading times.
Showing is perhaps better than telling, so I'd recommend digging into the video embedded below, but the bottom line is that the performance mode is arguably the best way to play. Just like PS4 Pro, it's running at 2160p checkerboard with a dynamic resolution window that extends as far as it needs to in order to sustain the crucial 60fps target. Essentially, the more mayhem you unleash, the lower typical resolution is likely to be – expect values in the 1800p range in the heat of the action, dropping to 1440p when all hell truly breaks loose.
Regardless, there are visual improvements on top of the frame-rate boost if you compare the game running up against PS4 Pro's quality mode. This starts with significantly superior texture assets on PS5, along with a mild boost to texture filtering quality and a more dramatic speed-up in texture streaming. Particle effects and alpha transparencies also operate at a significantly higher resolution up against Pro at its best, which adds a great deal to the look of the game bearing in mind how omni-present these elements are. On top of that, water rendering also gets a significant boost – the flat plane effect on last-gen water is replaced with a proper geometric surface with undulation and deformation on PS5.
