PlayStation Developers Praise PS5's "Blitz-Fast Load Times"

Several developers working on PlayStation exclusives and third-party titles recently praised the [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

Several developers working on PlayStation exclusives and third-party titles recently praised the load times of the PlayStation 5 made possible by the console's SSD. Those developers were featured in a PlayStation Blog post about the SSD and the Tempest 3D AudioTech engine which naturally means the comments would be positive, but they still offer exciting insights into the capabilities of the new tech and what it'll do for the way people experience games on the PlayStation 5.

The post on the PlayStation Blog included comments from those working on games like Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales and some third-party titles like Far Cry 6. Brian Horton, the creative director working on the new Spider-Man game that's planned to launch later this year alongside the PlayStation 5, praised the SSD and how it'll allow people to see the game's setting in a whole new way with "near-instant loading."

"Beyond near-instant loading and fast-travel, the SSD and its speed allow us to more quickly load and display more detailed assets," Horton said. "This should lead to the city looking better than ever, and this is just the beginning for our team unlocking those possibilities. It's a fundamental change that we can't wait to take more advantage of in the years to come."

Other developers had similar praises about how the SSD will minimize load times. Gavin Moore, the creative director at SIE Japan Studio that's working on the Demon's Souls remake, said the tech allows games to "load data at blistering speeds" while Hitman 3 game director Mattias Engström said the SSD will allow for "blitz-fast load times."

Ari Arnbjörnsson, the lead programmer for Returnal, posed a question about what this kind of tech will mean for the concept of levels overall. Quicker load times are the obvious benefit of the SSD based on other creators' comments, but Arnbjörnsson suggests we'll see even more innovations emerge later in the next generation of consoles.

"A bit further into the next generation I'm expecting we'll start seeing developers make more use of the not-so-obvious benefits of the SSD," Arnbjörnsson said. "This is what excites me the most! What does it mean for developers when everything can be loaded from the disk that fast? Will we even need the concept of "levels" anymore?…. The possibilities for this tech are exciting for me as a developer, and exhilarating for me as a gamer."

Sony shared a similar PlayStation Blog post not long ago where developers talked about the impact the DualSense's adaptive triggers would have on games. Perhaps we'll see more insights like this shared as we get closer to the console's release date.

0comments
Start the Conversation

of