The Last Guardian on PS5 runs at 60fps - but only if you have the disc
Hand-in-hand.
The Last Guardian on PlayStation 5 runs at 60fps - but only if you have the disc.
The Fumito Ueda-directed masterpiece famously runs poorly on the PlayStation 4, with the framerate tanking at points. The only way to get a regularly smooth 30fps is to play the game on PlayStation 4 Pro, running at 1080p. On a regular PS4, The Last Guardian lurches between 20-30fps just by running around empty areas, and with stutters to over 110ms. Check out Digital Foundry's The Last Guardian analysis for more.
Fast forward to 2020, and PS5 owners are now able to test The Last Guardian via backwards compatibility, and thankfully the game does run at 60fps, but only if you play using the disc. The discovery was made by YouTube channel NX Gamer (video below), and our friends at Digital Foundry have tested and verified this. So, what's going on?
As Digital Foundry's John Linneman tells me, The Last Guardian shipped without a framerate cap, so it was unstable. The game's first patch added HDR and a 30fps limiter. So, playing an unpatched disc version lets you get to 60fps because you're playing without a framerate cap. If you're playing the download - and patched version - you're playing with the framerate cap enabled.
The upshot is this: it's time to dig out that old PS4 The Last Guardian disc to get a truly wonderful 60fps experience. Either that, or head online to buy one!