Sony's $700 PlayStation 5 Pro gives games such as God of War: Ragnarok and Baldur's Gate 3 a big performance boost but it's also enduring teething problems, with players reporting issues in the likes of Silent Hill 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
The recently released remake of beloved survival horror game Silent Hill 2 perhaps has the most complaints, with Eurogamer having spotted a number of fans flagging that both developer Bloober Team and publisher Konami have yet to comment on graphical issues headlined by a shimmering or flickering effect.
"I immediately knew something was off without even seeing gameplay previously or even playing the game before this," said Unlocky-Soil-2456 on Reddit. "That’s how bad this is. I can’t even bring myself to play it in this state because it’s so distracting."
Several other games are affected by this similar shimmering issue too. "I love my PS5 Pro for the most part, most games look wonderful, but there seems to be an issue with some games," said Chaystic on ResetEra. "There's this weird shimmering, aliasing, whatever you wanna call it. One big example is Black Ops 6, I thought my Pro was faulty or something, but it turns out I'm not the only one who noticed it. I've seen several social media posts who reported the same."
Fellow PS5 Pro owners in the comments pointed it out in Spider-Man 2, Stellar Blade, and Alan Wake 2 as well, while Digital Foundry discovered what it called "severe image quality problems" in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. "There are severe image quality concerns when elements like foliage interact with ray tracing," it said. "The end result is a strobing image quality downgrade that makes this Pro patch difficult to recommend."
The PS5 Pro arrived November 7 as Sony's now standard mid-generation upgrade. More than 50 games received PS5 Pro specific patches upon its launch but, as this list includes Alan Wake 2 and Black Ops 6 among others receiving complaints, it's worth proceeding with caution.
In our 7/10 review of the PS5 Pro, IGN said: "The PlayStation 5 Pro is an impressive console with noticeable boosts in performance and graphics for games that take advantage of its powerful hardware. But for $700, you’ll need to think twice about whether or not the upgrade is worth the price tag."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.