[Digital Foundry] Sea of Thieves on PlayStation 5: the next big Xbox multi-platform game tested

[Super]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2hQ5I-emRo

Sea of Thieves stared off life as an Xbox exclusive, growing over time into a genuine hit with a large, committed community. Now, in an effort to increase its audience still futher, it's become a key part of Microsoft's multi-platform push. Yes, Rare's pirate co-op title is headed to PlayStation 5, kicking off with an open beta last weekend. So just how good is the port and to what extent does the experience vary between PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series hardware? This has been an interesting project for Digital Foundry, not just because of the new version - but also because we missed out on covering the game in its transition to current-gen hardware, so we also took a look at the game to see how it has evolved up against Xbox One X.

Click to shrink...

The most interesting place to start is with a look at the brand-new PS5 version. To reiterate, we looked at beta code, and there may be changes when the game launches on April 30th, but it does seem quite polished at the moment. First impressions suggest a game that is very similar to its Series X counterpart - but when we look a bit closer, there are some differences. Shadows look quite a bit different on PS5, with a sharper outline and more visible detail. This holds true both up-close and at a distance, with far away shadows resolving more softly on the Series machine. This is definitely an odd change, and falls in line with a similar tweak found in the PS5 version of Hi-Fi Rush.

Click to shrink...

There are also some changes to foliage. Most differences in head-to-heads are derived from procedural placement, which actually change on the same console from one run to the next, but that's not to say there aren't some more substantial differences elsewhere. I noticed the PS5 had a consistent edge when it came to draw distances for distant foliage elements, which sometimes appeared on the PlayStation when absent from Series X. Once again, these were very minor differences that you'd need a side-by-side to spot, but there is a clear PlayStation advantage here for some reason, which I don't really understand at the moment. On PC, the PS5 corresponds with max settings, with Xbox falling somewhat behind.

Click to shrink...

The game's current-gen outings are far from perfect though: Sea of Thieves suffers from odd performance issues on Xbox Series and PS5 machines, which can dampen the experience, while the networking issues from the open beta should be sorted out before the game's April 30th PS5 release, because they were quite intrusive in my testing. Overall though, Sea of Thieves retains its signature charm - and should go down well with PlayStation players.

Click to shrink...

The game also seems to have some form of global illumination in tow, which helps to flesh out some of the secondary lighting characteristics of each environment. It's far from the high-quality RTGI or baked lighting that we find in some more modern titles, and it does exhibit some pop-in, but the lighting generally looks good considering the game's scope.

Click to shrink...

Sea of Thieves on PlayStation 5: the next big Xbox multi-platform game tested

Digital Foundry gets to grips with the PS5 port of Sea of Thieves, stacking it up against Series X and PC.

www.eurogamer.net

 

[Napalm_Frank]

Damn, I assumed it would take PS5 Pro to have the definitive console versions of Xbox Studios games but PS5 has consistently had the best version 3 times now (although I think they patched the 120fps for Pentiment later on for Series X)?

 

[criteriondog]

PS5 port seems to have some minor advantages over series x based off the beta, better shadows again for one thing

Less minor fps dip during network play was another

 

[sheeldz]

The issue here, I guess, is that Xbox doesn't do beta versions of live Xbox games, and these improvements might, like in Pentiment, make it to an Xbox version of the game soon. But also, these do seem minor "improvements" and whilst I do like DF, most in gameplay elements are not going to make a blind bit of difference.

Essentially identical to the normal eye.

 

[beebop]

PS5 port seems to have some minor advantages over series x based off the beta, better shadows again for one thing

Less minor fps dip during network play was another

Click to shrink...

Worth pointing out that they had different servers and slightly updated code from the current production code, so things might change in S12 and when PS5 is sharing production servers.

 

[Granjinhaa]

Damn, I assumed it would take PS5 Pro to have the definitive console versions of Xbox Studios games but PS5 has consistently had the best version 3 times now (although I think they patched the 120fps for Pentiment later on for Series X)?

Click to shrink...

They did (also the performance of Pentiment is better on Xbox after that patch). Grounded is also better on Xbox without even taking into account technical stuff because it has Shared Worlds while PS5 does not - i do wonder if this is because this is beta code, curious to see these (if any) differences when the 12th season launches.

Wild stuff tho. Quite embarrassing imo.

 

[Helix]

What can Phil do?

 

[logash]

What can Phil do?

Click to shrink...

Step down

/S

 

[Scottoest]

Damn, I assumed it would take PS5 Pro to have the definitive console versions of Xbox Studios games but PS5 has consistently had the best version 3 times now (although I think they patched the 120fps for Pentiment later on for Series X)?

Click to shrink...

These ports are largely being handled by contracted external studios, so it may just come down to slightly different choices being made about where to draw the line in optimization.

 

[ArchedThunder]

The minor advantages Xbox games have had on PS5 are hilarious after Sony said MS might make PS5 versions of CoD worse.

 

[Cyberclops]

Is Sea of Thieves still technically an Xbox One game on the Series consoles? I know I had it running off of an external hard drive at some point.

 

[Genesius]

Just preordered this today.

I played years ago on an Xbox for a while so I don't know if there's anything there to carry over or if I should bother if it does. I'll probably need to start over anyway, don't remember much about it.

 

[RayCharlizard]

Is Sea of Thieves still technically an Xbox One game on the Series consoles? I know I had it running off of an external hard drive at some point.

Click to shrink...

It has been a native gen 9 title for a while now.

 

[Grips]

The minor advantages coming from the ps5 ports makes sense but man it's such a bad look.

 

[Granjinhaa]

The minor advantages coming from the ps5 ports

Click to shrink...

Do they? How, exactly?

 

[Grips]

Do they? How, exactly?

Click to shrink...

emphasis in minor, slightly better LOD, shadows and foliage.
Don't matter to me but it do for the loud people.

 

[Iwao]

Damn, I assumed it would take PS5 Pro to have the definitive console versions of Xbox Studios games but PS5 has consistently had the best version 3 times now (although I think they patched the 120fps for Pentiment later on for Series X)?

Click to shrink...

I was worried it'd be the opposite for these games as it felt like the release of games like Psychonauts 2 on PlayStation was setting a bad precedent. it's good to see there's not a mandate for any funny business.

 

[Granjinhaa]

emphasis in minor, slightly better LOD, shadows and foliage.
Don't matter to me but it do for the loud people.

Click to shrink...

still doesn't make sense, really. in theory xbox series x is a very slightly powerful machine.

 

[David Matter]

its a matter of perception, PS5 being better than Xbox Series X in this case for Sea of Thieves is again other example of many where PS5 have an advantage over the Xbox Series and even worse, is happening with Xbox owned IPs and games, and isnt the first time, happened with pentiment even if they patched that later, as I say, its perception, the word out there is that PS5 is having the same game than Xbox series but better, and this keeps and keeps going and now that we are going to have the PS5 PRO, that will increase even more

people think that thats nothing, will not change anything, etc.. but at the end of the day when you have years and years and years of people saying to other people in PlayStation the games are better or PlayStation have the better games, PlayStation become the by defacto console for customers to buy , perception is a powerful weapon in the gaming industry and in any entertainment industry, its marketing, and its pretty weird that this is happening now with xbox games, but well... i suppose people will have to be ready with ps5 pro when all games are going to be reviewerd until the end of the generation and PS5 pro start to dominate the conversation at least in that topic of who has the power advantage

I am a xbox player first, and is annoying to see that the same games that i am playing on xbox have any kind of advantage or are looking better on PlayStation...... MS should at least do a patch for the games on xbox when they launch on PS5, now what they are going to say? it was a bug like pentiment? whatever....

 

[bes.gen]

lol its not a catastrophy. god.
nobody cares about differences this insignificant other then vocal minority of man-babies.
and honestly them getting insecure about their plastic slab is the main entertainment of these face-offs

 

[Grips]

still doesn't make sense, really. in theory xbox series x is a very slightly powerful machine.

Click to shrink...

ohh I misunderstood, I said makes sense because the ps5 ports are more recent so things are more polished

 

[Granjinhaa]

ohh I misunderstood, I said makes sense because the ps5 ports are more recent so things are more polished

Click to shrink...

oh yeah. in that way it does make sense :P

 

[Lant_War]

still doesn't make sense, really. in theory xbox series x is a very slightly powerful machine.

Click to shrink...

If I had to guess maybe it's just that the game got more optimized since whenever they first released the Series X version and with a new port they take whatever slight advantage they can get out of it and "spend" it in these little enhancements. While with the XSX version they stuck with a "not broken not fixing" mentality since the launch.

iirc they also said they had Sony engineers helping out so who knows.

 

[hey it's that dog]

I don't actually think crisper shadows with much more obvious flickering around the edges are superior. I'd rather have less defined shadows that don't obviously pixelate around the edges.

 

[Mars People]

PS5 wins again!

Said someone probably.

No real difference here. Great port.

 

[Aurora]

Isn't Sea of Thieves one of those "Gen 9 Aware," titles like the MCC and Mass Effect Legendary Edition that can leverage certain aspects of the Series' hardware like 120fps but they're still running Xbox One code and thus can be run off external drives? I assume that there's probably a "benefit," to the PS5 SKU being a native PS5 SKU and not a PS4 title running in BC.

 

[faint]

I find it unfair to assume only fanboys may be upset at the minor improvements from the PS5 version. It really shouldn't be a thing when on paper the XSX is the more powerful console. It's strange that the hardware from a first-party publisher runs a game worse than a competitors. It shouldn't matter how minor it is. They should at the very least have feature parity.

 

[Ambient]

Glad I waited for the PS5 version. Seems to be the superior console version albeit very minor improvements.

 

[Praedyth]

It's the same thing really

 

[BabyDontHurtMe]

Never underestimate the power of PlayStation Mark Cerny.

Joking aside it's nice that both versions are very nearly identical regardless of the small differences.

 

[BubblegumNemesis]

ohh I misunderstood, I said makes sense because the ps5 ports are more recent so things are more polished

Click to shrink...

True, but it is a big marketing problem.

 

[vixolus]

I find it unfair to assume only fanboys may be upset at the minor improvements from the PS5 version. It really shouldn't be a thing when on paper the XSX is the more powerful console. It's strange that the hardware from a first-party publisher runs a game worse than a competitors. It shouldn't matter how minor it is. They should at the very least have feature parity.

Click to shrink...

I'm sorry - do you think procedurally generated foliage at a massive draw distance counts as a feature? Even One X has some shadow draw improvements over Series X in some side-by-sides. It's not this serious.

 

[Squarealex]

This isn't the first Rare game on PlayStation Plateform?

 

[DriftingSpirit]

Once again, these were very minor differences that you'd need a side-by-side to spot, but there is a clear PlayStation advantage here for some reason, which I don't really understand at the moment.

Click to shrink...

Why is it something that needs to be understood or explained? They are two different machines with two different sets of priorities and strengths. PS5 will have an edge with some games as we've seen throughout this gen. It isn't like we're comparing Series S and X, for example, and the S is somehow outdoing X. That is something that would be confounding, not PS5 having an edge over X.

This isn't the first Rare game on PlayStation Plateform?

Click to shrink...

It is the first, yeah.

 

[bes.gen]

I find it unfair to assume only fanboys may be upset at the minor improvements from the PS5 version. It really shouldn't be a thing when on paper the XSX is the more powerful console. It's strange that the hardware from a first-party publisher runs a game worse than a competitors. It shouldn't matter how minor it is. They should at the very least have feature parity.

Click to shrink...

its already a thing on multiple titles by different developers by now.
on paper didn't translate well to reality. they each have slightly different advantages. get over it.

also who promised xbox would have the best versions of their games throughout the gen.
do you expect them to knee cap ps5pro version of their ports for example?

 

[Red Kong XIX]

Was there ever a good explanation why the PS5 has a slight advantage in many multiplat comparisons, when the Xbox Series X actually should be noticeably more powerful from the hardware side?

I think Rich once said Microsoft should start asking third-party developers serious questions why this is the case, supposedly because the PS5 is the lead development platform and then it gets ported over to Xbox, but now with the results from Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves, I doubt this has much to do with the devs. Either there is something with the hardware that makes this difference, or dev support and documentation is better on Sony's side. But just putting this on the devs doesn't make sense anymore at this point imo.

 

[faint]

I'm sorry - do you think procedurally generated foliage at a massive draw distance counts as a feature? Even One X has some shadow draw improvements over Series X in some side-by-sides. It's not this serious.

Click to shrink...

If it was only this game, sure. But this has been present in every game ported to PS5. It's great that work is obviously going into these ports but if the XSX was my primary console, I'd be rubbed the wrong way if Microsoft published titles continue to release in a better state on what is still a competing platform.

its already a thing on multiple titles by different developers by now.

on paper didn't translate well to reality. they each have slightly different advantages. get over it.

also who promised xbox would have the best versions of their games throughout the gen.

do you expect them to knee cap ps5pro version of their ports for example?

Click to shrink...

I'm not suggesting the XSX should have the superior version. I'm saying given the power difference, the performance enhancements on PS5 don't feel like they should not be present on XSX. I'm asking for parity, which I think is fair regardless of if you're a PS5 or XSX owner. I'm neither.

 

[Sydle]

PS5 port seems to have some minor advantages over series x based off the beta, better shadows again for one thing

Less minor fps dip during network play was another

Click to shrink...

I stopped listening at that part. The sharp, pixelated shadows on PS5 look worse. The softer edges are more natural.

That said, the performance is basically identical. Nobody is losing out.

 

[Powerofthecloud]

Glad I waited for the PS5 version. Seems to be the superior console version albeit very minor improvements.

Click to shrink...

How did you know it was coming out on the PS5 to wait all these years? LOL

 

[Powerofthecloud]

Was there ever a good explanation why the PS5 has a slight advantage in many multiplat comparisons, when the Xbox Series X actually should be noticeably more powerful from the hardware side?

I think Rich once said Microsoft should start asking third-party developers serious questions why this is the case, supposedly because the PS5 is the lead development platform and then it gets ported over to Xbox, but now with the results from Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves, I doubt this has much to do with the devs. Either there is something with the hardware that makes this difference, or dev support and documentation is better on Sony's side. But just putting this on the devs doesn't make sense anymore at this point imo.

Click to shrink...

Is this the really the case? Series X is the better performer for 3rd party more times than not, I thought.

 

[Bishop89]

The most impressive thing is MS taking this initiative seriously and not releasing cheap quick ports. Kudos to their studios

 

[Ambient]

How did you know it was coming out on the PS5 to wait all these years? LOL

Click to shrink...

I had a feeling.

 

[beebop]

Watch this become the longest thread about Sea of Thieves on Era.

 

[Windrunner]

We're into the 4th year of this generation and people are still acting surprised that the Series X and PS5 effectively have parity in real world examples. The differences here are minuscule, it's insane to obsess over something so trivial or get weirdly outraged over it.

Maybe learn the lesson that there's more to a console's design than teraflops and be more critically minded instead of swallowing marketing hype.

 

[Linus815]

im really confused why people are acting like small details dont matter in a.... *checks notes* digital foundry thread? like yeah it looks very similiar but its kinda hard to deny ps5 has the edge here.

 

[Suntzupp]

Ms started this gen with the most powerful console ever marketing which changed later but from all the df videos before these consoles launch I could never imagine PS5 having better versions as its 10 TF vs 12TF and that too on Xbox first party games. Its wild

 

[big_z]

Was there ever a good explanation why the PS5 has a slight advantage in many multiplat comparisons, when the Xbox Series X actually should be noticeably more powerful from the hardware side?

Click to shrink...

It doesn't. John responded to this on the podcast a while back and counted up games. Xbox is ahead a majority of the time but the odd time it's not people become fixated.

When it comes to games like sot and rush you're taking optimized code, porting it and optimizing it further. It's not surprising small tweaks are discovered along the way. Would be nice if these tweaks find their way back to the xbox versions but well see.

The shadow sharpness point seems odd. Usually softer edge shadows are more taxing and preferred as it reduces flicker while being more realistic.

 

[Powerofthecloud]

Ms started this gen with the most powerful console ever marketing which changed later but from all the df videos before these consoles launch I could never imagine PS5 having better versions as its 10 TF vs 12TF and that too on Xbox first party games. Its wild

Click to shrink...

I would love to see a thread were we could generate comparisons for performance between the two so people would be able to be informed and choose the better option. But, that would probably turn into a console warrior thread, rather than talk about the true technical aspects. Would be a cool resources at least.

 

[vixolus]

im really confused why people are acting like small details dont matter in a.... *checks notes* digital foundry thread? like yeah it looks very similiar but its kinda hard to deny ps5 has the edge here.

Click to shrink...

It makes sense to make note of them. I am just heavily rolling my eyes that it's suggested "dev support and documentation" can lead to the result of......... ever so slightly better draw distance on some foliage. From games made with general purpose engines (Unity, Unreal).

Rather than a ground-up version just having some slight differences that maybe the XSX hasn't been given because they would have to do an unnecessary re-test of performance across the game over 0.01% of pixels. Or things could change with the official launch and S12 update across all platforms. Who knows.

 

[Kolbe1894]

We're into the 4th year of this generation and people are still acting surprised that the Series X and PS5 effectively have parity in real world examples. The differences here are minuscule, it's insane to obsess over something so trivial or get weirdly outraged over it.

Maybe learn the lesson that there's more to a console's design than teraflops and be more critically minded instead of swallowing marketing hype.

Click to shrink...

The biggest "marketing hype" is people do really thought PS5 had better version in most games while it's not lol