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When inFamous Second Son was released earlier this year, the game's developer, Sucker Punch, delivered a strong technical showing that clearly demonstrated the advantages of the latest Sony console. Unfortunately performance wasn't quite where we would have liked with an unlocked frame-rate coupled with inconsistent performance and occasional dips below 30fps. With inFamous First Light, the standalone downloadable episode, Sucker Punch has been given another shot to further refine its already impressive tech. The question, then, is to what extent the developer has decided to tackle performance - if at all.With Second Son, our testing suggested an average frame-rate somewhere around 35fps during a normal run of play, producing noticeable judder on a 60Hz. We weren't so happy with the decision to go with an unlocked frame-rate at the time but thankfully, as with Guerrilla Games and Killzone Shadow Fall before it, Sucker Punch implemented an optional 30fps cap, giving gamers the chance to choose between raw unlocked performance and a more consistent update. Keeping this in mind, let's take a look at the latest episode.
First Light takes place predominately across the first of the two islands available in Second Son while also offering a slew of indoor areas within the DUP containment facility. Prior to testing, we had hoped that, by utilising more confined environments, we might actually see frame-rates improve, perhaps even closing in on that 60fps mark. That turned out to not be the case at all, however, with the average frame-rate during these sections remaining mostly under 40fps. While the visuals in these sections remain quite detailed and impressive in their own right, it does suggest that their engine is not entirely bottlenecked by handling large environments.
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