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We're into our first day with the highly anticipated No Man's Sky running on PlayStation 4 and by and large, in terms of performance, the game is holding up nicely. First impressions are striking: we haven't seen a game quite like this so far in this console generation - its engine relying on voxels and procedural generation to create an open-ended, unique journey for every player. And for a performance analysis, there's simply no telling what you'll find out there that we haven't. We'll continue to update with any further impressions but, we've played enough of No Man's Sky - on patch 1.03, of course - to get a flavour of how the game's mechanics all come together. So let's kick off with the basics. The PS4 version runs at a native 1080p resolution, and commits itself to a 30 frames per second cap with v-sync engaged. And by and large, it holds up well. For any on-foot action across our very first randomly generated world, we struggled to find any drops at all. And this is really pushing the envelope here - our debut planet is high in flora and fauna, absolutely filled to the brim with tropical trees, hills and wildlife. But even with this immense density of detail, there wasn't much more than one single frame drop from 30fps across that initial hour of play.
Whether it's shooting chunks through the terrain, or sprinting around full-felt, that 30fps target doesn't waver. And from the first 12 planets we've discovered and put to the test, it doesn't appear to matter what climates or weather conditions are in play. Now the only slight downside to the frame-rate cap is the lack of motion blur to back it, in order to make panning motions appear a little smoother. But that's a nitpick: those after super-smooth motion are best advised to wait for the PC version, but for PS4 we're getting an evenly frame-paced delivery at a straight 30fps.
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