ACTIVISION Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II - PS5

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Harness the power of a custom CPU, GPU, and SSD with Integrated I/O that rewrite the rules of what a PlayStation console can do. A comparison between the old, classic 2009 team deathmatch maps in Modern Warfare 2, and the remade versions in this year's Modern Warfare 3. The leap in technology is well reflected in the push for more photo-realistic materials - plus the current engine's volumetric effects.

To give Modern Warfare 3 its dues, the big Ground War games do at least take place on three new battlefields. Plus, the Zombies mode is set across a giant map, Urzikstan. In fact, this Urzikstan map gives us an early look at the setting for Warzone's big refresh in December. Also, many of the high points of the IW Engine tech return. Character model and motion capture quality are exceptional, even during in-engine rendered scenes. There's a near photo-realistic look to the way character eyes move, to material lighting, to the way cloth physics - even beard physics as Captain Price air-drops into action.Modern Warfare III will also launch with new Ground War maps boasting innovative play spaces and the epic return and evolution of the popular War Mode that first debuted in 2017’s Call of Duty: WWII.

The IW9 Engine continues to scale its visuals effectively to Series S with a dynamic 1440p image - while PS5 and Series X gun for 4K. All targets are achieved via a mixture of reconstruction and a dynamic resolution setup. The 120Hz mode on Series S is a curious extra. In the campaign, running through all the paces of the first mission, it's barely able to stretch up past 80fps and typically nestles at the 60fps line. And none of the later sandbox-style missions fare much better honestly. It's often hovering at just above 60fps, with some brief flashes up. In short, Series S falls very short at 120Hz and that extends to multiplayer, of course. Team deathmatch games, the ground war games, the zombies mode, all struggle - though simpler maps like Terminal do at least run between 80-100fps. And likewise, less gruelling, player-congested parts of Ground War maps also get close to 100fps for a spell. So, this mode does have some use. Better that we have the option at least on Series S, and there's no question that uncapping it to 120fps, on a VRR supporting display will reap some benefits in input response.

It's just that the reality is that PS5, Series X - and PC of course - enjoy a big advantage: not just in visibility, but also in the smoothness of motion with 120fps enabled. I think the Zombies mode reveals the limits of Series S' resolution most obviously. Just running around the Urzikstan map - much like in Warzone modes in previous years - shows visibility suffering at range. And right now, it's hard to ignore some rough points - glaringly low resolution textures - still in this version of the map. In terms of platform comparisons, the IW9 Engine scales its visuals impeccably to all systems as ever. For competitive fairness online, it's essential that fundamental scene detail - even to the very far horizon - remains exactly in place. And so it goes for PS5, Series X and S, where the technical make-up is the same as last year's Modern Warfare 2. Pitting PS5 against Series X, each pushes an identical 4K image. Temporal anti-aliasing is in effect, alongside a form of reconstruction to create a final 3840x2160 result. That is, even if the true pixel count adjusts dynamically behind the scenes, based on GPU load and seems to reach a minimum of 1080p.