Overkill: If we can make Payday 2 better on PS4 than Xbox One, why wouldn’t we?

Overkill: If we can make Payday 2 better on PS4 than Xbox One, why wouldn’t we?
David Scammell Updated on by

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Overkill intends to take full advantage of both PS4 and Xbox One with the upcoming re-release of Payday 2 – but if it can squeeze more performance out of the PS4 version, it will, producer Almir Listo has said.

“They [PS4 and Xbox One] are both going to be… I don’t know if I’m able to say ‘identical’, but basically we’re going to cram in as much as we can,” Listo said, discussing this summer’s Crimewave Edition with VideoGamer.com.

“It would be unfair of me to say that they’re going to be identical, because if hypothetically speaking we can make the PS4 make better stuff than the Xbox One does, then why wouldn’t we do that? If we can take it up a notch, improve the frame rate a bit or whatever, why wouldn’t we do that?”

Listo’s comments follow months after Assassin’s Creed: Unity’s producer Vincent Pontbriand revealed that Ubisoft had locked the performance of both the PS4 and Xbox One versions at the same frame rate and resolution to “avoid all the debates”.

Unsurprisingly, his comments were met by a considerable backlash from the community.

Thanks to the improved performance, Listo hopes that the remaster will “feel completely different” to those who are used to the 720p/30fps outing of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, with the current-gen release boasting an improved frame rate and full 1080p visuals.

“Obviously we’re aiming for parity between the platforms, but then again each platform has its own challenges and improvements from the last-generation,” he continued.

“Since we have such a close connection to the community, we’re aware there are a lot of last-generation players that are frustrated that we haven’t released anything more. We’ve given the last-generation support, but we haven’t given it as much support as the PC version. From our perspective, now when we finally talk about this, that’s not a strange thing at all because, what people have to remember is, those consoles are 10 years old. That’s decade old stuff, you know?

“Payday 2 is a multiplayer game and whenever we release a new heist, for example, that might be 2GB. And what people don’t realise is, that content has to work on the first version of Xbox 360, which had like, what, 20GB worth of space? And you can download the full game, so there you have 10, 15, 20GB now. There’s no way to cram the content into the machine, and that’s the problem. That of course sucks for someone who bought a new 360 yesterday, but the rules tell us we can’t do anything about that. So that’s why it feels so good to bring up this next-gen version.

“For those console gamers who transitioned to the next version of their console, they’ll be able to enjoy Payday once again and it’ll probably feel completely different for them if they haven’t played the PC version.”

Payday 2: Crimewave Edition launches on PS4 and Xbox One in June.