I've fallen in love with my PS5 Pro at last thanks to this huge new game

When you test out tech and games for a living, you often get access to things before they launch but, for a host of reasons, rarely more than a week or so out from the on-sale date. So, when I got a review code for Kingdom Come: Deliverance II right at the very start of January this year, a full month before its release, I was impressed by the implied confidence.

Now, a month later, the game is on the cusp of being available, and I've spent some 65 hours in its version of medieval Bohemia, all the while reflecting on its immediate status as the most impressive game my PS5 Pro has yet powered. I've talked a bunch about how it's an expensive console that feels hard to justify if you already have a PS5, but this feels like the start of a tidal shift.

When I wrote about Deliverance II a few weeks ago, I could only talk about its opening hours, but now the gloves are off and I'm on the very cusp of finishing the game. Really, the main difference here is that I've now explored its second, much larger region in detail too, to take in how the PS5 Pro deals with bustling and detailed market squares and city streets, as well as the forests and fields it had already excelled at.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Official CGI Trailer – Live a Life Medieval - YouTube

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The answer is, pleasingly, that it's been crunching through the hubbub of Kuttenberg with absolutely no trouble, rendering a warren of alleys, inns, bathhouses and stables without breaking much of a sweat. With dozens of detailed characters milling around and interacting, it's the sort of environment that I could have seen older consoles struggling with.

As it happens, it looks like the game's performance is impressively balanced on the base PS5 too (with a tip of the hat to the team at Digital Foundry for the investigative work), but you can now check out comparisons to see the necessary step down in detail on the less powerful console. The PS5 Pro is threading the needle, offering a balance of frame rate and graphical prowess that feels like its exact mission statement, making for a smooth and gorgeous experience.

I mostly game on my LG OLED C2, which has all the HDMI 2.1 features that you could want, including an Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) that turns on automatically when you turn your console on for better response rates. It also has a handy frame-rate counter built into its gaming settings menu, which has made it pretty easy to verify that I'm getting 60-80 frames per second for the majority of any given session. That's a great return for such a visually dense game, and one with so much going on.

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Unlike my base PS5, I also haven't noticed the console getting particularly hot while it's in use, and I haven't heard its fans go into overdrive either (although I'm using one of the best gaming headsets available, so might not hear it anyway). With some gorgeous soundscapes, it's a real advert for every part of why current-gen console gaming simply feels better than generations gone by.

On the gameplay side, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II offers a refreshing and satisfying difficulty arc. The main struggle is to get your hands on decent gear and to level up enough to use it properly, rather than waiting for arbitrary moments of progress. That means that I'm now, in the late game, able to confidently get into fights with my sword swinging, rather than worrying about constantly saving my game to avoid being chopped up.

I've also been able to tailor my version of Henry as I like in terms of personality, leaning into the Scholarship and Charisma skills rather than chugging beers and becoming a tavern brawler. I'm impressed with how often these skills can be put to use in conversations, to avoid conflict but also to simply smooth the way and leave people with a better impression of me. A granular reputation system makes this feel worthwhile, too.

Near the end of any open-world game of this scale, I tend to get a little bit of sidequest fatigue, which isn't a reflection on the writing, but rather just my capacity to play one title for dozens of hours without something else to take a break with. So, I'm now mainlining the last few hours of the game's main quest and loving every minute as it hurtles towards what I hope will be a cathartic ending. With DLC packs already announced, I'm sure I'll be back for more in a few months.

In the meantime, with other graphically demanding games like Monster Hunter Wilds and Assassin's Creed Shadows on the way, I feel like I'm finally starting to love my PS5 Pro. After a bedding-in period that had me wondering if the money I'd spent was wasted, it's onwards and upwards from here.