Helldivers 2 has now been out on Xbox for a full week, which means lots of players have had the chance to try the game out and see what they make of the first PlayStation-published title on Series X|S. Of course, that also means that the folks over at Digital Foundry have put the time in to deliver a tech review - which has just landed for our viewing pleasure.
We've thrown that analysis up above, of course, which contains some good comparison shots between PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Resolution and frame rate figures are pretty much as you'd expect - but there's a strange lighting issue that's specific to Xbox consoles. Basically, the game looks really washed out on the two Microsoft machines, and it's something that doesn't occur on PS5.
You can have a look at this issue in the video up at the top, and we'll quote some of what DF has said on the matter down below:
"Xbox Series X [and S] delivers a Helldivers 2 rendition that looks quite unlike its PS5 counterpart. In side-by-side shots in either of the game's two graphical modes, the Series X version looks awfully washed out. Expect irradiated, glowing skies on PS5 in this introductory tutorial area, with Xbox appearing very subdued and grey in comparison."
The contrast looks so different between the two console platforms that we'd assume this is an error that will soon be corrected - it certainly wouldn't be anything to do with the that actual power of Xbox Series X|S. Something that is to do with power on Xbox is of course the Series S version, which contains both quality and performance modes at lower fidelity than the other consoles.
"Series S, rather predictably, gets a range of cuts relative to PS5 and Series X.
Image quality is a bit curious. On Series S in performance mode, the resolution in my test shots counts at 1080p, which should be a match for Series X. But actual delivered image quality suffers in comparison, with a jittery appearance around a lot of edges. Plus, textures are blurrier and in some cases have a slightly blocky look. I suspect Series S is using VRS [variable rate shading] here, because a lot of this behaviour tracks with how VRS often works in other games."
"In the heat of combat, the Series S version uses DRS, dynamic resolution scaling, [...] which corresponds to about a 720p internal resolution."
Quality mode on Series S sticks to 1080p though, so if you'd like to get the most visual fidelity out of your all-digital Xbox version, that's the best option to go with. In general, the Series X and S editions seem to stack up well to PS5, then - we just need that strange lighting issue fixed to get the most out of this new console version of Helldivers 2.