Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Bethesda revamps 'Fallout 4' via high-res PC textures, enhanced PS4 Pro visuals

Kevin Parrish
By

Bethesda announced on Monday that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition and Fallout 4 will receive new updates on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC next week. However, Monday’s report focused only on the upcoming Fallout 4 content that will specifically target PC gamers and owners of the new PlayStation 4 Pro console. Details of the Skyrim Special Edition update will likely follow in another blog.

For starters, Bethesda is releasing Update 1.9 for Fallout 4 on the PlayStation 4, which will take advantage of the beefy hardware in the new PlayStation 4 Pro console. This patch will enhance the game’s graphic and lighting features, such as increasing the native resolution to 2,560 x 1,440 (or 1440p).

Related Videos

According to Bethesda, the PlayStation 4 patch will also enhance god rays on the PlayStation 4 Pro, which is another word for light shafts that break through the clouds, trees, windows, and so on. The patch enhances the draw distance too, meaning NPCs, objects, grass, and trees do not just suddenly appear in the scene, but can be seen from far away.

Related

On the PC gaming front, Bethesda is (finally) releasing a high-resolution texture pack for Fallout 4 sold on Steam. It’s a “love letter to our amazing PC fans” who have supported Bethesda Softworks through the decades. Outside the Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda is also known for its earlier work with the Terminator franchise and Wayne Gretzky Hockey.

While news of the new high-resolution texture pack is great for PC gamers, it comes with a hefty price: 58GB of free space just for the add-on alone. Bethesda also recommends 8GB or more of system memory, Intel’s Core i7-5820K processor or better, and Nvidia’s $700 GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card.  For a comparison, here are the minimum and recommended requirements for Fallout 4 on PC:

Minimum Recommended Recommended
With Texture Pack
OS: Windows 7/8/10 64-bit Windows 7/8/10 64-bit Windows 7/8/10 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-2300
(2.8GHz)
AMD Phenom II X4 945
(3.0GHz)		 Intel Core i7-4790
(3.6GHz)
AMD FX-9590
(4.7GHz)		 Intel Core i7-5820K
or better
Memory: 8GB 8GB 8GB or more
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 550 Ti (2GB)
AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2GB)		 Nvidia GTX 780 (3GB)
AMD Radeon R9 290X (4GB)		 Nvidia GTX 1080 (8GB)
or better
Storage: 30GB 30GB 88GB

“If your system can handle it, the Commonwealth will look better than ever,” the company said on Monday. “Give it a shot and if you need to return to the original textures, you can disable them within the game’s launcher menu.”

Fallout 4 arrived on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC on November 10, 2015. That means for PC gamers, Bethesda took more than a year to release high-resolution textures for the game, which is a lot longer than the three months Bethesda took to support high resolutions in Skyrim. Bethesda’s fifth Elder Scrolls installment hit the PC gaming scene in late 2011.

Bethesda just released Skyrim Special Edition in October. This version includes remastered art, volumetric god rays, and more enhancements.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Why you shouldn’t expect a PlayStation 5 Pro anytime soon
The Playstation 5 system standing upright.

It seems pretty likely that Sony will eventually release a "PlayStation 5 Pro" somewhere down the line. The company has a history of making mid-generation console updates with things like the PS4 Slim and Pro, as well as the PS3 Slim, and there are current rumors suggesting that a new base model PS5 may be coming soon. All that is to say that there's certainly a precedent for an upgrade coming sooner or later, but Sony has made it clear that if a Pro model is in the works, it'll be leaning toward the "later" side of things.

Sony hasn't officially said anything about a PS5 Pro, mind you. Its focus is directed solely toward supporting its current hardware, but that focus does inform some of the context surrounding any other potential hardware releases. Based on the company's current behavior, it would appear that a major hardware upgrade like that is still years away.
The PS5's relationship to the PS4
In an interview with Axios, PlayStation Studios CEO Hermen Hulst recently said that the company is still planning on supporting the PS4 past 2022 on a "case-by-case basis." Although he didn't specify which games would also be launching on the PS4, several announced upcoming PlayStation Studios titles such as Marvel's Spider-Man 2 come to mind when thinking about the potential of cross-generational releases.

Read more
Hollow Knight: Silksong is also coming to PS4 and PS5
hollow knight silk song xbox hollowknight silksong

Team Cherry confirmed that the highly anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong will be on two more platforms at launch: PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
The official PlayStation Twitter account revealed the news this morning, adding PS4 and PS5 to a list of Hollow Knight: Silksong platforms that include PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. 
https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1570797280063627264
Hollow Knight: Silksong is a sequel to Hollow Knight, one of the most critically acclaimed Metroidvania games of the past decade. Hollow Knight: Silksong follows Hornet, a character from the first game, as she explores the unfamiliar world of Pharloom. When Team Cherry announced the indie in February 2019, it only confirmed that the game was in development for PC, Mac, Linux, and Nintendo Switch.
The game went MIA after an appearance at E3 2019, only for it to triumphantly reemerge as one of the first announcements of the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase in June 2022. Although we know that Hollow Knight: Silksong will be available through Xbox Game Pass on PC and Xbox platforms, it's good to know that those who prefer to try the game on Nintendo Switch or PlayStation will still have access to the game on day one. 
Unfortunately, this PlayStation announcement did not come alongside a new trailer or release date confirmation, so Hollow Knight fans are still left eagerly awaiting its follow-up. Microsoft did claim that every game in its June showcase was "targeted to launch in the next 12 months," though, so it's very possible that Hollow Knight: Silksong will be released for PC, Mac, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in the first half of 2023. 

Read more
Resident Evil 4 remake is coming to PS4, but seemingly not Xbox One
Resident Evil 4 remake promo art with title and Leon Kennedy.

During Capcom's Tokyo Game Show presentation, the company gave us another look at Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition and announced a new platform for Resident Evil 4's remake. Capcom confirmed that the upcoming Resident Evil 4 remake is coming to PlayStation 4.

The game was revealed at a PlayStation State of Play presentation earlier this year, but was only confirmed for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Interestingly, Capcom noted that the game was coming to PS4 but did not mention Microsoft's last-gen system, the Xbox One. We reached out to Capcom and asked about a potential Xbox One version, but a Capcom representative told Digital Trends that "Capcom hasn’t made any other statements about platforms for RE4."

Read more