Alan Wake 2 PS5 and Xbox Series X|S graphics modes explained

Alan Wake 2 is a visually impressive game that takes complete advantage of the current-generation console and PC hardware to deliver some truly breathtaking visuals. Making use of real-time ray-tracing and the more advanced path-tracing techniques, the game delivers an immaculate visual presentation that's second to none. However, all this visual flair comes at the cost of very high PC system requirements and some major cutbacks on consoles.

Built on Remedy's latest iteration of their in-house Northlight engine, Alan Wake 2 comes packed with advanced global illumination and lighting that adds a lot of depth to its visuals, from gameplay to in-engine cutscenes.

Here's a look at Alan Wake 2's available graphical modes and performance targets on current-generation consoles, i.e., PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

---

What graphics modes does Alan Wake 2 offer on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S?

Alongside the advancements made to Alan Wake 2's lighting engine, Remedy has also taken into account the faster storage systems in the current-gen consoles and PCs. The one big issue with its previous Northlight-powered games, Quantum Break and Control (their long load times) has been all but eradicated.

However, to keep the game's performance under certain thresholds, Remedy had to resort to upscaling techniques like AMD's FidelityFX SuperResolution (FSR2) on consoles. While the game's output resolution is 4K and 1440p for quality and performance modes, respectively, it does have a much lower render resolution.

On PS5 and Xbox Series X, the 30fps "Quality" mode renders the game at 2258 x 1270, which is then upscaled to 4K output via FSR2. The result might look a tad blurrier than native 4K, but with Remedy's excellent TAA implementation, it looks just fine even on 50+ inch 4K TVs.

The 60fps "Performance" mode, on the other hand, has an internal render resolution of 1505 x 847, which is upscaled using FSR2 to 1440p. The resulting image admittedly looks quite blurry on a 4K display but looks quite sharp if you have a 1080p display. Thanks to Northlight's TAA, there is very little aliasing or shimmer in the output image.

Given the Xbox Series S' very limited memory pool and a significantly slower GPU, Alan Wake 2 has only one mode on the console, that being the 30fps mode. However, the 30fps mode on the Series S is more akin to the "Performance" mode of the other two consoles, targeting a modest 1440p output with a sub 900p internal resolution.