Assassin's Creed Shadows PS5 Pro details have been revealed and the biggest difference appears to be ray tracing

Assassin's Creed Shadows
(Image credit: Ubisoft)

  • Performance modes for Assassin's Creed Shadows on PS5 Pro have been confirmed
  • Expect Performance, Fidelity and Balanced modes
  • On PS5 Pro, 'extended' ray tracing is being offered for two modes

Ubisoft has detailed its performance modes for Assassin's Creed Shadows on PS5 Pro. It's all about what you'd expect for the upgraded hardware, with 'extended' ray tracing being the main draw.

As confirmed by an official PlayStation Blog post, Assassin's Creed Shadows will feature three separate performance modes on both PS5 and PS5 Pro: Performance, Fidelity, and Balanced.

On both consoles, these performance modes are largely identical. All target an upscaled 2160p (4K) resolution. In terms of frame rates, you're getting a targeted 60fps in Performance mode, 30fps in Fidelity mode, and 40fps in Balanced mode (designed for displays that support variable refresh rate and HDMI 2.1).

The big difference between the PS5 and PS5 Pro experiences comes down to ray tracing. On the standard console, Performance mode offers 'selective' ray tracing which limits global illumination to the Hideout. That's your base of operations in Shadows, by the way. Meanwhile, 'standard' ray tracing is applied to both Fidelity and Balanced modes, which provides the feature throughout the game world.

Ray tracing look to be upgraded for Assassin's Creed Shadows on PS5 Pro, then. Performance mode offers that standard ray tracing experience, while Fidelity and Balanced brings 'extended' ray tracing to the table. According to the PlayStation Blog post, this "includes full support of ray tracing to compute global illumination for diffuse lighting and reflective surfaces throughout the game world."

Currently, it's not clear as to whether or not ray tracing can be disabled entirely, if only to squeeze out some extra performance from each of the three modes. Ray tracing is nice from a visual standpoint of course, but I personally prefer more reliable performance throughout.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is launching on March 20, 2025 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC.

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Rhys Wood
Hardware Editor

Rhys is TRG's Hardware Editor, and has been part of the TechRadar team for more than two years. Particularly passionate about high-quality third-party controllers and headsets, as well as the latest and greatest in fight sticks and VR, Rhys strives to provide easy-to-read, informative coverage on gaming hardware of all kinds. As for the games themselves, Rhys is especially keen on fighting and racing games, as well as soulslikes and RPGs.

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