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Horror gets photoreal on PlayStation 5 Photoreal visuals? 3D audio to tingle the spine? PS5 will bring horror to life…

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01 We’ve sweated over the specs for months. Now, finally, some developers are ready to talk and tease how PlayStation 5 will change the way we play games. This issue we sit down with Martha Is Dead developer LKA’s studio head, Luca Dalcò, to discuss how the power of Sony’s next-gen hardware is being harnessed to make horror truly terrifying.

“PS5’s specifications are incredibly exciting – particularly for us is the additional graphical power and inclusion of ray-tracing architecture,” says Dalcò as we dig into how PS5 will offer higher visual fidelity. “Our studio has come a long way over four years and Martha Is Dead will strive for photorealism.”

The developer has always placed believability at the heart of its games, and PlayStation 5 will make that more achievable. “We’re excited to see next-generation hardware incoming to support us bringing our vision to players,” adds Dalcò.

What PlayStation 5’s graphical boost over PS4 means is we’ll be seeing incredibly detailed textures in our new games. Dalcò explains: “We worked a lot in order to use the highest-resolution textures as possible also on PS4; nonetheless, PS5 will allow us to use an incredible Texel density, up to 4096px/m – that means the visual will be fully detailed also in higher resolutions. It’s one of the most important advances in visual capability that we were waiting for!”

NEXT-GEN STORY Dalcò tells us that a high level of graphical detail – the studio wants to make Martha Is Dead one of the year’s most realistic games – is crucial to telling the game’s story, particularly as it is designed to deeply unsettle us.