Digital Foundry Direct Weekly

A year on from its initial launch, Xbox Ally gets a brilliant OLED upgrade for the new X20 edition but are we any closer to an actual Xbox-like experience? Meanwhile, Nvidia delivers faster frame-gen and DLSS 5 while Epic acts like a lightning rod for all the AI hate with its latest pivot. Oliver tests out The Crew Motorfest on Switch 2, while John has thoughts on Castlevania: Belmont's Curse....

In the new AI era, it seems that decompilation, recompilation and unofficial ports are child's play - so what are the chances of an unofficial GTA 6 PC port before Rockstar delivers the real thing? And adjacent to that, how is Sony going to react to the massive impact of the recent PS5 jailbreak? Meanwhile, the panel are asked about the importance of PS5 Pro as it nears its second anniversary...

Dragon's Dogma 2 launched with problematic performance on current-gen consoles, making a Switch 2 port seemingly impossible. But the game improved and now the Switch 2 version is here and it's almost brilliant. The panel discuss the new port in depth, before moving on to their thoughts on the PC version of Star Wars: Galactic Racer. Then it's on to a remarkable native PC port of Hideo...

After the out-of-the-blue, completely unleaked release of QSSR upscaling for PlayStation 5, Digital Foundry supporters and the panel attempt to provide some answers, while tackling the question of whether Xbox Series consoles will receive a similar technology. Meanwhile, what are the chances of The Witcher 3 on Switch 2 getting VRR support - and what dead franchises would the DF team like to see r...

DF returns to QSSR coverage with a closer look at Ghost of Yōtei, with John weighing in with his opinions on Marvel's Wolverine too. Rich reveals that Sony isn't the first to port an AI upscaler to a non-AI based GPU, showing FSR 4 running on the RDNA 1 Radeon RX 5700 XT. Meanwhile, John's very happy with the PC version of Gears of War: E-Day. And after sharing some stories on annivers...

A surprise to be sure - and a welcome one. Out of the blue, Sony has released QSSR - Quick Spectral Super Resolution - a refactoring of PS5 Pro's PSSR for the standard PlayStation 5. In this video, Rich and Oliver share their initial thoughts on the technology. We've got image quality comparisons from Marvel's Wolverine, we've got early performance testing from a PS5 dev kit, compa...

The progress in PS5 emulation for PC is becoming extremely rapid - so just how viable is it and should Sony be worried? Meanwhile, Rich, Oliver and Will discuss a range of topics: can PS5 Pro run PSSR and FSR frame gen together? Will PCs eventually replace consoles? Can a Project Helix console replace both a gaming PC and an Xbox console? And... would the Project Helix concept have changed if Xbox...

An extremely busy week at the Foundry but the Direct cannot be stopped - the team discuss the latest news as the "Xbox Reset" enters Phase Two and Halo is shipped off to Activision. Meanwhile, Rich, Oliver and Tom join forces to run the rule over Silent Hill Townfall, becauise the show moves on to discuss the implications of the next-gen consoles' respective GPU TFLOPs numbers. And f...

Stellar Blade on Switch 2 enforces the use of frame generation to target 60fps - and Capcom is offering the same feature with a toggle in the upcoming Dragon's Dogma 2 port. So how does it work and what have we learned from testing it in Stellar Blade? Beyond that, Tom, Rich and Oliver discuss whether next-gen hardware should be delayed, why Nintendo is avoiding DLSS in its own Switch 2 titles...

In a bit of a slow week for news, the team goes hands-on with a bunch of cool games to present their findings - principal amongst them being 007 First Light's visually stunning, but incredibly taxing path tracing upgrade. Redemption Road's 12-minute Kingmakers gameplay deep dive impresses the panel before Tom delivers his thoughts on Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave on Switch 2, with Oliver testing Di...

With Steam Frame just missing the embargo for the last DF Direct, John, Rich and Oliver share impressions of Valve's latest hardware plus there's some ARM standalone testing of Half-Life Alyx, Cyberpunk 2077 and Streets of Rage 4. Beyond that, it's Supporter Q+A time: why doesn't From Software fix 30fps frame-pacing issues? If DLSS 5 isn't really DLSS, how should DLSS evolve? Finally... with the l...

A massive week for news. PlayStation ends decades of partnership with Hideo Kojima as Physint is cancelled by Sony - but picked up by Microsoft, meaning it's coming to Xbox. The team take a look at the surprise-but-a-welcome-one reveal of VRR coming to Switch 2 docked mode, while there's commentary and analysis on the Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and a brand new Nintendo Direct. John and Oliver c...

The DF Direct Q+A Show returns and suffice it to say, there's a huge amount of interest around DLSS 5. Will AMD and indeed Intel deliver equivalent tech? What are the limits of DLSS 5 and how will they be overcome? Meanwhile, is Pearl Abyss developer of the year? And is The Witcher 3 Remastered evidence that CD Projekt RED will return to the RED Engine? For an ad-free experience check out the Digi...

The Digital Foundry panel convene to talk about Sony's disappointing State of Play, John shares his thoughts on the Grand Theft Auto 6 Extended Look and there are more hints about Xbox's next-gen strategy as Asha Sharma discusses a family of devices - amongst other things - in an interview with the BBC. For an ad-free DF Direct Weekly with a private RSS feed and high quality video downloads, suppo...

Six months after its reveal, DLSS 5 has launched with NBA 2K27 and its utilisation is a world apart from the first clips, not to mention the vast array of modded footage we've seen since its leak last week. Rich, John and Oliver compare notes on the difference it makes, the huge performance cost, what is achievable with mods and more. Join the DF Supporter Program for ad free video downloads and a...

While Grand Theft Auto 6's gameplay reveal somewhat overshadowed proceedings, it was indeed Gamescom 2026 this week and with Rich's legs giving out, it was down to John to represent us at the show. So, after dispensing with some gaming and technology news, John delivers his own "best of" tour of Gamescom, discussing the titles he loved. Looking to enjoy DF Direct Weekly ad-free? Gain access to a p...

26 minutes of actual GTA 6 gameplay "dropped" - and on balance, it's one of the most extraordinary visual accomplishments ever seen in real-time game graphics. It's not perfect - nothing can be - but in this DF Direct Special, Oliver and Rich share their thoughts and reactions to the presentation. 0:00:00 Introduction 0:01:24 Overall impressions 0:10:09 Performance: 30 FPS only 0:25:22 Lighting: s...

At the time of recording, it was the lull before the storm that is Gamescom 2026 - but we've still got a bunch of fascinating questions to wade through. Have we got it all wrong with PlayStation 6? Is it actually the hotly rumoured handheld with Sony pivoting in a Nintendo-like direction? If games hit photorealism, where does that leave Digital Foundry? And are plasma TVs the new CRT? 00:00 Introd...

We're not going to be commenting on leaks from a stolen GTA 6 build that's years old and promoting a memecoin but we WILL be talking about Sony's comments on not knowing PS6's pricing and release date and assessing the Black Myth Zhong Kui gameplay reveal. Rich is intrigued by Alan Wake's big PC upgrade for AMD users, while John muses over the reported end of live service elements in Horizon Hunte...

Bethesda is promising a new patch for Oblivion Remastered based on the Switch 2 version's optimisations - but is there any evidence to suggest that the Switch 2 improvements will make any real differences for the other versions? Meanwhile, Oliver clarifies his comments on which PC specs reflect next-gen consoles, whether Project Helix will make much of a difference for Microsoft and whether Epic s...

The team react to Pearl Abyss' statement that Crimson Desert is - somehow - coming to Switch 2, but the first order of business is to share impressions (and performance testing) for the Gears of War E-Day MP beta on PC... and while extremely impressive, we do have some concerns. Rich tests a remarkable system for playing Switch 2 games on the go in TV move with a virtual 174-inch OLED display, Joh...

It's been a year since Digital Foundry parted ways with IGN, buying out its shares and becoming completely independent. The team discuss the challenges of the last 12 months within the context of continuing bad news within the games business, before discussing what we've achieved from our objectives, where we've fallen short and how we're looking to revamp our tools. Beyond that, there are more qu...

What was looking like a fairly quiet week turned into a frenzy with the news that Rockstar will be publishing an "extended look" at Grand Theft Auto 6 on August 27 - but what should we expect? And why on earth would Netflix pay for a six-hour exclusivity window? Meanwhile, The Verge reveals Microsoft docs confirming Xbox 360 emulation for PC, Xbox Disc2Digital should be coming soon and someone has...

It took a Q+A session of its own within a financial earnings call - as opposed to talking directly to its users - but Sony has finally responded to the backlash whipped up by its announcement of the cancellation of physical media. What do we make of the response? And if it's just a small minority of PlayStation users upset by the news, is it right that Sony ignores the very negative feedback? Beyo...

The news has been pretty grim for the last few months, so why not concentrate on the positives? PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X have delivered the best performing videogame generation since the 16-bit 2D era with more support for 60fps gaming than any other 3D-focused console. How did this happen and what are the drawbacks? Meanwhile, if those same consoles are effectively pint-sized PCs using PC...