A new technical breakdown of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater has raised concerns among PlayStation owners, with early tests suggesting that the upcoming remake performs more reliably on the standard PS5 than on Sony’s upgraded PS5 Pro.
Digital Foundry’s analysis examined both consoles ahead of the game’s launch and highlighted how the remake, built on Unreal Engine 5, manages visuals and performance across hardware. On paper, Delta offers significant improvements over the 2004 PlayStation 2 classic, including detailed character models, advanced lighting powered by UE5’s Lumen system, and faithfully recreated environments using original motion capture data. Yet despite these upgrades, performance levels reveal a different story.
On base PS5, players can choose between a 60 FPS performance mode and a higher resolution 30 FPS quality mode. Performance mode ranges from 720p to 1080p with reconstruction to 4K, while quality mode pushes up to 1584p and enhances shadows, object detail, and global illumination effects. However, both modes suffer from instability, with performance mode dropping into the 40s in jungle areas and as low as the 30s underwater. Quality mode’s capped 30 FPS target also faces inconsistent pacing, resulting in judder during fast movement.
The PS5 Pro presents a more surprising outcome. Instead of multiple visual modes, Konami combined the settings of the PS5’s quality mode with a 60 FPS target, relying on Sony’s new PSSR upscaler. This approach was expected to deliver sharper visuals alongside smoother frame rates, but testing shows the opposite. Resolution scales between 756p and 1152p before upscaling, lower than the base console’s quality mode, and distant detail like foliage appears clearer on PS5’s older reconstruction techniques. Moreover, PSSR introduces shimmering artifacts and instability in areas with complex lighting, similar to issues observed in the Silent Hill 2 remake on Pro hardware.
In practice, PS5 Pro struggles to maintain consistent performance, with gameplay often dropping below 60 FPS and in some cases running slower than the base PS5. Jungle segments reveal a gap of up to 7 FPS in favor of the standard system. Although cutscenes benefit from running uncapped at 60 FPS, the single mode leaves players without alternatives if the experience feels uneven.
While Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is being praised for its authentic recreation of Hideo Kojima’s original vision, including classic control options and bonus mini-games, the technical findings raise questions about optimization ahead of launch. The test build was based on version 1.1.1, and it remains to be seen whether a day-one update will address performance discrepancies.
The remake is scheduled to release on August 28, 2025, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows PC.
