A week ago, Grounded was released for both PlayStation 5 and Switch, becoming the third game from Microsoft to be released for competing formats. The previous two were Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush, which can be considered smaller titles, while Grounded is more demanding, and Digital Foundry has now checked how the game works on Nintendo’s and Sony’s hardware – and is not impressed.
The game’s poorer performance on the Switch is perhaps not surprising considering how much weaker the console is, and the resolution is dynamic and ranges from 360p-720p. In addition, many graphic details and effects have been removed, such as depth of field, light shafts and more. Despite this, Grounded on Switch is unable to run at 30 frames per second, and it often lags significantly.
However, the PlayStation is hardware-wise quite identical to the Xbox Series X, so it’s more surprising that so much has been sacrificed for this release. For example, the PlayStation 5 version runs between 1080p-1215p compared to the significantly higher 1512p-4K on the Xbox Series X. It’s also worth noting that the frame rate on the PlayStation 5 often drops to 50 frames per second compared to a steady 60 on the Xbox Series X, in addition to problems with aliasing. A small consolation, however, is that the shadows are reportedly better on the PlayStation 5.
Check out the full breakdown below, and let’s hope Obsidian can sort this out so that this unique survival game can reach its full potential, something everyone would benefit from, as a larger community is good for both PC and Xbox.
