Far Cry 6 to run at 4K HDR only on the Xbox Series X? PlayStation 5 fans would not agree and for good reason

Ubisoft revealed a glimpse of Far Cry 6 yesterday during the Ubisoft Forward online event alongside other highly anticipated titles such as Watch Dogs: Legion, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Hyper Scape, Brawlhalla, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint, The Crew 2, Just Dance 2020, and more. Far Cry 6 will be available on all major platforms including PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4 (PS4), PlayStation 5 (PS5), and Google Stadia. The game is naturally expected to be playable at 4K 60 fps on the new generation consoles, but the pre-order poster of the game has manged to ruffle quite a few feathers.

The fine print on the poster reads "4K Ultra HD on Xbox One X and Xbox Series X only. HDR gaming on Xbox One S and newer consoles only." Such a specific indication naturally begets a question as to whether Far Cry 6 would support 4K UHD HDR on the PlayStation 5 or not. However, this statement does not (rather, should not) have any real bearing on how the game would run on the PS5 or any other platform.

As both Tom Warren and Acekone clarify (check Source links below), the wording actually refers only to Xbox's 4K Ultra HD and HDR branding and does not pertain to the PS5 as the latter uses a "4K HDR" nomenclature. There's also a difference in approach taken by PlayStation and Xbox consoles when it comes to putting resolution information on labels. While an Xbox game advertises its resolution, the PlayStation version only says whether it is "Pro Enhanced" or not. Therefore, the above statement is nothing more than a legal disclaimer for Xbox and has nothing to do with how the game would run on the PS5.

That being said, it is understandable why this statement can potentially stoke the usual console fan wars. The Xbox One X had the upper hand in running most titles at near-4K resolution compared to the PlayStation 4 Pro (see resolution comparison below). However, this resolution gap may not really hold true this time around as both the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 have nearly the same AMD RDNA2 custom silicon.

To evaluate how other architectural differences between the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 such as storage, thermals, etc. affect the game's performance on each platform, we will have to wait until February 18, 2021.