In celebration of Returnal’s fourth anniversary, developer Housemarque has surprise-launched a PS5 Pro upgrade—and it’s a doozy. The update includes a significant resolution bump and greater stability, giving players plenty of reason to revisit one of the PS5’s most well-loved titles.
📈 Resolution Boost with Dynamic Scaling
The biggest improvement is the introduction of dynamic resolution scaling (DRS), a step up from the base PS5’s fixed 1080p resolution. On the PS5 Pro, Returnal now dynamically scales its resolution up to 3072×1728, with a minimum recorded measurement of 2400×1350 for demanding scenes like boss fights. That’s a resolution increase of up to 2.56 times over the base PS5—higher than Housemarque’s own “2.5x” estimate.
This change significantly improves the sharpness of images, reducing aliasing and visual noise on tiny details, such as floor textures and environmental effects. While the resolution bump might not be always apparent in the heat of battle, the difference can be seen in quieter moments or when absorbing the world’s intricate design.
⚙️ What Else Is New?
Surprisingly, besides resolution and performance boosts, the Pro patch doesn’t introduce new graphical features. Lighting, shadows, volumetrics, and textures are identical to the base game. PC-centric features such as ray traced reflections or epic-level volumetrics aren’t here—nor is there a graphics settings menu to turn on or off things like performance or fidelity.
🎮 Performance: Smoother But Not Flawless
On base PS5, Returnal typically hits 60fps but can dip into the mid-50s during chaotic sequences or when respawning. The PS5 Pro patch smooths out many of these stutters. Key sections like the boss battle in the first biome and the Tower of Sisyphus now have a rock-solid 60fps thanks to the help of DRS and more GPU grunt (a 45% increase over base PS5).
Yet there remain a few issues. There remain some minor traversal stutters, and a slightly higher number of 50ms frame-time spikes—small stutters that may occur infrequently when hitting enemies. These appear to be the result of the system dynamically altering resolution in response to unexpected GPU loads.
🧐 Caveats and Community Feedback
Though the PS5 Pro model is generally better performing, Returnal’s procedurally generated worlds make precise testing challenging. There are some players on forums like ResetEra that report dips in performance even with the patch—perhaps because the Pro is now rendering with a more complex setup rather than the base PS5’s less complex one. That being said, these occurrences do appear to be rare and not game-breaking.
✅ The Verdict
Housemarque’s Returnal PS5 Pro patch isn’t the most ambitious use of Sony’s new hardware—it doesn’t include ray tracing, 120Hz support, or visual feature additions—but it’s a welcome update nonetheless. The resolution bump makes the game look sharper, and the performance increase provides a smoother experience.
If you haven’t played Returnal yet or have been waiting for a reason to return to it, this update provides a fine justification for diving back into one of the PS5’s best and toughest shooters.