Playing Destiny 2 On PC Makes The Console Version Feel Even Worse Than 30 FPS

This may sound like one of the most obvious things on Nessus, but 60 FPS is a lot better than 30 FPS. I’ve ranted up and down over the years about console companies focusing way too much on 4K resolution rather than giving us better performance. When I bought the PlayStation 4 Pro last fall, I felt so strongly that Destiny 2 would be 60 FPS, that I wanted to get the purchase out-of-the-way… and then just wait for the game to arrive.

The joke’s on me, of course. I upgraded to the Pro for no reason, because in its infinite wisdom, Bungie decided that 60 FPS wasn’t important, not even on the 4.2 TFLOPS Pro console (gotta love it when the sub-3 TFLOPS GTX 1050 Ti hits 56 FPS at nearly max detail!). But here’s the thing: until you play Destiny 2 on the PC and then go back, it’s hard to truly appreciate the difference. Obviously, I was struck by the game’s smoothness on PC from the second I started it up, but it wasn’t until I hopped back on the PS4 version last night that I remembered how poor 30 FPS can feel.

Since Xur was selling an Exotic weapon I somehow hadn’t found in all the time I sunk into the PS4 version, I traversed to Io, did a couple of Public Events, and made my way to the wares dealer. From the get-go, it felt like the game was broken. It felt like my PS4 was underclocked. I couldn’t accept the fact that I was even getting 30 FPS… it felt even worse. The control felt jittery and clunky, to the point where I felt like the performance was actually impacting my gameplay. It made the game harder, but for the wrong reasons.

That would of course imply that the PC version is easier than the console versions, and in some ways, I do believe that. At the very least, it allows deaths to feel more justified.

When I teamed up with our resident Senior Editor Jamie as well as another friend, we managed to complete the first Nightfall we’ve ever done on the PC on the first go. Jamie doesn’t even realize what kind of feat that is, but believe me, successfully beating your first Nightfall ever is a nice accomplishment (it took three attempts the first time I did it on console, and even then, we didn’t have 2 full minutes left). The fact that we beat it so handily may be the reason Bungie deemed it fit to run the exact same Nightfall this week, as well. Thanks so much for that, Bungo.

Nonetheless, this is a strange post, and one just meant to let me rant. I find it insulting that Bungie has made excuses to try to cover up the obvious fact that the game should run at much better than 30 FPS. Even if it couldn’t hit 60 FPS, anything better than 30 would have made a world of difference. Yes, the CPU in these consoles are pretty junk for a gaming machine, but when pretty much every other FPS title coming out for PlayStation is hitting 60 FPS even on the OG unit, I call BS on the excuses we’ve been hearing. I have never felt more strongly about this as I have after moving from PC back to console.

The difference is truly unbelievable.