A Way Out‘s creator Josef Fares has criticized the PS4, saying that developing for the console is like working on an outdated PC, and that players “would see all different games” if they weren’t forced to keep consoles in mind.
Fares, who appeared onstage to reveal the co-operative multiplayer prison break game during E3 2017’s EA Play press conference, criticized current-gen consoles in an interview with Engadget. “You want the honest truth? This machine is not so strong as you think,” Fares said, reportedly pointing to the PS4 running A Way Out. “This is like a five-year-old PC. If consoles were as powerful as PCs are today, you would see all different games. Most of the work developers put out there is to make them work on consoles.”
Considering that both the PS4 and Xbox One are nearly four years old, it’s not difficult to agree with Faras’ comments that they aren’t as powerful as the latest PCs, but it’s still incredibly unusual for a developer to speak so candidly about the platforms he’s releasing his games onto. While both the PS4 and Xbox One have received their own upgrades in the form of the PS4 Pro and Xbox One S (with the Xbox One X launching later this year), developers still have to keep the original PS4 and Xbox One in mind when releasing new games, which is Fares’ point of contention.
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The latest selling point for Sony and Microsoft has been 4K, a resolution that PCs have been capable of running for quite some time now. However, given the expense of fitting 4K technology into a console, corners inevitably have to be cut — the PS4 Pro predominantly upscales 1080p games to 4K, while much has been made of the Xbox One X running certain games such as Destiny 2 at 30 fps.
Josef Fares has labelled A Way Out as his passion project, with him having reportedly cancelling his involvement in a feature film in order to work n the game. It is his second release following the critically acclaimed Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and it will launch for the PS4, Xbox One and PC in 2018.
