The only thing I bought during the holiday sales season was Middle-earth: Shadow of War for $6… twice. And this experience highlighted the issue with console gaming.
I originally purchased it on the PS5 Pro because I thought the latest and greatest console would be able to handle a seven-year-old game. Well, that’s not exactly what happened. I knew going into it that Shadow of War was capped at 30 fps on consoles, and that playing on PC would get me way more frames. So that wasn’t the core of the issue.
I became hyper-aware that playing Middle-earth: Shadow of War on the PS5 Pro was a mistake, and while the frame rate cap contributed to it, the real problem was the gameplay itself. Let me explain.
Why I am playing Shadow of War on PC instead of PS5 Pro
For some reason, Monolith Productions developed Middle-earth: Shadow of War so that the initial walking animation takes a full second or two to react to my input. I’ve done all the research, and this is something you cannot adjust or change or even mod out of the game. This was also an issue in the Mad Max game that launched in 2015. (Fun fact: I tried that game and stopped playing it for this same reason.)
So, how is it better on PC? Well, my friends, this is where the frame-rate gap becomes relevant. Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a fast-paced action game, so a walking animation that slows you down like the Nazgûl on Frodo’s journey is awfully-terribly-frustratingly bad. Therefore, every single frame that you get is vital to survival.
High frame rates give your eyes more time to process what’s happening on-screen. Even jumping from 30 fps to 60 fps drastically increases my chances of parrying or dodging an attack before it hits me. This is already a huge boon playing on PC, but when you’re trying to flee from enemies at a standstill, it’s the difference between life and death… which isn’t as simple as restarting at a checkpoint.
Anyone who knows me knows that I play games on the hardest difficulty. What makes Shadow of War worse is that every time you die, the orc that killed you gets promoted to captain, and you have to deal with him again at some point. And if a captain kills you, then they level up. And so it becomes a cycle of stronger orcs coming to kill me. No joke, three captains tried ambushing me back to back. It’s madness.
The walking is still a problem, granted, but I’ve played a few hours of Shadow of War on both PS5 Pro and PC, and I’ve died far fewer times in the latter. Playing Shadow of War on one of the best gaming laptops is easily the better experience.
Why you should play older games on PC
Middle-earth: Shadow of War suffers from an exceptionally bad mechanical issue, which won’t be the same for other games. Some of this is because Shadow of War is a PS4 title. Let’s be honest: developers aren’t exactly rushing to lift the frame caps off of PS4 titles anytime soon unless they’re banking on a remake (ahem, Horizon Zero Dawn).
The PS5 Pro is the most powerful console right now, and while developers are giving more graphical control to the players, that wasn’t the case in the previous generation. Nearly every old AAA game will be capped, whether at 30 fps or 60 fps. The cap keeps you from enjoying the best experience and full immersion in those titles. That’s not to mention that the graphical improvements available on a gaming laptop are nonexistent on the PS5 Pro. Console games are optimized for console, so you won’t have access to the finer settings (an example being the render resolution in Shadow of War).
As much as I love my PS5 Pro, playing older games on PC is still the way to go.
