Quantum Error is a new game under development by TeamKill Media and the game has been drawing attention due to the lack of minutiae of the developers, who don't waste time talking about what they think about the platforms, as happened recently with the Xbox Series S.
While the Xbox Series S version was delayed, the PS4 ended up being cancelled, as according to the studio it would take "a lot of downgrade and asset and lighting changes" to make it work in the last generation.
Talking now with the GamingBolt portal, Micah Jones, the co -founder of TeamKill Media, commented on the canceled PS4 version. According to him, it wouldn't be possible to do a simple port, with the studio having to do a redesign of the game, saying it would be like "demolishing a house and starting almost from scratch".
In early 2020, we were first approved for PlayStation 5 and encouraged to make a PS4 version as well. Then, at the end of the year, we got approval to bring the game to the Xbox platform as well. We are a small team of brothers with a main computer for development and a secondary computer for level building. As we were nearing the end of development, we knew there was no way we could turn what we had built into a great PS4 game and reached out to Sony to remove a PS4 version. It wouldn't be a simple port, but would require a complete remodel, like demolishing a house and starting almost from scratch.
On the changes that would need to be made, Jones cites the addition of many loading screens not present on PS5, in addition to changing many assets. The change would be so big, that the way to play would even end up being changed.
For a PS4 version, the game would have been structured completely differently , with at least 150 loading screens that don't exist on PS5. There would be no global lighting, which would totally change the look of the game. Everything would have been reduced, like subsurface scattering on characters and shadows, and the frame rate would have been lower.
The game would have been completely different in look and play. The boss fights and cut scenes would have had to be completely restructured to handle the load. There would be no Nanite being used in the game. Many game assets would be unusable. Our game is almost 90GB and if we had built a PS4 version it would have been even bigger.
Of course we have technically amazing games running on PS4 like Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Last of Us Part II, however, the founder claims these games were made from scratch with the platform in mind, while Quantum Error was designed with the PS5 in mind, using technologies not available in the last generation.