Demon’s Souls, the PS5 launch remake, has been patched to take advantage of Sony’s new power saving feature.
For those who don’t know, the power saving toggle was added to the new-gen console in a recent firmware update.
It’s been advertised as part of PlayStation’s continued commitment to lowering energy consumption, although some hypothesise it may also be a stealth test for the company’s rumoured handheld.
Either way, we tested out the new profile in Bluepoint’s remake of the PS3 classic, and it drops the framerate to 30fps. Image quality is also worse, with the game running at a much lower resolution.
The key detail here is that power draw decreases a fair amount; on a launch model PS5 we went from around ~230W to under ~100W – so it’s a considerable difference.
Obviously, that’s nowhere near the 25W or so that would be required for a handheld, but there will be various efficiencies in a true portable device that could help bridge the gap. It’s certainly all interesting stuff.
Unless you do genuinely intend to save the planet, though, we wouldn’t recommend using this power saving mode when you plan to play Demon’s Souls.
While the game is perfectly playable in this profile, it’s just so much better at 60fps in 4K, and we’re not entirely convinced the power savings (while significant) are worth the downgrade.
By our calculations, if it took you about 50 hours to beat Demon’s Souls, you’d pocket approximately $1 in energy savings throughout your playthrough by taking advantage of the lower-spec feature. It’s not nothing, but it’s not really worth getting excited about either.
As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.