Even to this day, developer Starbreeze Studios' 2013 classic, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, is fondly remembered. This puzzle adventure was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 just a few months before the next generation of consoles, and it packed a real emotional punch for those who saw it. Fast forward eleven years and we'll have a new version for a new generation on PS5, Series X and Series S. So how does it perform on new platforms, including the less powerful Series S, in both performance and quality modes?
In terms of technology, this is a major remake: the original game's Unreal Engine 3 is replaced by Unreal Engine 5, and Milan-based studio Avantgarden is working seriously to reimagine each environment with greatly improved details to through Nanite and Lighting Technologies. Beyond the improved visuals, the release also includes new scenes, modified controls, and difficulty adjustments. Even its soundtrack was re-recorded from scratch and original composer Gustaf Grefberg returned to the project.
Despite all those changes, it's a relief to find that great care has been taken to stick to the design and story of the original game. From the main menu layout to the physics of the puzzles, the game logic running underneath is often identical. As before, you take control of two brothers simultaneously in a top-down view, with one brother on the left analog stick and the other on the right. The goal is to navigate a beautiful, creepy fantasy world, filled with trolls, wolves, and sentient trees, on a quest to find a cure for your dying father.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake – PS5/XSX/S Tech Review – UE5 Nanite/Lumen come at a high costFrom the first frame on the cliff, the jump to Unreal Engine 5 unlocks a litany of visual improvements. The highlight is the reworked geometry, with Nanite deployed to help create more complex meshes that can be seen in the intricate rock formations that line the shoreline, the wooden planks, and the cobblestone floors of the city below. However, it is especially in scenes where the camera is low to the ground where the benefits of Nanite stand out the most. Here we see added details of grass and foliage filling the space, greatly improved water shaders, and more advanced after effects like depth of field, film grain, and light rays.
The most substantial change, beyond Nanite, is the remake's lighting, which uses UE5's Lumen real-time global illumination system. In short, this allows the game to produce diffuse bounce lighting in a scene. The best examples are often indoors: a lit surface will now bounce light and its tone off nearby geometry, and we equally see this at play around dark areas flanking bridges. It's hugely impressive and the way Lumen impacts shadow points with simulated light creates a much more realistic result.
It's also impossible to ignore the remake's new character designs. The materials used in each model see a huge improvement, with textures featuring fine stitching on the fabric, while skin shaders allow for more realistic interaction with light. But the best thing is that his facial details come to life in the remake. We get more expressive eye animations, blinks, and mouth movements, an improvement so marked that Avantgarden has adjusted the camera work and editing to include as many close-ups as possible. The 2013 original has a genuine, if minimalist, charm even today, but it's clear from these shots that the remake benefits from these more detailed animations. Interestingly, some scenes are already pre-rendered, while others are completely new. Otherwise, much of the remake is in sync with the original.
Fortunately, the remake avoids falling into the rather modern trap of updating all visual elements at the expense of gameplay: the environments remain easily readable despite the new lick of paint. There are more ways to play here, too, with proper two-player co-op included in the remake that first debuted in the Switch original. The controls are also updated to give the running motion, and especially the turning animation, a more modern feel, with countless smaller tweaks evident as well.
Another key feature is the ability to choose between two graphics modes on PS5, Series X, and Series S: a 30fps quality mode and a 60fps performance mode. Quality mode on PS5 and Series
The Series S fares considerably worse, with its 30fps mode ranging between 454p and 720p, although it often hits that latter figure. Unfortunately, image tearing is obvious on the Series S given the low resolution, reminiscent of other UE5 releases like Immortals of Aveum and Lords of the Fallen that opted for Lumen and Nanite support, in exchange for internal resolutions. significantly lower. The 4TF console also runs at lower settings than the PS5 and Series X versions, with degraded shadows, textures, depth of field, grass density, and ambient occlusion. That means you'll notice that bushes appear less shadowy and the corners of the world will appear lighter.
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Performance mode, meanwhile, keeps Nanite and Lumen active, as you'd expect, but that means resolution is sacrificed to double the frame rate to 60fps. PS5 and Series
The Series S, in turn, maintains the same 454p to 720p range as the quality mode, but understandably finds itself at the lower end of that scale much more often. This manifests itself with more visual noise, more artifacts, more flickering, and an overall softer image that doesn't resolve well on 4K displays.
These visual cuts make 30fps quality mode the sensible default on any platform, especially as it runs at a flat frame rate and locked 30fps on PS5 and Series X, and a near-locked 30fps on Series, with only one segment on Series S that falls into the mid-20s. There are minor issues on all platforms when the game auto-saves, but this is only mildly distracting rather than breaking gameplay. 60fps purists will certainly have something to choose from here, but Brothers is a slower-paced game that doesn't tend to feature time-sensitive inputs. Plus, despite the Series S's big visual compromises (in resolution, shadows, and ambient occlusion), they at least pave the way for a solid frame rate in that quality mode.
Performance mode seems intended for VRR-compatible displays. The fact is that the image quality suffers, and the sacrifice does not lead to a locked 60 fps in any way. Most scenes lock at 30fps in 60fps mode anyway, but the game hovers between 35fps and 60fps on both PS5 and Series X, with the latter often seeing a framerate advantage. from 10 to 15 percent in more demanding segments. In other words, the Series On the other hand, certain segments, like the dungeon in the second chapter, run at a clean 60fps on PS5 and Series The rate advantage can be obtained at least in this place.
Performance mode on the Series S pales in comparison, as its lower resolution and visual cutouts aren't enough to deliver performance equivalent to higher-powered consoles. The Series There's a later dungeon segment that approaches 720p and 60fps on the Series S, but otherwise the 30fps quality mode is the better of the two options.
That's the situation then: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is superbly remade on current-generation machines, an attractive effort based at least on the merits of its visual improvement. The jump to Unreal Engine 5 makes way for a beautiful new version of the original story, and the character redesigns really benefit the close-ups.
Unfortunately, the remake also suffers from the same Nanite and Lumen performance issues as other notable UE5 releases, with the game struggling to hit 60fps, even with deep cuts to image quality on PS5 and Series not even the Series S. In many cases, especially the Series S, the 30fps quality mode at least provides a more consistent experience that makes more sense for the gameplay.
It's also worth noting that the remake in its released state suffers from some bugs, such as flickering shadow elements, as well as a case where a troll boss got stuck in geometry. Here it was necessary to restart the checkpoint. The 2013 original was no stranger to these types of issues either, but they need to be addressed.
Of course, many will have a strong attachment to Starbreeze Studios' original work, either in the name of nostalgia or because the simplistic nature of the visuals lent itself to the story. However, assuming it's flown under the radar for the last 11 years, the new version offers a great, modern way to look at the same adventure. Speaking as someone who hadn't played any incarnation of the game until now, the story is still really moving and still carries the same emotional weight regardless of which version you choose.
