I'm sorry you don't find the CB rendering technique effective Necro
That's not to say there aren't bad implementations of it (Monster Hunter World and Red Dead 2 are 2 major examples where the CB rendering can make things look worse). Otherwise, DF seems to be big fans of it:
Death Stranding:
Pixel counts suggest the same 2160p resolution as Horizon Zero Dawn, with the checkerboarding remaining one of the best in the business, with clean edges and minimal artefacting. This combines with excellent texture filtering and temporal stability to produce a very filmic image that looks almost pre-rendered at times
Horizon ZD:
Horizon's implementation of checkerboard 4K was simply stunning - perhaps a touch softer than native rendering, but beautiful nonetheless
Witcher 3:
PS4 Pro's checkerboard technique attempts to mitigate the quality loss using pixel information from the previous frame - and in a still screenshot, it creates a respectable illusion of a full 3840x2160.
God of War:
which features one of the finest implementations of checkerboard rendering we've seen to date with a level of clarity not far from native 4K
That is to say, CB rendering when employed well, can be a great way to effectively mimic 4K on much weaker hardware.
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Which brings us back to Death Stranding, of which I finished the first 2 chapters tonight. It is a weird, fascinating, intriguing game with some loooong cut-scenes. The prologue does a great job of setting up the world but I have a feeling the game will have *hours* of cut-scenes before it ends ala MGS4.
Also, as a new parent myself, the whole BB thing is freaking me the fuck out.
Quite possibly some of the best directed and detailed cinematics, also helped by some of the best character rendering I've seen in any game so far.
DF's comment about the game having a pre-rendered look are pretty spot on. I thought the intro was a CGI cut-scene right up until the game seamlessly transitions you from the scene into game play. The game has a very post process heavy look with very high quality motion blur and DoF implementation (though when the PC version is out, it would be interesting to see the game with those things turned off in favor of performance).
^ The camera pans back in the world when you're going from place to place to give you a super wide view of the environments as you're walking/running. There's also a lot of licensed indie-ish music in the game.
Just in the first 2 chapters there's been at least 2 moments like entering Mexico in Red Dead Redemption with an appropriately haunting music track playing as you're discovering something in the world etc.
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Also, Norman Reedus can stick his tongue out on command.
and there's a lot of Monster product placement.
