When it comes to optimisation and making sure things are performing as best as they can, the Xbox Series S has been a clear limiter for many developers and games. The likes of Black Myth: Wukong has had trouble with this Microsoft console, but for Warhorse Studios, who recently delivered the excellent Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, the experience is on the other side of the spectrum with the Xbox Series S.
Taking to the Iron Lords Podcast, Global PR Manager at Warhorse Studios, Tobias Stolz-Zwilling, shared that it was precisely because of the console that allowed the optimisation work for the game to be done so well across the board.
“We were like, okay, if we test a few things here and there, the optimizations for the Xbox Series S helped greatly with other platforms as well,” said Stolz-Zwilling. “It’s the weakest of the four, I mean that’s not even a secret. Since you have to dial down on a few things and have to be clever about where you can in the programming, in the code, and so on, and be able to save memory here and there, some of these optimizations for S benefit the other consoles as well.”
“You either can go full force ahead with the big ones, or you use those memory savings that you found out for the S and use it for the bigger ones so that it runs smoother, I’m not saying that it looks worse or whatever than it could, but it runs better.”
On the Series S, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II runs at 1080P at 30FPS, while on the likes of the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, there are the choices of Quality Mode at 4K 30FPS upscaled from 1440p or Performance Mode at 1440p play at 60FPS, upscaled from 1080p. If you are playing on a PlayStation 5 Pro, it delivers 4K at 60FPS upscaled from 1440P.
What Warhorse shared contrasts sharply with the sentiments of many other developers regarding the Xbox Series S. And to be fair, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II launched with minimal technical complaints. This action RPG has sold more than 1 million copies in just one day, allowing it to break even on its release day.
