I quite often gush about Digital Foundry and how well it covers the technical side of gaming. Digital Foundry videos have essentially replaced Game of Thrones for me. A new one goes up, I watch it, I read comments about it online, and then I anxiously await the next one.
IGN — and I love it, don’t get me wrong — is typically a more mainstream website. These technical deep-dives aren’t quite that outlet’s forte. But I want to call out cool Xbox-related things, and IGN‘s latest look at Gears 5 on Xbox Series X is not only cool and informative, it’s right up there with something Digital Foundry would put out in terms of its depth.
I hope IGN does more of this in the future. Double kudos for showing gameplay of a 60 frames-per-second title in a video that is actually 60 frames-per-second. This should be done by everyone.
As far as Gears 5 is concerned, I’m pretty floored at just how much work The Coalition appears to have put into this port. The Xbox One X version was already targeting 4K/60, so simply hitting those bars might not have satisfied many Xbox Series X owners. It looks like The Coalition went far beyond that, however, really taking advantage of the Series X’s power to improve detail, lighting, shadows, frame rate stability, and more.
The Xbox Series X is lacking when it comes to launch titles. You’re going to hear that a lot, I agree with it, and it definitely dampens the excitement of this launch a little bit. That said, I’m still excited to jump into titles like Gears 5 — as well as all of my other favorites — in order to see how much they’ve improved on the new hardware.
The update for Gears 5 on Xbox Series X launches on Nov. 10, right along with the Xbox Series X and Series S themselves.