This fundamentally changed my relationship with the game. Without the friction of load times, I repeatedly found myself committing to one more race. Similarly, the new Yakuza benefits from rapid loading. The creators have stuffed it with minigames and side quests.
In my time with the game, I became a vigilante superhero, a semi-professional aluminum can collector, and a budding cineaste who fights imaginary rams to resist falling asleep while watching classic films. Every little adventure blends seamlessly into the campaign, the reduced loading times giving the series the casual, lived-in flow it deserves.
With a console, you plug in the system and it works. No shuttling between storefronts. No need to fiddle with settings or ensure you have the latest GPU drivers. No mysterious errors that you try trace back to your monitor or your motherboard or your power supply unit. This gen, developers have to get creative. The solution? To create hub worlds or spaces in lobbies that allow players the time to revise the mechanics and breathe. Now the system is moving so fast, the game moves so fast, and you don't get those natural breaks sat with your cup of tea, waiting for your game to load.
Thanks to the considerable jump in horse power over the last console generation, worlds and characters also stand to look more realistic than ever before. Aside from the much-lauded ray tracing, the lack of technical constraints will allow developers to massively increase the quality of what they can render on screen — be it higher poly character models or going all out with lighting.
While we may never have another generational leap as astounding as the shift from 2D to 3D - or even SD to HD - for Neon Giant Co-Founder, Arcade Berg, this generational leap is far more pronounced than the shift from seventh to eighth-gen. It's more than just load times, but even more exciting is the loading while you're playing the game. Open world, seamless transitions between areas and story beats can practically be a non-issue. Worlds can be fuller, larger, and with higher density and quality than before.
Willans however, seems to be less wowed, suggesting that this generation's effect on video games will be more incremental than revolutionary. With heavy-hitters like Horizon Forbidden West and Halo Infinite now only months away, there is clearly a lot for players to be already getting excited about. Unless your life is ruled by FOMO, if money is any object, the console choice clearly comes down to talking yourself into buying the Series X rather than talking yourself out of it.
If you want one of the consoles now, though, or are trying to decide between the two for holiday gift giving, note that both are in short supply but it's easier to find the Series S than the Series X. Newbie gamers will likely be happy with the S. But a lot of more seasoned gamers pooh-pooh the Series S, with its lesser storage capacity and components, as not a very future-proof choice.
Yes, technically the Xbox Series X has more memory and beefier processing components that run at faster speeds than the Series S, but it's all in service of hitting 4K and frames per second while gaming without upscaling.
The Series S' target of p and fps is a lot less demanding, hence its lower-power components and smaller body. If you want to keep a lot of big games on deck and in progress, the Series S supports the same Velocity Architecture for SSD expansion, either via swapping the NVMe or the pricey relative to the price of the console Seagate 1TB plug-in card.
Whizzy new game features are designed to be compatible with both and they have the same support for the new wireless controller and other peripherals. Feature Forza Horizon 5 is a playable tourist board ad - in a good way. Feature The big Gran Turismo 7 interview. How Kazunori Yamauchi wants to preserve years of car culture in a single game. Chocobo Racing is about to get an unlikely sequel. Recommended Cruis'n Blast review - an arcade legend comes home.
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Watch on YouTube. Four different Forza Horizon 5 experiences - quality and performance modes compared on Series X and S consoles. Series X only here - comparison shots of quality and performance mode in the 'here's your first home' cutscene.
Performance mode is still rich, but noticeably pared back in terms of vegetation. Ray tracing is only available in quality mode in the garage.
Existing reflection technology is augmented with ray-traced self-reflections. Subtle in many scenarios, but a worthwhile and intelligent add-on to an already impressive effect. Will you support the Digital Foundry team?
Support Digital Foundry Find out more about the benefits of our Patreon. Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry digitalfoundry Rich has been a games journalist since the days of bit and specialises in technical analysis. Plus: optimised settings, hardware requirements and more. Four different machines, six different modes - and we've played them all. Forza Horizon 5 to add sign language support Playground Games are committed to diversity.
Feature Forza Horizon 5 is a playable tourist board ad - in a good way Wish you were steer.
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