Despite the confirmed focus on graphics in the upcoming survival horror game Alan Wake II, it was recently confirmed that the game would feature a performance mode on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. This has been something both consoles have struggled with in recent months, Final Fantasy XVI on PS5 struggled to maintain a 60 frame rate and often dropped to 40 or lower, and Starfield was locked to 30 frames on the Series X. A question that was left from the announcement, noticeable due to specifically mentioning only the systems above, was whether the Series S would also feature a performance mode.
Today, Remedy Entertainment has clarified to Game Informer that the Series S would not feature a Performance mode. While to many this might not be shocking, the Series S is a far less powerful console than the X, this is not the first time the Series S version of a game needed additional clarification for game specs. Despite that, it does not seem players will be losing much given that visual quality has always seemed to be the emphasis for the game.
This news comes at a time when industry opinion has begun to shift against the Series S console. Many developers have viewed the S as an albatross around their necks in developing for the Xbox ecosystem, with Microsoft’s clear stance on Parity between both systems making it have to get games meant to take advantage of three times the computing power to function.
Baulder’s Gate III, a potential game-of-the-year contender, became the first to get permission to break parity, dropping the key feature of split-screen multiplayer for the series S in order to release the game on Xbox before the end of the year. This leaves the door open for other games to potentially do the same, Breaking a day-one promise from Microsoft becoming harder and harder to keep.
Remedy Entertainment has also not been shy about speaking out about the challenges of the Series S. In 2021, while porting their game Control to the new hardware, Communications Director Thomas Puha spoke about these challenges, stating:
Xbox Series S, well, it’s no different from the previous generations where the system with the lowest specs does end up dictating a few of the things that you’re gonna do, because you’re gonna have to run on that system, right? It’s very easy to say that you just lower your resolution and texture quality and off you go, it’s just nowhere near that simple.
It sounds good when you say it, but every engine is built in a different way. It’s another thing when gamers might be like ‘This game engine does all of these things!’, well, it depends. Are you making an engine that’s much more GPU bound or CPU bound? Which are you taxing a whole lot more? Well, we kind of tax both in Control because we have a lot of physics but then we have a lot of the ray tracing effects. That makes a huge, huge difference, especially on Xbox Series S.
Puha was also hesitant to confirm if a 60fps will be achieved consistently across the PS5 and Series X for Alan Wake II. In one tweet he stated that they were able to achieve a “solid Performance mode,” but when later asked if that would be a frame-locked 60, or unlocked 60 he stated the team is “still tweaking that.” While Remedy has a solid track record, if previous releases have taught me anything, it should be approached with cautious optimism.
Alan Wake II is set to release on October 27th for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows PC.
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