After numerous delays, Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is set to arrive in November on Xbox, Game Pass, and PC. And for all you Xbox Series S owners worried about how the big open-world shooter will play on the less powerful machine, Ukraine-based developers GSC Game World have good news.
Stalker 2 has been in development since 2018, but suffered delays due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now, new previews seem to indicate that despite all the hardships and setbacks, the massive game will be a fantastic Xbox console exclusive. But launching on Xbox means the open-world post-apocalyptic survival FPS will have to be playable on both the Xbox Series X as well as the cheaper, smaller, and less powerful Series S. At first, the GSC was nervous about getting Stalker 2 to run on the Series S, but after working with the machine for a few years, they now think they will be able to add a 60FPS performance option.
In a new interview with Windows Central, GSC developers told the outlet that at first they thought it would be “impossible” to port Stalker 2 to the Series S as the game is big and includes “so many mechanics” and “a huge amount of things.”
“But then we start optimizing, adding new features for streaming information. Unreal Engine has a lot of features for this, but for our game, we really had to squeeze up every megabyte from every piece of system content we could, and now we did it,” said GSC.
According to the interview, the studio’s devs now believe that it should be possible for any modern game to work on Series S. However, the developers did acknowledge that not every team or studio gets enough time to optimize for the weaker Xbox. GSC did spend a lot of time boosting performance and optimizing the game, which the studio claims helped the PC version become more “performant.”
The Xbox Series S might be causing problems for devs
In the past, we’ve heard vague complaints from developers that the Xbox Series S is holding back some ports. Famously, Baldur’s Gate 3‘s Xbox launch was delayed while the developers worked with Microsoft so they could be allowed to remove local co-op from the Series S version. Due to Xbox’s rules, games must have “mode parity” across both consoles, and this can cause problems for devs trying to squeeze a big game onto the weaker, slower Series S.
However, GSC sounded more positive about the Series S, even explaining that the game might get a performance mode on that platform.
“On the Xbox Series S, we stick to 30FPS. However, in many cases, we have managed to hit 60 FPS, but it’s not as consistent as the Series X. But we’re looking to get a performance mode for Xbox Series S, to get it to 60 FPS. We think it’s possible,” explained GSC.
Performance modes aren’t as common on Xbox Series S, due to its lower specs, so if GSC can actually pull it off I’ll be curious to see what was cut or downgraded to make Stalker 2 run at 60FPS on the weaker Xbox. We don’t have to wait long, as Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is set to finally arrive on Xbox and PC on November 20.
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