Xbox Series S: Metro Developers Facing Hardware Problems

Metro Exodus will be ported to next-gen consoles later this year, but the future titles from 4A Games might face some challenges due to the GPU performance of the Xbox Series S. Oleksandr Shyshkovtsov, Chief Technical Officer at 4A Games, stated in an interview that their renderer is having trouble with the Series S hardware, and their current workaround is not cutting it.

4A’s games have always been graphically stunning, Metro Exodus being a prime example. The title is visually amazing on even the available platforms and should look even better on the next-gen consoles. Shyshkovtsov, however, is not as optimistic when it comes to the Xbox Series S and the performance of upcoming 4A games on the console.

The RAM is not an issue for us (currently), but GPU performance presents challenges for future titles. Our current renderer is designed for high spatial and temporal resolution (read: 4K @ 60 fps). It is stochastic by nature.

Dropping any of those would require us to do more expensive calculations dropping performance even further. We have a compromise solution right now, but I am not satisfied with it yet.

– Oleksandr Shyshkovtsov, Chief Technical Officer, 4A Games

While no one expected the Series S to perform to the same level as the Xbox Series X, it’s definitely a concerning turn of events if 4A Games have to create workarounds and stopgap solutions because of the disparity between the two consoles. Things may get easier once companies and studios have more time and experience with the new hardware.

4A has a lot in their pipeline, with two Metro-related titles and a brand new IP in the works. Here’s hoping the challenges the developers are facing don’t create delays for these projects, as well as the Metro Exodus next-gen port slated for release this year.

About Metro Exodus

The third and final instalment in the Metro trilogy, Metro Exodus puts us back in the snow covered boots of Artyom in the post-apocalyptic wastelands of the Russian Federation and Republic of Kazakhstan.

A first-person shooter with elements of stealth and survival horror, players will wield an arsenal of weapons against mutated creatures and hostile humans. Metro Exodus is a graphically beautiful and beautifully graphic ending to the series.