Virtuos’ vice president of the games division, Elijah Freeman, thinks that we’ll see a big jump in many aspects in the next console generation. The Xbox Series X will also have an ace up its sleeve for the audio.

„The increased power and speed of consoles like the Xbox Series X will mean worlds many times bigger than we’ve seen before, and with more stuff in them too. You’ll also be able to move around them much quicker, whether that’s driving in a high-speed sports car or flying around on a dragon, perhaps with no loading screens at all.

One key area that will almost certainly see improvement is volumetric effects such as smoke, fog, and clouds. These are effects that scatter light and have previously been presented in games with mixed results. What makes this all interesting is the effect this might also have on gameplay. Yes, improved smoke effects will be great to look at, but the ability to just barely glimpse an enemy if the light catches them right after you’ve thrown a smoke grenade adds a new level of nuance to playstyles,” Freeman told IGN.

Bruce Straley, who recently left Naughty Dog (where he directed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves or The Last of Us), added: „The availability of these tools, and this power, means there are more opportunities for people to play with styles and concepts and ideas. And hopefully, there are more interesting or wacky ideas that become realized, because I was never able to play with ray tracing or some kind of dynamic global illumination. That now opens up a new opportunity to think about game design differently, or an experience differently.

In The Last Of Us, we had an ambient shadow system which we had to down rez significantly, and it sure would be great if we could do that at a higher resolution and get more fidelity in it. Something like this makes that more possible.” Also, the characters would look more realistic, and less rubbery.

Meanwhile, Daniela Galante, the senior sound designer of Ninja Theory, confirmed to VGC that the Xbox Series X will come with a dedicated audio chip: „We’re going to have a dedicated chip to work with audio, which means we finally won’t have to fight with programmers and artists for memory and CPU power. We take for granted that graphics are powered by their own video cards. But in audio, we haven’t had anything like that. Now we have some power dedicated to us.

Making games always has you thinking about technical limitations. Eventually, these limitations become less and less the more you evolve with new consoles, but at the same time it’s always a constant thing: These are the maximum number of voices we can have because otherwise, the game is going to lag.”

Both the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 will launch this Holiday season. IHS Markit’s analyst, Piers Harding-Rolls believes that both consoles will outsell their respective predecessors if the price doesn’t go above 500 dollars and if there will be no shortage.

Source: WCCFTech, WCCFTech

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