The Witcher 4: Console Challenges

The Xbox Series S is giving developers a headache. The Witcher 4 is years from release, but already, there are hurdles to clear. The game's developers are finding out that making it run smoothly on the Xbox Series S is going to be tough. The Xbox Series S has less powerful hardware than its bigger brother, the Xbox Series X. This means that games need to be optimized differently to run well on both consoles. The Series S has 10GB less RAM and a slower SSD than the Series X. This makes it harder for developers to create games that look and play the same on both systems. The Witcher 4 developers are taking a different approach this time. They are focusing on consoles first, rather than the usual method of starting with PCs. This switch is due to past problems. In the past, starting with PCs caused issues when the game was ported to consoles. A notable example is Cyberpunk 2077. It had so many problems on consoles that it was pulled from the PlayStation Store for months. The developers are hoping that by focusing on consoles first, they can avoid these issues. The Witcher 4 developers showed off a tech demo recently. It gave a glimpse of what the game could look like on the PlayStation 5 with ray tracing enabled. Ray tracing is a technique that makes lighting and shadows look more realistic. The demo was not the actual game, but a representation of what the game could look like. The developers are still working on making the game run at 60 frames per second on the PS5. This is the number of times the image on the screen is updated per second. The higher the number, the smoother the game will play. The Xbox Series S is not the only console causing problems. Baldur's Gate 3 had issues on the Series S as well. The game's developers, Larian, had trouble enabling split-screen mode on the Series S. This is a feature that allows two players to play on the same screen. The game also had a large install size, which was a problem for some players. The Xbox version of the game was released three months after the PS5 version, and without the split-screen feature. It was added in a later update. Microsoft has a rule that games released on the Xbox Series X must also be available on the Series S. This rule can cause problems for developers. Some games, like Black Myth: Wukong, have avoided the Xbox altogether due to the challenges of optimizing for the Series S. The Witcher 4 developers are aware of these challenges and are working to overcome them. They have a lot of work ahead of them, but they seem confident that they can make the game run well on both consoles.