From there, moving from left to right, I could see how each console delivered the scene: Xbox Series X quality and performance, Series S equivalents, then finally, the base Xbox One.

Using one controller and a network of Xbox consoles, I was able to see the demanding jungle stage of the intro drive playing out in real-time across five of the six iterations of the game, with the debug camera used to zero in on the various rendering techniques Playground had developed for the game. Quite how Playground would deliver this was always the crucial question and it was very satisfying to visit the studio a few weeks back to see exactly how it was done, my tour kicking off with a look at a remarkable cross-platform comparison system the studio developed. Admittedly, we were sceptical about its chances but Playground Games was always optimistic - and having put every version through its paces, the studio has delivered.

However, this is a cross-gen release: somehow, Forza Horizon 5 has to run on last-gen machines and still live up to the expectations of quality expected from a first-party studio production. We called it an Xbox Series X masterpiece and that isn't hyperbole - Playground Games has delivered a phenomenal game and a sensational audio-visual experience for its flagship console. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and its audiobook, and The Earthborn Trilogy, also on audiobook.

Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls. Again, this is not “new,” and yet I do think this upcoming era of much higher profile day one releases on Game Pass is really going to change the narrative here, and I do wonder how long Xbox’s competition can ignore this format.įollow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. So it creates a situation where you have the weigh the pros and cons of a Sony $70 exclusive every time one comes out, or with Xbox, you simply…already have the game. And given what Game Pass offers, it seems kind of hard to have an Xbox and not also more or less automatically sign up for Game Pass as well. It’s hard to explain, but it does feel free, however, once you already have that subscription rolling. So that’s the cost of 2-3 new games year. At a baseline of $10 a month, that’s $120 a year just for Game Pass, separate from XBL or Game Pass for PC options.

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