S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Dev Believes Any Game Can Reach the Xbox Series S Memory Limits

by
William D’Angelo
, posted 7 hours ago / 662 Views

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl developer GSC Game World in an interview with Windows Central stated the team first thought it would be impossible to get the game to run an Xbox Series S. However, after optimization they believe it is possible for any game to run on the Xbox Series S despite the memory limits.

“At first, we thought bringing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 to the Xbox Series S might be impossible,” said the developer. “We have such a big game with so many mechanics, a huge amount of things. It felt like this must be impossible to do. 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.

“After this experience, I believe it’s possible for any game to reach the Xbox Series S’ memory limits. And yes, not every developer, every studio has the opportunity, or the additional time to optimize for the Xbox Series S. We had to boost our expertise on the optimization side, which also helped the PC build, making it a lot more performant. We have quite low minimum PC requirements for a modern game.”

GSC Game World did reveal the game runs at 60 frames per second (FPS) on the Xbox Series X with some dips to around 55 FPS, while the game sticks to 30 FPS on the Xbox Series S.

“The game runs at 60 frames per second on Xbox Series X, there are some times when it might dip to 55 or so, but hopefully we can optimize further there before or after release,” said the developer. “We allow bigger drops in narrative cutscenes that are full of complexity and VFX and the like, since it won’t impact the player’s movement experience.

“On the Xbox Series S, we stick to 30 FPS. 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.”

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl will launch for the Xbox Series X|S, PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG, and Xbox Game Pass on November 20.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.