Dune: Awakening will be released on PC first because of Xbox Series S, executive reveals

The Xbox Series S was controversial since its reveal and the negative reaction from some developers is documented as they considered that the hardware limitations would be a problem in the future. Today, almost 4 years after its launch, Microsoft’s console is involved in several controversies and there are creators and executives who point out how difficult it is to work with it to have a decent version. The most recent case is that of Dune: Awakening.

Dune: Awakening It will take longer on consoles due to additional work required for Xbox Series S

During an interview with VG24/7Scott Junior, Product Manager for Dune: Awakeningthe long-awaited MMO developed by Funcom and inspired by the historic science fiction franchise, spoke about the launch of this title on PC and consoles. According to the executive, the ambitious MMO will be released first on PC in 2025 because additional optimization work is required on consoles, but in this section, the reason is Xbox Series S since it is a huge title with elements that require special treatment to look their best on Microsoft’s console.

In this regard, Scott Junior noted that it will be a challenge to create a version of Dune: Awakening for Xbox Series S: “It’s one of the reasons why we’re releasing on PC first. There’s a ton of optimization we need to do before we release on Xbox. But yeah, Xbox Series S is a challenge.”

How ambitious is the development of Dune: Awakening? According to the product manager, they want it to look stunning on high-end GPUs: “Unreal Engine does a lot of the work for us in a way. What we’re doing more of is asset optimization and using various technologies, whether it’s FSR or something else, to replicate frames. We want the game to look stunning on the high-end, whether you have a 3070 or a 4090, but we also want it to look good. I don’t think we’ve released any information about minimum specs yet, but it’s a fact that powerful cards from a few years ago will be able to run the game. It needs to look good, maybe it won’t be able to take advantage of the ultra options, but it will still look good.”

Recently, Xbox Series S was involved in another controversy because GSC Game World, creators of STALKER 2caused confusion regarding the minimum FPS that the game will run at on the console. First, they said that at the current point of development it ran at 25 fps, then they clarified that it was at 35 frames per second. What is a fact is that there is special optimization work for this hardware, which is ultimately additional work for the studios.

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