Optimizing games for the Xbox Series S has proven to be a challenge for game developers in this generation. Funcom, the developer of Dune: Awakening, shared in an interview that getting the game optimized on Microsoft’s budget beast was a challenge. This sentiment has been echoed by an ex-Naughty Dog and Rocksteady developer and aligns with well-documented troubles faced by other titles. The team behind Dune: Awakening added their concerns, with Funcom’s chief product officer, Scott Junior, referring to it as a “challenge” during an interview with VG247.
Junior explained that the team’s work on bringing Frank Herbert’s iconic science-fiction novel to the gaming sphere required a lot of optimizations before releasing it on the Xbox, particularly on the Series S. Funcom’s comments shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the intensity of Dune: Awakening on hardware, with its high-level MMO, impressive graphics, and large-scale battles. The challenge of developing for the Series S was further highlighted by Junior, who expressed frustration in having to “chop out” high-end game elements so that it plays the same on an Xbox S. Funcom’s comments represent another obstacle in what has been a challenging period for developers, with the increasing complexity of games likely to pose further challenges in the future. As development continues, it remains to be seen if there will be any breakthroughs to ease the challenges faced by developers in optimizing games for the Xbox Series S.
