This week marks the release of the highly-anticipated free Xbox Series X and S upgrade for Metro Exodus, and ahead of its launch, Eurogamer's Digital Foundry has managed to get hands-on to give us an early verdict.

And the results are good! Digital Foundry says 4A Games has "delivered amazing work", calling it "transformed" compared to the Xbox One X version, particularly in terms of its ray tracing based aesthetic "that makes all of the difference."

"The rasterised real-time global illumination system of the old version looked fine, but ray tracing takes fidelity to the next level. All of the old artist-placed lights are gone, replaced with a fully ray traced alternative that 'just works'."

"All told, when viewed side-by-side with the old game, the visual improvement is profound. The realism is on another level, to the point where the lighting elevates the look of the game in a genuinely 'next-gen' way. It's incredible stuff."

The downside to this is that Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition relies on dynamic resolution scaling, which swaps between "1080p and a theoretical 2160p" throughout on Xbox Series X, and can drop as low as 512p at its worst on Xbox Series S. That said, the performance is described to be a mostly solid 60fps on both:

"There can be times where the 1080p and 512p minimums for Series X and Series S are not enough, resulting in performance drops. Thankfully, the frequency of this issue is limited - occurring just a handful of times in my playthroughs.

Most of the time we are at a flat 60fps, though there can be some stutter during traversal, or when multiple enemies are on the move."

Despite the odd drawback, Digital Foundry calls Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition a "success" on both Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, boasting "stunning global illumination technology". It's said to come "highly recommended."

If you want to check out Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition for yourself, it'll be available as a totally free download for Xbox One owners of the game this Friday, June 18. Just a few days to go until you can give it a try!

What are your thoughts on this? Will you be playing Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition this week? Tell us below.

[source eurogamer.net]