Things are moving full steam ahead for Ebb Software's upcoming sort-of-horror title Scorn. Recently, the team showcased the first eight or so minutes of the game's prologue chapter, and now the dev has conducted a Reddit AMA to talk all things Scorn - and it's dropped some interesting tidbits on development!
One of the very first questions asked was about Xbox Series S, specifically how the team found things developing for Microsoft's less-powerful new system. In short, the team found it challenging to get the game in-shape on Series S, but it got there in the end.
The developer was also asked whether a delay was possible - which is understandable given the game's troubled development history. We'd say this is a pretty confident answer to that one though:
So, yeah, expect Scorn to hit Xbox Series X and S, including Xbox Game Pass, on October 21st! If you fancy taking a good look at the full AMA, all the questions & answers are laid out over on Reddit.
Will you be diving into this weird and wonderful world on day one? Let us know below!
Comments 37
How challenging can it be to slide the graphical features down on the Xbox/Windows development kits? I think that they mean having the game perform decently with the highest graphical requirements is a challenge because of the weaker GPU and smaller memory but look at how easy it is for The Coalition and Playground Games that changed a few lines of code and slided some graphical features down and achieved excellent results. They both said that it took a very short amount of time, two weeks, if I remember correctly.
How much more powerful is it then the one x. Seems like a problem if developers are already having issues this early on in the life cycle
I guess it's always a challenge to make the most out of the hardware available and make it do your vision justice as a game developer. Simple as that. It's just more challenging these days because of all the obsessive scrutiny games are subjected to by fanboys and Digital Foundry.
I know a lot disagree with me on here about this
But the series s takes up development time that could be used on the game for the series x etc.
What Xbox need to do is show us with new generation games only like Redfall, Forza, Starfield that the series s has not held the game back or taken to much development time.
To me it is obvious, if you didn’t have the series s your development team would have more time or complete the game being developed for sooner.
No one can deny that surely.
@Dezzy70 Yes it could potentially take some dev time away from Series X but not enough to make the sort of difference to that platform that you seem to be suggesting.
Optimising for Series S is more about reducing settings like resolution, DRS levels, shadow, quality, draw distance, texture filtering etc. and making sure it performs as well as it can on that platform. This is effectively adjusting sliders/values and running the game through performance tools to find breakpoints, then adjusting. In reality that is likely a few weeks work for a small portion of the team.
That doesn't suddenly make the Series X more powerful or give an amount of time to improve the Series X version noticeably. Frankly it's nonsense that the Series S significantly holds back the Series X.
@themightyant
Time will tell but I’m sure say a game like Redfall and maybe some others would be released by now if it wasn’t for the series s and also PC and making the game cloud suitable.
This is why Sony get them big AAA games out more efficiently. One console PS5 totally focused and nothing else.
It makes a difference when your developer is totally focused on one console.
Would love to be behind the sense and see the time taken and how much it would save and the games turn out and an Xbox studio.
I know 343i are not our favourite developer at the minute, but I always said they had to much to do, to many consoles and pc and to many modes to mess around with. Now that is not their only issue but it all adds up.
@Dezzy70 Yes adding PC in particular takes up time due to the wide variety of hardware that has to be tested. As does other platforms like XBO where a larger range will needed, or other consoles where different instructions and libraries are needed.
But the Series S and Series X are VERY closely related. 99% of the code is the same and it's just 2 very similar SKU's instead of 1. That doesn't massively impact the Series X, which was your initial point.
As I said before it's frankly it's nonsense that the Series S significantly holds back the Series X.
If game developers like Rockstar, ubisoft, naughty dog, insomniac and sucker punch can get games looking as good as they did on gen 8 systems, then the series S the main questions are:
A, how much money are you willing to invest in a optimised and scalable games engine
B, How much are you willing to invest in the talent that can succesfully optimise and manipulate that game engine.
That is what deterimes how hard or challenging the Series S would be to develop for.
Ubisoft got ray tracing on Watch Dogs Legion and also 60fps mode - all on this so called "weak machine"
Even if the series s does hold back games (which is doubtful), it is worth it for xbox to have the series s. The number of new users xbox has from the series s is incredible.
Yep, it was so challenging that it took them eight years to make the game.
@Somebody Agreed. If my Series X ever dies on me, I'm probably going to get the S.
@themightyant
Ok glad we agree on the PC.
So shame every Xbox studio game has to develop for PC in parallel with the series console versions.
We would definitely get the games to the series consoles quicker then without PC or cross generation being in the dam way.
Maybe they should take the approach of only Series consoles first for release. Then 6 months later PC to give them to to convert for PC etc.
might also make more people by the series consoles as well.
As for series s holding back the series x.
If a developer was told make a game from scratch for series x only, it could and would be better and be quicker. It would be purely channeled to every ounce of the series x advanced power.
@Dezzy70 I think some perspective is needed.
Xbox is committed to bringing games to PC and cloud. This is a good thing, more games for more gamers AND potentially increased budget for games.
Yes it could take longer in development but if you are accounting for that from the start they will have also that factored that into your budget. Releasing on more platforms means increased potential revenue, which leads to higher budgets, which in turn means you may have more staff on the project, who are able to get through the project faster. It isn't always an apples to apples comparison.
But I agree that if a game was just being made for the Series X, AND Series S, they could concentrate on a few things. Specifically the speed of the SSD which would open up opportunities not possible if releasing on PC. Graphically it wouldn't change as much as these are easily scalable.
@Dezzy70 It's one of Microsoft's modern systems. Actually, tbh, it's probably the modern system of theirs that has sold the most at the moment, making it their primary hardware model. I should hope developers are giving Series S versions of games their full attention, and aren't just developing with the specs of the Series X in mind.
Me and my partner sold our PS5 recently, and got 3 second hand mint condition Series S consoles. Now our daughter has one in the bedroom, we have one in the bedroom, and one for the living room.
It costs about £0.70-£1.00 for GamePass Ultimate a month on each, so around £3 a month.
So it’s just a no brainier for us, yes, non-native 4K on the one 4K TV we have doesn’t look quite as sharp, but we also don’t sit really close so to be fair, it’s barely noticeable most of the time.
It’s just such a strange concept, that for the price of one console sold second hand, with a failing controller and a clunky sounding disc drive, we got three consoles that don’t display in the same fidelity as that one, but it’s certainly not far enough off to really care about.
All I’m saying is, I’m glad developers are putting some effort in, as it’s clearly the gem Microsoft need console wise.
We do plan on getting a Series X for main 4K TV in the living room in time, but that’s only mainly due to watching 4K Blu-ray content.
So yeah, it’s a bit odd really. Never thought I’d say this, but I’m genuinely enjoying a more economical and less fancy setup. The value of the Series S is insane.
Even the ray tracing in Fortnite and the textures match when my daughter played on PS5, just not the resolution. Which again, when not sat up close and with upscale doesn’t look bad at all.
@Banjo- those were crossgen games
@SplooshDmg Agreed! Really important to not ignore the returns being on PC brings. Though what is SoT ? It's a been a long, long week and my brain is fried!
@SplooshDmg Doh! Of course. Not a multiplayer gamer, but it's meant to be great.
Considering Skillup said it ran like hot garbage on his PC even with DLSS, it sounds more like a dev optimization thing than a console spec thing.
The Series S is a great console, two of my kids each have one. But I have to agree with @uptownsoul that as this generation goes on, next-gen only games are going to get more and more demanding which the Series S will eventually struggle to run them. When that eventuality happens, devs can only downscale their games so much to run on the Series S until the devs say they have no choice but to skip development on Series S altogether. I doubt that would happen but we can’t say it never will for sure.
I think Microsoft should of just released a digital-only Series X like Sony did with the PS5 but can understand why they went with the Series S, it’s proved massively popular among consumers with it’s low price and the fact it’s still a next-gen console along with Series X and PS5.
Minimum PC requirements for Scorn are;
Based on that, I'd assume they mean they found it difficult to try and maintain Series X parity as close as possible rather than get it running! LOL
@themightyant
Very good point about the SSD, so because of Xbox bringing all their games to PC and Cloud means they will never take advantage fully of the SSD in the Xbox consoles. Apart from quicker loading of course.
It all gets a bit interesting and complex really.
Why? Because Xbox Series S is a straight up mistake.
People can defend it all they want. They're series S fanboys. It's ok. I get it.
But how many times, from numerous developers, have we heard the same story? Too many.
@Would_you_kindly I didn't mention Xbox One on purpose because a totally different CPU is quite the challenge for running something like Halo Infinite, Gears 5 or Forza Horizon 5 as good as it does. The problem is not Series S but that this developer struggles. Besides, Scorn runs on Unreal Engine 4, which of course runs wonderfully on Series S.
That's a load of bullcr*p. Far more demanding games managed to run at a stable 30 fps on ancient machines as the PS4 and XONE, and these guys are telling me that the Series S is hard to work with?! Gurl, shut up lol. And since I'm being shady, their game looks like an upscaled PS2 title.
@Ralizah I agree completely. It’s one of the reasons MS made as many gains as they have. Which has been pointed out by sales analysts all over the globe.
Plus I’ve heard these same stupid arguments with the Switch. People say how difficult it is to get a game running on it but surprise surprise the game magically sales. It’s almost like power doesn’t matter as much as being to play a game.
Also we still getting PS4 games in 2024; the gen switch seems more arbitrary at this point.
@mousieone Sales aside, it also just makes sense to design around the weaker piece of hardware. It's the more inherently limited device. You can just scale up performance, visual settings, and resolution on the device with higher specs, after all.
Yeah, we also keep getting PS4 versions of games that were previously next-gen exclusive, or were supposed to be. And, I mean, there's a reason for that, right? Aside from Switch, which still has a lot of room to grow technologically, we're at the point now where there's very little that can't be done on modern hardware with a little bit of optimization.
Of course, console gamers are still stuck in this elitist generational headspace where cross-gen games must be somehow 'holding back' development on newer platforms, as if modern games aren't designed to work across a variety of specs on PC to begin with.
It's the same attitude with the Series S.
Also, like the new Soul Hackers 2 avatar, lol.
@Banjo- "How challenging can it be to slide the graphical features down on the Xbox/Windows development kits?"
That way of thinking is similar to those at NLife who believe that porting games on switch is just turn every slider to low, lower the res to 640p, and be done with it. That's not it. The series S and X may share the same code, but the gpu and ram differences are so big, that more optimization is required for series s. The very weak ram of the series s makes open world games more difficult to develop, for example. High quality assets made for series X might have to be redone on series s because the textures got very degraded and lost too much detail when shrunk (see cyberpunk's most recent comparison).
"how easy it is for The Coalition and Playground Games that changed a few lines of code and slided some graphical features down and achieved excellent results."
The coalition and playground games already knew about series s and its power beforehand and made their games with that in mind. They are also have much more resources for being MS devs, unlike the rest of the companies. It's like saying monolithsoft makes the best looking games for switch... because of the obvious.
@Savage_Joe The development kits are designed for both consoles and Series S has basically the same architecture as Series X, scaled down for a lower resolution. It can't be compared to Switch which has mobile technology that was already dated in 2017. Besides, as I said above, this is an Unreal Engine 4 game, an engine that works perfectly fine on Series S. Scorn looks relatively good but not particularly impressive, no big environments and not many animated elements.
@Banjo- again, they may share the same architecture, but the difference in hardware is significant. An apples to apples comparison of this series s vs series x is with the rtx 3050 (which has 4tf with ray tracing) vs a 3080 (12tf with ray tracing). Both have the same architecture, but one card has less than half the ram and a third of the power of the other. Do you think that the 3050 will run the game at the same settings as the 3080 but with lower res, or with just turning everything to medium vs ultra? Very unlikely, unless is an indie or a very optimized game. So, just because the series s can have rt or all of these next gen features doesn't mean that it can do all of that efficiently.
They sound like they were porting it to the switch. This is not something I'd be expecting devs say if I was waiting for this game.
@Savage_Joe I read you but I don't feel like getting into a loop here.
@Dezzy70
**This is why Sony get them big AAA games out more efficiently. One console PS5 totally focused and nothing else.
It makes a difference when your developer is totally focused on one console.**
No, the reason why Sony is getting those ""big AAA" games out more efficiently is because they properly planned in advance their first party studios for the current gen.
Unlike say Microsoft, who sat on their arses all the while gutting their first party output (almost) entirely during the beginning of last gen.
Remember, all the AAA Sony games you constantly mention are ALSO releasing on the far weaker PS4, see : HFW, GOW Ragnarok, GT7 etc, etc.
The Series S has zero impact with the ways their first party output is finding itself in now, sure it is quite popular to hate (for a lack of better word) on the S, but its a fantastic piece of kit for what it is intended as ie; a more affordable entry into the Xbox ecosystem.
@Savage_Joe
**The coalition and playground games already knew about series s and its power beforehand and made their games with that in mind.**
And so do any other developers who are interested in developing for Xbox Series consoles, it's not like this is a bolt out of the ( proverbial ) blue. The Series S will be perfectly fine, for any developers interested in releasing games on Xbox.
@Sol4ris
Yes the series s is a good entry point into the Xbox world.
As for development and your reasons.
So what’s the excuse for 343i and Halo Infinite.
Same situation as Sony there. An already established studio new about the new generation consoles and started way in advance.
Playground games seem the only old existing studio capable of being organised and producing a top end AAA. Perhaps Sony managed them for Microsoft 😂😂😂
**As for development and your reasons.
So what’s the excuse for 343i and Halo Infinite.
Same situation as Sony there. An already established studio new about the new generation consoles and started way in advance.**
I wish I could shed some light on your question regarding 343i but I, like many others can not, its just what it is without going into speculatives.
But, and I'm sure as hell its not because they have to develop on the Series S, and that 'mon ami' is what my whole point was.
I find the blaming of the Series S wholly inadequate and disingenuous.
@Ralizah diminishing returns is a real thing but eh I don’t really play games for graphics anyway. I plays for gameplay but anywho
Thanks Ai-ho is so cute >.< Ringo is my favorite character and by extension Ringo frost.
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