We've heard numerous developers come out in recent months to say they've struggled somewhat with developing for Xbox Series S; Microsoft's less-powerful current-gen console. The latest of these is Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios, whose CEO discussed the topic on a recent episode of the Xbox Expansion Pass podcast.
When asked about Xbox Series S and the impact it has on development for something like Immortals, Ascendant's Bret Robbins had this to say:
"The S is challenging for a developer, no question about it. You have memory constraints that are hard and you have to unfortunately strip out some detail in order to really get a good experience. It's not a surprise, it's a less powerful machine than the X so there's going to be a compromise you're making to the game to some degree - it's inevitable.
Especially as we were finishing the game there was a lot of work to make sure that it was a good experience on the S and that it looked good. You're just dealing with a very different beast than the PlayStation 5, the Xbox X, or a high end PC."
Immortals of Aveum is a pretty demanding game even on the higher-end consoles, so we're not surprised to hear that the team had to make cutbacks on Xbox Series S. This is a next-gen Unreal Engine 5 game at its core.
Further on in the podcast, Robbins said "there's a good chance" that Immortals of Aveum will crop up on subscription services "maybe sooner than later". Of course, the title was published by EA, so eventually it'll be a part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate thanks to the EA Play library.