Classic puzzle platformer Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons has been remade for 2024 using brand-new tech, so as you'd expect, the folks over at Digital Foundry have put the new version under the microscope for a fresh analysis.
The team is largely impressed by this Unreal Engine 5 conversion of the original Brothers game, and the Xbox versions in particular throw up some interesting results. The Series X is a real standout here, but the Series S version often struggles to hit higher resolutions and frame rates. Here's what the analysis says about the Series X version:
"The quality mode on PS5 and Series X has an internal resolution that ranges from 1260p to 1620p, with 1440p being relatively common - and 4K not evident in our testing.
Most cut-scenes lock at 30fps in the 60fps mode, but gameplay wavers from 35 to 60fps on both PS5 and Series X, with the latter often seeing a 10-15 percent frame-rate advantage in more demanding segments. In other words, Series X typically averages a higher frame-rate for VRR displays to work with, leading to a more perceptually smooth result."
And here's some key info about the Brothers remake on Xbox Series S:
"Series S fares rather worse, with its 30fps mode ranging from 454p to 720p, though often it's at that latter figure. Unfortunately, image breakup is obvious on Series S given the low resolution,
Series S keeps the same 454p to 720p range as the quality mode but understandably is on the lower end of that scale much more frequently [in performance mode]. This manifests with more visual noise, more artefacts, more flickering, and a softer image overall that doesn't resolve well on 4K displays."
If you want to see both versions in action across all the game's performance modes then do check out the Digital Foundry video up above. We thought the game cleaned up rather nicely on Series X during our playtime for review, but these Series S figures do sound rather low for a 2024 title.