It seems as if Xbox is taking nothing but “Ls” lately, with numerous developers stepping forward to discuss how difficult it is to work with their hardware and restrictions. We still don’t have word on Black Myth: Wukong on Xbox, with countless rumors circulating about why. Now, developer Funcom says bringing Dune: Awakening to Xbox Series S is giving them some trouble. It’s a “challenge,” they said.
When talking about the issues surrounding Dune: Awakening’s development on Xbox Series S specifically, chief product officer Scott Junor, at Gamescom last month, as reported by VG247, said the game is set to release on PC and PlayStation 5 simultaneously but not on Xbox day one due to the Xbox Series S proving to be a “challenge.” He said:
So, it’s one of the reasons we’re coming out on PC first. There’s a lot of optimisations we need to do before we release on the Xbox. But yeah, Xbox Series S is a challenge.
Unreal does a lot of the work for us in some ways. What we’re more doing is optimisation of assets, and using various technologies, be it FSR or something else, to replicate frames. We want the game to look stunning on high-end, whether you have a 3070 or a 4090, but we also want it to look good… I don’t think we’ve released our min-spec yet, but y’know powerful cards from a few years ago should be able to run the game. It should look good – it won’t be able to leverage the ultra-spec options, but it’ll still look nice.
For those who don’t know, Dune: Awakening brings the world of Frank Herbert’s design to a grand scale with a massively multiplayer online survival game in which players will loot, craft, and wage war across the deserts of Arrakis in a bid for power and spice. You can eventually form a House and become more powerful.
With such a massive endeavor, it makes sense that Funcom finds the lesser hardware of the Xbox Series S a “challenge” to work with to create its vision without sacrificing quality or content.
What do you think of Dune: Awakening? Does it have potential? If you missed out on the recent gameplay from Gamescom, don’t hesitate to check out the concept for yourself!
Funcom should have Tencent acquire WB Games studios for them they could easily assist.