DF Weekly: Death Stranding's surprise Xbox port impresses on both Series X and S hardware

In this week's DF Direct Weekly, we take a look at the surprise reveal of last week - a full Xbox Series X/S port of Kojima Productions' Death Stranding. Released on the same day as PS5 Pro - which may look provocative - the launch is exactly five years on from the launch of the original PS4/PS4 Pro version. That's the more likely explanation for the Xbox release: the chances are that whatever console exclusivity deal Kojima Production had expired, so the firm went ahead. And what a surprise it was: we had an email from 505 Games and that seemed to be the extent of the marketing. The game is currently 50 percent off on the Xbox Store, meaning I bought it for just £17.49. That's amazing value for a genuinely superb game, assuming that the port is of sufficient quality. We have good news for you there: it's great.

So, please bear in mind that this release came out of nowhere and Digital Foundry has plenty on its plate at the moment, so impressions on this one will be somewhat limited to just a morning of testing. However, despite the PlayStation origins of the Decima Engine and its prior console exclusivity, the truth is that Death Stranding on Xbox Series consoles is looking good, whether you're playing on the premium X console or the more cost-efficient S.

DF Direct Weekly #188: Death Stranding Xbox, God of War Ragnarök PS5 Pro, Switch 2 Back Compat!

• 0:00:00 Introduction
• 0:01:08 News 1: God of War Ragnarök PS5 Pro patch tested!
• 0:13:36 News 2: Nintendo confirms Switch 2 backwards compatibility
• 0:25:27 News 3: Death Stranding lands on Xbox
• 0:38:11 News 4: No Man's Sky patched for PS5 Pro
• 0:47:49 News 5: Sony INZONE M10S impressions
• 1:05:53 News 6: Sonic Generations can run at 60fps on Switch
• 1:11:42 Supporter Q1: Will you use the 9800X3D for high-end gaming benchmarks?
• 1:16:21 Supporter Q2: Will PS6 use 3D V-Cache?
• 1:17:32 Supporter Q3: Will Alex and John switch to 9800X3D?
• 1:22:15 Supporter Q4: Why is Game Boost falling short of the promised 45 percent increase to PS5 Pro raster performance?
• 1:29:21 Supporter Q5: Would AI frame extrapolation make native frame-rate unimportant?
• 1:32:30 Supporter Q6: What do you want out of Steam Deck 2?
• 1:38:32 Supporter Q7: Why didn't you spend more time analysing the PS5 Pro's actual box?

Kojima Productions' port is based on the Director's Cut, and it's good to see that all of the content and features from the PS5 release are available on the Xbox consoles. There are quality and performance modes (both targeting 60 frames per second) and the option to run in standard 16:9 or in 21:9 ultrawide with black borders top and bottom remains in place. Adding to the good news is that Xbox Series S is also feature complete. One might imagine that the game's PlayStation 4 origins makes the port less onerous for the Series S.

Looking at the PS5 Director's Cut up against the new Series X version, we used the intro sequence running in quality modes as a benchmark of sorts. The cutscene begins as a 4K 60fps cinematic, but transitions mid-point into engine-driven rendering that can't quite sustain its target frame-rate. Both PlayStation and Xbox versions lose frames at similar points in the sequence, and while PS5 is generally a touch faster, there are moments where Series X can take point too. What we're seeing here amounts to a summary of cross-platform development across this generation - either machine can outperform the other, but generally they are very similar.

In quality mode, PS5 may have some kind of dynamic resolution scaling in effect across both axes, while Xbox scales horizontally for sure in a range between 3584x2160 to 3840x2160 based on the samples we have. Perhaps this explains the small performance differential. In performance mode, both consoles almost hit the target 60fps and both are use dynamic resolution scaling across both axes: the range seems to vary between 2880x1620 to 3200x1800. It should be noted that outside of the cinematics and intense combat, quality mode tends to hit 60fps, while performance mode almost runs at 60fps across the board. Where it doesn't, once again, PS5 and Series X trade blows, as the gallery below reveals.

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Xbox Series S is absolutely fascinating. It's an accomplished port that scales very, very well indeed to the junior console. The quality mode doesn't resolve as much detail and from the resolution metrics, we can see why - it's using a dynamic resolution scaling range between 900p and 1080p. What's quite remarkable here is that the drop to pixel count for the 4TF machine results in output frame-rate that's faster than the quality mode equivalents on Series X and PS5. And maybe that's a good thing, as the chances are the Series S owners are less likely to have VRR displays - so the closer it gets to a locked 60fps, the better.

Meanwhile, performance mode is equally intriguing, running at a target 60fps with a DRS window that seems to sit within 810p to 900p. However, run the intro sequence in quality mode vs performance mode and it's fascinating to see just how close the metrics are - there's very little in it, which makes me wonder whether the performance mode could simply increase the DRS window to quality mode's upper bounds of 1080p.

Quite how Kojima Productions has achieved a port of this quality isn't fully clear, but it's as good as I would have hoped for on Xbox consoles. Perhaps it's the case that the game's existing (and highly performant) PC version running on the DirectX 12 graphics API may have given the developers a strong foundation on which to deliver an Xbox version of the game. And right now, with the game available to buy at £17.49/$19.99, what you're looking at is a title that's still very different and original, still looks fantastic, runs beautifully and won't cost you the earth. Yes, we've only spent a very limited amount of time with the game, but the class of Kojima Productions is self-evident.

From here, with console exclusivity a thing of the past, you have to wonder where Kojima Productions will go next. Obviously, there's a sequel in the offing (though what kind of exclusivity deal is in place remains to be seen) but of course, the smart money would be on some kind of port to Nintendo's upcoming Switch successor. The regular Digital Foundry audience may recall that I tested Death Stranding on a downclocked RTX 2050 mobile graphics chip, which represents the closest thing you'll get to the leaked Switch 2 T239 GPU specs. I was able to run the game at console equivalent settings at native 720p, using DLSS upscaling to hit both 1080p and 1440p - and it looked great. While the Xbox ports may look like a definitive end point for potential Death Stranding versions, I'd say that Switch 2 is absolutely a viable target.

This has been an interesting diversion from the launch of the PlayStation 5 Pro last week, which - and let's be honest here - has been the focus of attention from Digital Foundry. And there's more of that in the Direct. John Linneman roadtests the new Pro patch for God of War: Ragnarök, which features the ability to swap between TAAU and PSSR upscaling at any point, opening the door to a fascinating comparison of the computational cost of PSSR up against the much 'cheaper' TAAU. Meanwhile, I took my PS5 Pro into my garage where my old 8K LG Nanocell TV sits gathering dust, looking to check out No Man's Sky's excellent 8K 30fps mode.

We also share our thoughts on the announcement of Switch 2 backwards compatibility with the existing Switch library, while John gets very, very excited about Sony's new Inzone M10S 1440p monitor with 480Hz and G-Sync support. We'll have a separate Eurogamer article about this in due course, but he reckons it's one of the most impressive displays he's ever seen. There's also some great discussion in our Supporter Q+A section. Will Alex upgrade to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D? Will John finally leave Intel behind for his next workstation? And when it comes to the next console unboxing, should we provide a technical analysis of the cardstock and materials used? Can we in any way elevate content that is essentially about removing a plastic box from a cardboard one? It's all in this week's DF Direct. Join us!