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.
0:00:00 Introduction0:01:08 News 1: God of War Ragnarök PS5 Pro patch tested!0:13:36 News 2: Nintendo confirms Switch 2 backwards compatibility0:25:27 News 3: Death Stranding lands on Xbox0:38:11 News 4: No Man’s Sky patched for PS5 Pro0:47:49 News 5: Sony INZONE M10S impressions1:05:53 News 6: Sonic Generations can run at 60fps on Switch1:11:42 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.