Ghostwire: Tokyo seems to be set to put Microsoft in an awkward situation if this little bit of news turns out to be true.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, popular game testers Digital Foundry revealed in their podcast that Ghostwire: Tokyo is coming out poorly in their early testing for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.
Oliver Mackenzie said that “In general, it runs worse than PlayStation 5, and Series S is a bit of a mess.”
He elaborated:
“The ray traced reflections are somewhat lower quality, there are shadow alignment bugs with the ray traced shadows.
Resolutions are pretty similar for the most part but the quality mode has a moderately lower resolution than PlayStation 5, it looks like, and performance is typically 5-10% lower than PlayStation 5 [when comparing] the same scene.”
The Xbox Series S specific issues do not spare either the performance or quality graphics modes. Both modes do not have ray tracing, ant the Performance mode cannot consistently run the game at 60 frames per second.
For those who don’t know, the Tango Gameworks developed game was produced as a timed exclusive for PlayStation 5, before Tango’s parent company Bethesda Softworks was acquired by Microsoft. At this point in time, the exclusivity clause is set to end, and Bethesda and Tango are now fully owned by Microsoft.
But, it may not be as awkward for Microsoft as it is for Tango Gameworks. Bethesda has another game that was originally a timed exclusive for the PlayStation 5 but made its way to the Xbox Series X|S after. That would be Arkane Lyon’s award-winning Deathloop.
Ghostwire: Tokyo didn’t get the universal critical acclaim that Deathloop got, even as it is recognized as a must play game for this console generation. It also launched on the PlayStation 5 with performance issues, though Digital Foundry claim its status on Xbox Series X and S right now is worse. Deathloop had a successful launch on all of these consoles, with the Xbox Series X|S launch coinciding with new content updates.
And if you remember, not too long ago, Tango Gameworks was also enjoying its own unanimous critical success, with the shadow drop release of Hi-Fi Rush. Of course, Hi-Fi Rush may have benefited from being planned to release exclusively on Microsoft platforms, the Xboxes and Windows.
I don’t think anyone questions Tango Gameworks’ ability to deliver good games here. There may be something about Ghostwire: Tokyo’s development that makes it stand out as a black sheep of sorts. Hopefully, Tango and Microsoft can get the fixes in to get this game performing better sooner than later.
