The Xbox Series X Review: Ushering In The Next Generation of Game Consoles

Gameplay Analysis: Gears 5

As one of the few titles available pre-launch that is “Optimized for X|S” platform, Gears 5 is a great chance to see what some of the optimizations might bring about for the Xbox Series X. With the Xbox Series X offering about double the GPU performance, and far more CPU power on tap compared to the Xbox One X, we should be easily able to see games that ran at 4K 30 FPS jump up to 60 FPS, and 4K60 jump up to 4K120.

Gears 5 Cutscenes

The first optimization that is instantly noticeable moving between the Xbox Series X and the Xbox One X is how much smoother the cutscenes were. With the additional hardware the newly optimized game jumps from 30 FPS on the Xbox One X to 60 FPS on the new console.

Xbox One X Texture Sample

Xbox Series X Texture Sample

Zooming in on individual frames, the Xbox Series X is also able to leverage more detailed textures as well, as everything in the scene is much sharper than it was on the Xbox One X.

Gears 5 Gameplay

Gameplay was a different story, as both the Xbox One X and Xbox Series X both allow for 60 FPS gameplay, although the Xbox Series X will offer 120 FPS multiplayer, at the expense of visual quality. The Unreal Engine 4 used in Gears 5 uses dynamic resolution to keep the framerates at or close to 60 FPS on both consoles, but with the more powerful hardware on the new console it is able to keep the average resolution higher and with a higher framerate.

Gears 5 was first released over a year ago on PC and console, so it is interesting to see Microsoft choose it as a launch title for the Series X. The move to 120 FPS multiplayer should be a boon for smoothness and latency, although it will almost certainly require a new television to get the most out of, and with variable refresh rate available as well. Still, this is a nice update for the Gears 5 game. The optimizations have been around both visual quality, as well as framerate and latency, and show off what tweaking existing titles can do with the new hardware.

Here's a clip of Gears 5, showing the new 60 FPS cutscenes with the high-detail textures on the Series X.