Can you believe it’s been over a year since the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S were first released? A year since we first got to experience the magic of Series X|S’ Quick Resume feature, or felt the DualSense’s haptics tap to life as Astro explored the various worlds of Playroom. In that year, we’ve seen a to of games both old and new released on the shiny new consoles, but which games really make the most of that extra horsepower? Here are six games that are noticeably better on next-gen consoles.
Forza Horizon 5
Games That Are Noticeably Better on Next-Gen
Forza Horizon 5 is the best racing game you can buy right now, and credit to developer Playground Games, it’s available on PC, Xbox Series X|S and the last-gen Xbox One, allowing all Xbox fans to drift their way around the Horizon Mexico festival.
While the core racing gameplay is the same on both Xbox One and Series X|S, the contrast in presentation and load times is stark, to the point that we’d highly recommend playing the game on anything but the last-gen console.
First and foremost is the visuals. Playground Games has created a real showcase of what the Xbox Series X|S can do. 4K, 60FPS, ray-traced lighting effects in the Forzavista mode, incredible levels of detail in both car models and the real world. It’s all there, and more impressively is the amount of detail you’re still able to take in as the world’s zipping you by at 200mph.
But arguably more importantly are the load times. This is something that Digital Foundry pointed out in its tech analysis for the game. The load times on Xbox Series X|S are marginal, and you’ll be able to play through the showcase events seamlessly on the more recent hardware. This is a massive deal, given you’ll be loading into various races as you cruise around the open-world map, and the showcase events themselves are some of the best moments in Horizon 5.
On Xbox One, things are pretty dire when it comes to load times. To load up an event can take over 20 seconds, and the opening set-piece that drops you into the world of Horizon 5? That’ll be broken up by lengthy black load screens, too.
Hey, we get that sacrifices have to be made to get the game running on older hardware, but if you’re a big Forza fan, do yourself a favor and play it on Series X|S. It was clearly how it was meant to be played on console.
