What’s “Really” Next-Gen?
Load Times
Next, let’s look at the “next-gen” features of your next-gen console. This is the main event, or at least it should be, right?
By far, the most impressive aspect of the Xbox Series X is its load times. I was blown away with how much faster every game I tested out loaded.
For example, I die, a lot, while playing Doom Eternal but on the Xbox Series it’s not as painful.
It would only take a few seconds before the game reloaded, and I was trying again. I almost felt like I was playing Celeste, where you’re designed to die often, but the instant respawns push you to try again. It wasn’t that quick, but it wasn’t that far off either.
Let’s use Destiny 2, though, for a proper comparison to last-gen. Many people have played Destiny 2 on consoles, and if you have, you know how brutal the load times have gotten over the years.
The amount of time it took from opening Destiny 2 to spawning into The Tower.
- Xbox Series X: 1:28:09
- PS4 Pro: 4:11:92
Destiny 2 is an extreme example, and your experience may vary somewhat, but that should give you an idea of the kind of jump we’re talking about here in load times.
Visuals and Performance
Next up is how your games look. Depending on what you’ve gamed on before, how blown away you are is going to vary. The Xbox Series X is very capable of running games at 4K and 60 FPS at the same time. Some games, such as Gears of War, will even feature 4K and 120 FPS.
This is in contrast to last gen’s most powerful console, the Xbox One X, which is capable of 60 FPS (performance modes) or 4K (visual modes) on some games.
I played a lot on my Xbox One X and I’ve gamed on both performance and visual mode and I’m familiar with what it looked like.
If you’ve been playing on an Xbox One X with a 4K TV (or, of course, a powerful gaming PC), the jump, at least right now using games that were initially built with last gen’s technology in mind, is noticeable, but nothing that’s going to blow your mind.
I’m more interested in seeing how games developed exclusively for the Xbox Series X in a few year’s look. Right now, while impressive, it’s not an unbelievable leap forward.
Here are the critical specs, in full, via Microsoft.
That said, if you’ve been gaming on a launch day PS4 or Xbox One, and have yet to upgrade to proper 4K gaming, then yes, the Xbox Series X is going to look far better than what you’ve been accustomed to for this generation.
This is especially true if you’re looking at 60 FPS and 120 FPS together with 4K resolution for the first time. The crispness, the reduced blur, and the smoothing of motion need to be experienced first-hand. All I can say that it’s definitely something you’re going to want if you care about modern gaming, and the Xbox Series X is very capable of delivering.
Quick Resume
The load times were definitely what stood out the most Xbox Series X’s most impressive feature, but right after that? It was quick resume.
Quick resume allows you to quickly suspend any supported game, to jump into another game without having to exit. You can pick up right where you left off. In our experience, it worked as advertised in the video above.
I’m not exactly sure how much I’m going to use it since I usually know exactly what I want to play and when I want to stop, but I definitely like having the options to switch between Doom Eternal and Forza on a whim if I want to.
