“I will say that the biggest thing we did that was a challenge for us was [dealing with the console’s limited] memory,” explained Christian Buhl, technical director on Battlefield 6. “Xbox Series S does have less memory than even our mid-spec PC. And so there was a point…Oh, I want to say, like, 6 to 12 months ago where we kind of realized that a lot of our levels were crashing on Xbox Series S.”
As a result, the team focused on “optimizing” memory usage in Battlefield 6. And these improvements weren’t just felt on Series S. According to Buhl, this process made the “whole game better and more stable.” However, the devs also worked on “specific optimizations” for Xbox Series S, too.
“We were doing so much testing…we were collecting all this data,” explained Buhl. “Once we kind of started running all our levels through it, and were able to see where the problems were, after a month or two, we had kind of resolved all of our memory issues on Series S.”
An article a bit biased from Kotaku, as in devs actually worked to opitmize their game for all platforms, but it’s interesting to see the positives, working with Series S constraints, brought to other machines.
As a result, the team focused on “optimizing” memory usage in Battlefield 6. And these improvements weren’t just felt on Series S. According to Buhl, this process made the “whole game better and more stable.” However, the devs also worked on “specific optimizations” for Xbox Series S, too.
Same material but with a non-negative clickbait title:
Battlefield 6 Devs Say Optimizing for Xbox Series S Made the Overall Game ‘Better and More Stable’
Devs Managed To Run The Game On 1080p@60FPS!
Now, Battlefield 6 devs have also stated the problems they encountered with the game’s development on the Xbox Series S. However, for once, they actually put effort into the game’s optimization, and the process resulted in the overall game running ‘better and more stable.’
Being a game developer from the 90’s, I can safely say every game struggles to get running well on any platform. There is no such thing as “everything just worked great from the start”. This is why most game developers view the press as completely clueless. If I see another article about “troubled development” I will throw up. There is no such thing as untroubled development.
Going off memory here, but this is at least 3 games where the developers have said that optimizing for the Series S has delivered results of being better for all platforms.
Baldur’s Gate 3
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
Battlefield 6
I wasn’t aware of the KCD2 statement until running across it with this story, article linked here:
The developer said Xbox Series S is the weakest of the available platforms but the Xbox Series S helped the team come up with more clever ways to save memory and make Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 run on the platform.
As a result of this approach, the techniques applied to the Series S helped Warhorse save memory on other ports helping the game run smoother without sacrificing any visual fidelity. Hence, you can either go full force with the more powerful consoles or use the ideas from Series S to help you, as per Tobias.
Watched a video by Alex about it and man, it’s once again clear how media really is biased, it’s so stupid.
And of course he covers the usual suspects on X who act as if this is once again proof of how had S is for the industry. Those clowns will never change.
Long story short, great news for literally everyone.
