The Ascent “Pushes the Quality” of Visuals on Xbox Series X/S, Says Dev

Neon Giant’s upcoming cyberpunk action RPG The Ascent has impressed in more ways than one in all that we’ve seen of it so far, and the game’s impressive visual quality is one of many ways it’s done that. Excellent lighting, art style, and level of detail seem to be coming together to deliver a delightful visual package in this game, and it’s honestly a little surprising how much the developer seems to have been able to achieve here.

We recently spoke about the game with creative director and Neon Giant co-founder Tor Frick, and asked about the game’s visuals, and how the developer has used the power of the Xbox Series X for the same. Frick remarked on how the new hardware has allowed Neon Giant to “push the quality upwards”, while also stating that using Unreal Engine 4 has allowed the developer to maintain as much visual parity as possible across the game’s Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S versions.

“We have put a heavy emphasis on shaders and dynamic lighting, as well as intense VFX and physics, everything to make the world feel detailed and dynamic, with satisfying feedback for the players actions,” Frick said. “Blowing things up should look, sound and feel good! But the fast pace of the gameplay also works best at a high frame rate with low latency and high resolution crispness! On the Series X, we can thankfully do both at the same time. Working with Unreal 4 allows us to maintain as much parity as possible from Xbox One all the way up to Xbox Series X, while still pushing the quality upwards with the next-gen versions.”

In the same interview, Frick also spoke with us about the hardware of the Xbox Series X in general and its potential in the coming years, as well as the Xbox console exclusivity of The Ascent. Our full interview will be live soon, so stay tuned for that.

The Ascent is out on July 29 for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.