Anthem, BioWare’s upcoming looter shooter, will run at native 4K on the Xbox One X. Given how good the game looks, it might have surprised many to learn that. However, speaking on the Xbox website, BioWare’s Scott Neumann, Head of Technology for Anthem, noted that the Xbox One X has been an extremely easy and great console to work with, with some good development tools and excellent support on Microsoft’s part that helped allay some of the development troubles they otherwise faced.
“The Xbox One X has been a great console to work with. The development tools are very good, and they really help the team solve the challenging problems that invariably arise when you make a game as complex as Anthem,” Neumann said. “We’ve also had a great relationship with the team at Microsoft, and they’ve been very supportive. The combination of those factors makes working on the Xbox One X a great experience.”
Microsoft’s great development tools for the Xbox One X have been one of the reasons they have been able to enlist so many developers to enhance their games for the console, which is good to see. As noted already, seeing a game like Anthem achieve native 4K also speaks to the capabilities of the console, as well as their development tools for it.
This generation, it took Microsoft until the Xbox One X to have all these great tools for developers and players ready, by which time it was too late for them to do anything to close the gap with the PS4. Hopefully, next generation, we see Microsoft actually get it right the first time.