BioWare’s Anthem will be taking full advantage of the Xbox One X hardware, with the company announcing on the Xbox website today that the upcoming looter shooter will be native 4K on Xbox One X. Speaking about the Xbox One X enhancements, which will also include HDR support on the One X, Scott Neumann, Head of Technology for Anthem, talked about how this change also impacts how the game looks in other, subtle ways.
“The Anthem team has been able to leverage the power of the Xbox One X to deliver enhanced graphics to our players,” he said. “The added GPU power of this console allows Anthem to render at native 4K and with HDR. To complement the increased image quality of 4K, we have also increased the resolution at which we render shadows in the game, and we have enhanced the rendering of in-game terrain. Finally, the added memory of the Xbox One X allows us to increase the number of meshes and textures we stream into the player’s view at any given moment.”
This support for native 4K resolution will also allow BioWare to help players see the world they have crafted in all the detail that they have intended, Neumann says, and add more vibrancy to Anthem’s story.
“It’s extremely important for BioWare that we use technology to enhance how players interact with our worlds and experience our stories,” he said. “Having our games support both 4K and HDR is an important component of our ability to succeed in that. The difference between 1080p and 4K is substantial and allows for our players to see all the detail we painstakingly craft into our games. Similarly, HDR allows the games rendered images to burst into life with vibrant colors. We will continue to look for ways to leverage emerging technologies to make the best games possible.”
It’s actually impressive that they got Anthem running at native 4K, given that it does look to be a taxing game for what it is. Hopefully, those native 4K textures aren’t responsible for the game’s already infamously long loading times. If you will be playing Anthem, make sure to check out our guide for it for some pointers.