It’s been a while since we’ve heard about Neon Giant’s The Ascent, an overhead co-op action RPG that takes place in a cyberpunk setting. However, some new details have emerged courtesy of Neon Giant co-founders Arcade Berg and Tor Frick who serve as the game director and art director respectively. Speaking to WCCF Tech, Berg confirmed that for those playing main missions only, there will be about 15 to 20 hours of playtime.
However, there’s a bit more content on top of this. “You have many more Side Missions, treasures to find and a myriad of Codex entries to unlock and read about the world and what’s in it.”
Frick also commented on the game’s performance for other platforms. Though it’s targeting 4K/60 FPS on Xbox Series X, what about Xbox One, Xbox Series S and Xbox One X? “We are trying to cater to each platform as best as we can, in regard to tweaking settings for maximizing the visual fidelity. The different platforms have different strengths, and we try to adjust as much as we can to get the most out of them, but all versions look and feel similar and scale quite well.
“Resolutions and settings are in flux as we are optimizing and tweaking, so not final yet, but we are targeting 60 fps at 1440p for the Xbox Series S, 4K at 30fps for Xbox One X, and 900p for the Xbox One.”
The Ascent is currently in the “optimization stage” so it’s unclear whether it will support Nvidia DLSS on PC or ray tracing on Xbox Series X/S and PC. However, the developer is “exploring all the latest technologies that allow us to deliver the best possible gameplay experience.” Cross-platform play between the PC version (via the Microsoft Store) and Xbox platforms is also supported along with Xbox Play Anywhere. Furthermore, The Ascent will be available on Xbox Game Pass for both PC and consoles.
Stay tuned for more details on the title in the meantime. Perhaps a release date will be revealed at E3 2021 since Microsoft is confirmed to be attending.
