Digital Foundry: Gears of War E-Day sets a new standard for Xbox visuals

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Digital Foundry has published a deep technical look at Gears of War: E-Day and how The Coalition worked with Epic to push Unreal Engine 5 on consoles. Their verdict is that it is one of the most advanced Unreal Engine 5 games yet, and several reports describe it as setting a new standard for Xbox Series X and Series S. For anyone into graphics tech, it is a fascinating breakdown

The standout feature is MegaLights, a ray traced direct lighting system that can handle thousands of dynamic lights with real time shadows. That means street lamps, muzzle flashes and explosions can all cast proper shadows without destroying performance. The game also relies entirely on hardware Lumen for global illumination and reflections, rather than mixing in software techniques. It is the kind of lighting tech that used to need a high end PC

On Xbox Series X there are three modes. Performance runs at 60fps with a native resolution around 936p upscaled to 4K, Balanced runs at 40fps at roughly 1000p and Quality runs at 30fps at about 1152p. The 40fps mode is a nice option for people with 120Hz TVs who want a middle ground. Few console games offer that much choice

Series S makes bigger compromises, as expected. It runs at around 576p in Performance mode at 60fps, 648p in Balanced and 792p in Quality. Digital Foundry found the 60fps mode less stable on Series S, with some visual effects simplified. Those resolutions are low, but upscaling has come a long way. Still, it is impressive the game runs on the smaller console at all

It is good to see Microsoft's own studios showing what the hardware can do this late in the generation. Are you more excited by the lighting tech or worried by those Series S resolutions? And which mode would you play in?

Inside Gears of War: E-Day: How The Coalition and Epic Pushed Console Visuals To New Heightswww.digitalfoundry.net