Quantum Break might only manage 720p on Xbox One

Microsoft’s exclusive title Quantum Break, which is expected to hit the Xbox One and Microsoft Windows PC on 5 April, is running at 720p resolution according to a report by Digital Foundry. Digital Foundry experts spent time playing two chapters of Quantum Break at the game developer Remedy’s headquarters. Remedy is well known for its Max Payne and Alan Wake game franchises. According to them, Quantum Break graphics have been dumbed down to ensure that the game is playable on the Xbox One. “In every scene tested so far, a native resolution of 720p is the consistent result found in each pixel count test - so while there’s every possibility of individual render targets operating at higher resolutions, basic geometry that we’re able to measure hands in a 720p result as things stand,” explained Digital Foundry. This is in contrast with what Remedy had stated in its whitepaper at SIGGRAPH 2015. It stated that its final image was in 1080p but screen-space lighting is evaluated at 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. Expecting a 1080p gameplay on Xbox One isn’t asking for much as 720p is what was the norm with Xbox 360. Remedy claims that on Windows 10 PC though, Quantum Break will be playable at 1080p at 30fps. But Digital Foundry did not have any comments on it as they did not test it. “But let’s not forget that there’s also a PC version in development too. We didn’t have time to sample this at the press event, but Remedy were pretty open on the state of the build at that time. Limited to 1080p at 30fps, it still required plenty of work before launch. The developer is promising a maximum 4K experience at 60fps, but it remains to be seen exactly how this will pan out, or exactly what kind of hardware will be required to make this happen,” said Digital Foundry. It goes on to mention how Gears of War: Ultimate Edition did not perform as expected on the Windows 10 platform.