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Inside Xbox One X Enhanced: theHunter: Call of the Wild

Many of gaming’s most compelling stories come from those who’ve helped to create our favorite Xbox One games. In our Inside Xbox One X Enhanced series, these creators will share the behind-the-scenes accounts of the work involved in enhancing these epic games for Xbox One X, how they’ve helped chart the course of the world’s most powerful console, and what that means for the future of gaming. Today, we’ll be chatting with Viktor Blomberg, Senior Graphics Programmer at Avalanche Studios about enhancing the open-world hunting simulator theHunter: Call of the Wild for Xbox One X.

What specifically is your development team doing to enhance theHunter: Call of the Wild for Xbox One X?

Our goal was to find the sweet spot between higher resolution and overall improved visuals. We’ve increased the resolution from 900p on the Xbox One to 1620p on Xbox One X. We have also increased the shadow and texture resolution and filtering, as well as enabled higher quality vegetation meshes that previously were only used on the PC version of the game. Those are only a few examples of all the enhancements that went into the Xbox One X enhanced version of theHunter: Call of the Wild, and it all comes with an even more consistent frame rate.

How do these enhancements impact the gaming experience?

In theHunter: Call of the Wild it is not uncommon to stalk an animal at a distance of over a thousand feet, so the increased sharpness and clarity of the image can really make a difference. Also, the game just looks so much prettier which in itself improves the overall experience! It’s a highly atmospheric game, and some players just like to get lost in the open-world wilderness, rather than chasing the perfect score. For them, it’s going to be even more immersive.

Why did your development team choose to focus on these enhancement areas?

We decided early on to focus on finding a good balance between higher resolution and other visual improvements. This decision was guided by the kind of game we had created – an open world with uniquely dense vegetation. I’m very happy with the end result and I hope our players will be as well.

How do you expect fans of theHunter: Call of the Wild will respond to seeing on Xbox One X with these enhancements?

I think they will appreciate the visual improvements and the clarity of the image regardless of whether they’re going for the perfect shot or just exploring the environment.

How has the process been to get the game up and running on Xbox One X?

To just get the game up and running on Xbox One X was quick and easy. Instead, most of the time was spent tweaking it. We wanted to push the hardware to its limits and make sure the game looks great and runs as smoothly as possible, which was quite a fun experience!

What enhancement were you most excited about to explore leveraging for theHunter: Call of the Wild on Xbox One X?

I felt excited to not hold anything back, but rather go all-in with the visuals from the high-end PC version of the game, while at the same time run it at very high resolution. As I mentioned earlier, I am really happy with the results and look forward to seeing Xbox One X players enjoy theHunter: Call of the Wild for many years to come.

Thanks to Viktor for taking the time to chat with us about Xbox One X Enhanced. We’ll be bringing you more interviews with more developers in the future, so stay tuned to Xbox Wire!