Halo 5 To Receive 4K Patch For Upcoming Xbox One X Console
Halo 5: Guardians was noticeably absent from the list of existing Xbox One games that Microsoft announced at E3 would receive a 4K upgrade for its upcoming Xbox One X console. If you were miffed at the apparent snub, we have good news—developer 343 Industries has now confirmed that a 4K patch is coming the fifth main entry in the Halo franchise, and it will deliver true 4K visuals.
"The team here at 343 always had a desire to bring players the best Halo 5 experience for Xbox One X, but we weren’t quite ready to make the announcement during the E3 time frame. Today we are excited to officially confirm that Halo 5 will receive a game update to support true 4K with the release of Xbox One X later this year! We’ll have more to share on this front as we get closer to release, so stay tuned," 343 Industries said.
In the absence of further details, we can only hope that 343 Industries is able to maintain 60 frames per second after bumping up the resolution to 4K, thereby giving gamers the best of both worlds (fast and smooth action, and crisper visuals). It is not an unreasonable expectation—343 Industries prioritized consistently hitting 60 fps in Halo 5 by using a technique called dynamic resolution scaling. What that does is change the resolution based on the level of detail and GPU horsepower required.
The emphasis on Halo 5 supporting true 4K suggests that dynamic scaling will not occur on the Xbox One X, though we can only speculate until 343 Industries is ready to share more information.
Outside of Halo 5's planned upgrade, 343 Industries also announced that several Halo games will be added to the list of backwards compatible titles for the Xbox One. They include Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo 4, and Halo: CE Anniversary. Each game will include campaign and multiplayer. LAN play will be supported too, even between Xbox One and Xbox 360 consoles. And once the new games are added, 343 Industries will make available every Xbox 360 Halo add-on map pack in the Xbox Store for free.
"The team here at 343 always had a desire to bring players the best Halo 5 experience for Xbox One X, but we weren’t quite ready to make the announcement during the E3 time frame. Today we are excited to officially confirm that Halo 5 will receive a game update to support true 4K with the release of Xbox One X later this year! We’ll have more to share on this front as we get closer to release, so stay tuned," 343 Industries said.
In the absence of further details, we can only hope that 343 Industries is able to maintain 60 frames per second after bumping up the resolution to 4K, thereby giving gamers the best of both worlds (fast and smooth action, and crisper visuals). It is not an unreasonable expectation—343 Industries prioritized consistently hitting 60 fps in Halo 5 by using a technique called dynamic resolution scaling. What that does is change the resolution based on the level of detail and GPU horsepower required.
The emphasis on Halo 5 supporting true 4K suggests that dynamic scaling will not occur on the Xbox One X, though we can only speculate until 343 Industries is ready to share more information.
Outside of Halo 5's planned upgrade, 343 Industries also announced that several Halo games will be added to the list of backwards compatible titles for the Xbox One. They include Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo 4, and Halo: CE Anniversary. Each game will include campaign and multiplayer. LAN play will be supported too, even between Xbox One and Xbox 360 consoles. And once the new games are added, 343 Industries will make available every Xbox 360 Halo add-on map pack in the Xbox Store for free.
