Battlefield 6 Devs Admit the Xbox Series S Was a 'Challenge' to Tame
In a shocking twist, it turns out forcing developers to actually optimize their games can lead to... a better game.
After the massive success of the Battlefield 6 open beta last month, the inevitable question has been answered: yes, the developers had a tough time getting the game to run on the Xbox Series S. In an industry quick to blame the little white box for "holding a generation back," the team at DICE has come forward with a refreshingly honest take on the process.
In a recent interview with Kotaku, the developers admitted that the less powerful console was a "tricky beast to conquer".
A Memory Crisis
The main culprit, according to Technical Director Christian Buhl, was the console's limited memory. "Xbox Series S does have less memory than even our mid-spec PC," Buhl explained.
This came to a head about six to twelve months ago, when the team realized a huge number of their levels were consistently crashing on the Series S simply because they were running out of memory.
Forced Optimization Is Good, Actually
This is usually the part of the story where developers complain and fans get out their pitchforks. Instead, the team at DICE actually did their jobs. They embarked on a massive push to optimize memory usage across the entire game.
And here's the kicker: according to Buhl, this process made the "whole game better and more stable," not just the Series S version. In an era of cookie-cutter Unreal Engine 5 games that look gorgeous but run like a racoon with two broken legs, it's a powerful reminder that optimization is not, in fact, a dirty word.
After a month or two of targeted work, the team had resolved their memory issues. Buhl now describes the game as "super solid" and "performant" on the Series S, targeting a smooth 60 frames per second, a claim that the open beta footage seems to support.
So while the debate about the Series S will no doubt continue to rage on, this is a clear case study in how hardware constraints can force a level of discipline and optimization that ultimately benefits every single player, regardless of their platform.